Introducing _Stream Cards_ 🚀

Stream Cards 🚀

Self-sovereign contactless payment, receiving, and identification cards. 

Providing 

• tap-n-pay convenience 

• built on top of the security of Bitcoin, 

• with the speed, low cost, and interoperability of the Lightning Network, 

• the uncensorability of the Nostr communication protocols

• and the provenance provided by ordinals/inscriptions

Problems/Solutions/Benefits 🚨

PROBLEM:

The MANY new LN applications, Nostr clients, and the ordinal/inscriptions that’s become popular recently with BTC NFTs have yet to all come together providing a real world use case. All Bitcoiners are needing an upgrade to existing payment, communication, and authentication needs to manage and verify our many applications and accounts, IF we are going to onboard the majority of the world into the Bitcoin Lifeboat.

Even those experienced with all these technologies are having trouble organizing all the different accounts they and their peers have, so how could no-coiners possibly begin to understand how to catch up to this rapidly moving train that is already leaving the station. 

SOLUTION:

The answer is…

A physical NFC card that integrates a half dozen, or more, accounts into a single image/badge/URL, using a Nostr account as a single sign on solution for multiple LN streaming solutions, and an inscription to provide a searchable block-time stamp verification of our data.

So what? You many of you may be wondering. Convenience is nice, but not at the expense of security or by adding in the inherent vulnerabilities of centralization. 

Many people misunderstand “trustless” as requiring no trust whatsoever, but in reality, as opposed to an idealized world that may never and likely should never exist, some trust is a good thing. Trust is a form of reputational capital that we recognize in the sayings, “A man is only as good as his word.” or “consumers choose the brands that they trust”, or even “death before dishonor”. Perhaps it makes more sense to think of this as “trust-less” technology, meaning that we can now choose how much to trust, who to trust, and what to trust them with. Trust is what lubricates the entire economy; we must trust the restaurant to provide us a safe meal for our families to eat, our employers to pay us our weeks wages, our employees to show up for work next week, or even our favorite Artists to provide the quality of work we’ve enjoyed in the past. Each and every one of these examples demonstrates the value of semi-trusted networks, even the Fedimint protocols being developed are recognizing this and are providing a solution built upon trusting those we know/trust to value their reputation enough to not burn their bridges for a one-time rug pull. 

BENEFITS:

So that all sounds nice in theory, but in practice how might this work and what benefits might this solution enable…?

Let’s pick a single example to work through suggesting some of the ways Stream Cards can bring never before possible integrations, engagement, monetization, and communication, while accelerating the velocity of money, adoption, and decentralization.

I like to use Antone’s, the Home of the Blues in Austin, TX as a possible example that makes sense and provides examples of ALL the above-mentioned benefits. For now, let’s assume the necessary foundational education has been provided to the venue Owner, the soundboard/video stream operators, the frontline staff, and the musicians. In this case, let’s assume that the audience is clueless as to what any of these technologies are, what they do, or how they can improve their experiences, and their pocketbooks.

Arriving at the front door, the Fan hands over their cash, or swipe their existing bank card to purchase their ticket. But rather than a throw away single use ticket like they’re used to, they’re provided with an Antone’s Stream Card, with a unique Nostr ID/npub, Fountain/Vida/Alby account name, ALL tied into their new Nostr identity. With a paper card providing their Nostr private key/nsec and a QR code that leads them to a series of instructional videos on all the new accounts they’ve just been given.

The guy at the door with the NFC card reader scans their new card and invites them in the door, giving them a small flyer with Strike/CashApp/Swan/Oshi referral code, letting them know that if they don’t already have these accounts set up with their bank account they’ll get some free money to immediately start spending on food, drinks, t-shirts, etc. at a discount when inside they’ll get discount, simply for installing these Apps and connecting their bank account to these Venmo/Paypal/ApplePay type banking intermediary solutions. 

