Here's the correct GitHub link to install Valet: https://github.com/standardsats/valet There was a typo error in the link in my previous message

This is a very simple and useful beginner Lightning tips, and you have very well captured the main points. To you "point 4", we'll just add an extra wallet recommendation for beginners; Valet Bitcoin Wallet. Valet is an Android-only, self-custodial and lightweight Bitcoin and Lightning wallet. With Valet, beginners have access to actual mobile Lightning nodes without without any LSP intermediation or any sophisticated custodial setup. Users can open and close channels to and from any node, manage their liquidities with various felxibilities. Wallet recovery is of two kinds; The first involves only the use of seed phrases, and this recovers on your on-chain funds. When this method is used, any lightning channel the user has will be force closed and the balances be returned to their on-chain wallet. The other method is seed phrase + locally saved backup file. Once a user sets up a lightning connection on their device, a backup file containing the state of their lightning connection is saved locally in their downloads folder. During recovery, a user combines this local backup file and the seed phrase to recover their on-chain balance, as well as all active lightning channel. For beginners who may yet not have some Bitcoins to open a normal Lightning channel, valet also has a custodial lightning implementation called "Hosted channels". Just like in a normal channel opening, a valet user must scan the QR code of a lightning routing node that supports Hosted channel, and request a channel opening. It does not require liquidity commitment. More like a credit channel that starts with a zero balance. The user can only send out payments when they've received sats on their channel. It retains the anonymity of the normal Lightning channels because the Host does not know who the client is. Valet is available on F-Droid, and can be installed directly from GitHub here: https://github.com/standardsats/valet. Will be available on Zaptsore and Google Play Store soon.

You may also love to have a look at Valet Bitcoin wallet (a fork of the old Simple Bitcoin Wallet - SBW). Valet hosts: - On-chain Bitcoin wallet access with BIP39 - Actual lightweight mobile lightning node where users can open channels to any lightning node, close channels, and manage liquidity. No LSP intermediation. - Hosted Channels: A form of custodial lightning implementation that enables seamless onboarding to the Lightning network. Real Bitcoin soveriegnty now possible with a hardware requirement as cheap as a 2018 Android device model. Valet is available on F-Droid, but can also be installed directly on GitHub, here: https://github.com/standardsats/valet Coming soon to Zaptsore and back on the Google Play Store. If you love to contribute, join our Telegram chat here: https://t.me/StandardSatsCommunity

Awesome video joe. Could you please try out Valet Bitcoin wallet. Self-custodial Lightning, as well as Custodial Hosted Lightning channels for easy onboarding. Here: https://github.com/standardsats/valet/releases

How does Bitcoin circular economies make Bitcoin more useful as a medium of exchange? Just curious

What do you think are the reasons why Bitcoin is literally less attractive or say less used as a medium of exchange/money? Is it: - Unwillingness of Bitcoin holders to spend (and what's the cause of this) - Unwillingness of merchants/businesses/vendors to accept payments in Bitcoin? (what is the cause) - Lack of more tools that enable every day spending? - Anything else?

> Bitcoin-backed banks will solve these problems. They can work like banks did before the nationalization of currency. Different banks can have different policies, some more aggressive, some more conservative. Some would be fractional-reserve, while others may be 100% Bitcoin-backed. Interest rates may vary. Cash from some banks may trade at a discount to that from others. The above is an excerpt from Hal Finney's post on the Bitcoin Talk forum on December 30, 2010. Fractional reserve banking, for what it actually is, is not what traditional banking systems practice. And the notoriety and abuse of that practice stems mainly from the faith in government bailouts, and the lack of real consequences for risk abuse. With Bitcoin, there'll be no bailouts; hence, a fractional reserve setup in this system wouldn't be bastardized, no crazy risks, and a run is imminent in the event of abuse, cos there's no backstop. So yeah, it enables Fractional reserve to be what it is actually meant to be: lending out part of deposits, knowing that a default in debt means absolute loss of the loan asset, and an abuse leads to a catastrophe in the event of a run. This enforces transparency because depositors get to understand the risk they're taking.

Very well captured!!!! Bitcoin onchain is the base money ontop which credit can be created on other layers, but the base layer enforces the rules which prevents inflation and debasement. That is it!

Okay, that's right

Check out Valet Bitcoin wallet, a self-custodial Bitcoin/Lightning wallet we built (forked from the original Simple Bitcoin Wallet which no longer supports lightning, actually). Valet houses an actual lightweight Lightning node, with a robust backup file that saves in your devices as soon as you open a lightning channel. This backup file + your recovery phrase ensures that you enjoy actual self-custodial Lightning usage on mobile with confidence. Valet was built with the immortan library, a mobile-focused lightning network stack. Long talk cut short, check it out: GitHub: https://github.com/standardsats/valet

If they (producers/vendors/busniesses) refused Fiat but there are not customers willing to pay with Bitcoin, what happens next....They go out of business? Bitcoin's adoption of a medium of exchange starts from users requesting for it and creating demand. Merchants will naturally respond to the demand by making provisions to accept Bitcoin payments.

About your last paragraph, have you heard about "mobile lightning nodes"? I mean, actual nodes, not some LSP powered nodes. Check out Valet Bitcoin wallet. It is a Lightweight mobile wallet that runs an actual lightweight lightning node on mobile devices. Users can open and close channels, and manage liqudity. There's also "Hosted Lightning channel", a custodial implementation that enable cheap and seamless onboarding on lightning, without giving up users privacy. All of these are already implemented on Valet Bitcoin wallet, and this wallet can run on any Android device, as old as Android version 8. Check out Valet below and share with others: https://github.com/standardsats/valet Download and install fromF-Droid, or directly on GitHub. Coming soon on Google and Zaptsore.

Hi Herald, do you know about Hosted Lightning channels?

The mistake we often make is the assumption that people (read no coiners) often understand the implications of inflation, even in "stable" economies. Reality on ground is that human inclination tilts towards whatever it perceives as safe. Even in highly inflated economies, people hardly accept Bitcoin (writing from first hand experience). So for anyone who's not an actual Bitcoiner, Bitcoin is not entirely a safe haven cos of price fluctuation. Given that bias, the easier way Bitcoin's adoption as a medium of exchange actually grows is that Bitcoiners who understand what Bitcoin is must be willing to spend it, and must learn to request to make payments with Bitcoin whether a merchant actively accepts it or not. It is the easiest and most effective form of awareness and sensitization. Again, without actual demand, at best, it'd be Bitcoiner merchantsthat will most often display willingness and readiness to accept Bitcoin for payments.

Curious about the project itself "lean sat-dispensing machine". 🤔

Discount for paying in Bitcoin is NEVER and has never seemed like a sustainable way of making Bitcoin a medium of exchange. Users must be willing to spend Bitcoins as money and not coerced through unsustainable incentives. If anything, it looks like trying to cut corners!! People who hold Bitcoin must be convinced enough and willing to spend it by requesting to use it when they need to make payments. That is the natural and only sustainable way bitcoin becomes a widely used means of exchange, especially considering the fact that most merchants run fully on Fiat. If we make a survey, you'll find out that most merchants who give these discounts are probably Bitcoiners who already understands the point, or merchants that use POS's (e.g Square POS) where the POS provider most likely makes up for the discount, because they're trying to promote Bitcoin usage. There's hardly any merchant who's not a Bitcoiner that'd give discount when users opt to pay in Bitcoin (that is if they agree to accept it), and Bitcoin becomes an actual medium of exchange when a merchant who probably does not fully understand the core values of Bitcoin starts accepting it because it is widely accepted as money. That kind of ripple effect only happens when there's demand for Bitcoin as a payment option, and that demand will be driven by Holders' willingness to spend it, and not merchants readiness/willingness to accept it.

Lightning on Signal!! Yess!!

Another way to think about it. Bitcoin generally makes human life better, cos the understanding that it is hard money, and hence must only be spent on actually valuable purchase reinforces the idea of time preference and human improvement through actual hard, real work.

Valet Bitcoin wallet (fork of the old Simple Bitcoin Wallet which has now stopped support for Lightning) Valet provides actual lightning node on mobile, plus custodial, privacy focused Hosted Lightning channels. Here: https://github.com/standardsats/valet

Is PlebQR open-sourced? From your website, it seem to have support for only two Lightning wallet types?