While waiting for the show to start, they scan the provided QR code to the instructional videos and learn that this card has given them an account they can use to clip their favorite moments of the live set. Allowing them to earn a percentage of payments earned when their clips are listened to by their friends, family, and coworkers. They learn that if they share their new Vida account as well, if their friends join, possibly after getting some free money from Strike/CashApp, they will not only earn money when they go live on Vida themselves, if their followers message them first when getting onto Vida, they’ll get half the platform fees their followers pay anytime they use Vida to watch/listen/message anyone else on Vida. (Antones will also earn a percentage of the fees spent by both the Audience member and all those they refer to Vida anytime after the show, as well as referral fees when their Audience members join Strike/CashApp/Swan/Oshi). They also discover that their new Alby wallet will let them load and spend their newly acquired money online with click-to-pay integrations AND that if they install Amethyst/Damus/Iris Apps they’ll be able to communicate with all the other audience members, the venue, AND the Musicians. They’ll find out that they now have a new easily readable and memorable email-like address they can give out enabling anyone in the world to send them money nearly instantly for next to no cost, with no self-identification necessary.

As a surprise bonus, they’ll find out that for attending this live in person performance they’ll get a small percentage of the live stream and podcast earnings, streamed directly in their Stream Card. They’ll find out that they’ll be able to directly reward the band they love enough to show in person to see, sending them payments to the band’s and each band member’s payment LN Address.

So far, Bitcoin hasn’t needed to be brought up at all. Yet, how many people are now gonna keep this branded and dated Stream Card, rather than toss it away after the show…?

It seems likely that they instead will keep this memorabilia for possibly years to come, especially, when it earns them money over the years as people around the world listen to the podcast, or watch the recorded video that’s been posted on Lightning.Video. 

Wouldn’t you like to keep earning, for instance on the last live performance BB King gave at Antones…? 

How powerful might this be if/when this same integration is offered for the live Austin City Limits performances?

What difference might these added income streams make in helping keeping the doors open on a world famous musical institution like Antones, or the Saxon Pub, Continental Club, and Broken Spoke…?

Can we even imagine the potential results of onboarding even just a few hundred in-person audience members from even just a single music venue?

With these cards handed out at just at this one venue, just 3 times per week, this could lead to 2,700 new LN/Nostr/Vida/Fountain/Alby/Strike/Swan/Oshi accounts! Now try to imagine this happening nightly at these other 3 clubs too, and we’re looking at over 7,500 new Bitcoiners per month in just a few clubs in this single city.

Then, scale this up as starving Musicians, Venue Owners, Technicians, retail staff at these venues are all brought into the Bitcoin and Nostr ecosystems. Then consider how this will accelerate once this tool is integrated into live performances of all kinds, i.e. theater, dance, comedy, and sports venues, in other cities like Nashville, Miami, and Los Angeles. 

How long then will it take for other businesses wait to begin using this solution to improve their payroll, travel accounts, and vendor accounts too? 

How powerful might the cross pollenization between all these different solutions become and how might new promotional income streams become possible as competition between Applications heats up to get onto the cards for large events? 

Might this not become the snowflake that sets off the suddenly moment as an avalanche of adoption initiating worldwide hyperbitcoinization as we’ve all been waiting for…?

For now.

We can only Imagine!

But, IF we can imagine it, we can build the tools and architect a plan to implement this vision.

How was it built? 🛠

Tell other makers about how you built this product/feature? What lightning specs, codebases, templates, packages, etc does it use? Maybe others can learn from your experience.

To build this self-sovereign solution for unifying the many LN bitcoin earning, receiving, and spending applications with the Nostr communication clients to enable a single sign on solution that authenticates and makes these accounts searchable I'm suggesting we use:

• Nostr.build

• Nostr Badges

• Iris/Damus/Amethyst clients

• Nosft.xyz

• A self-sovereign contactless LN payment protocol

• BTC Sessions Bolt Card video

• LN Bits Bolt Card extension video

• NFC programming instructional video

• NFC explanation blog post

• NFC tagwriter by NXP for Android phones

• Arculus upgraded NFC hardware wallet done for you

• Nostr Ordinal/Inscription resource

Blockers & Issues ✋

The DIY solutions are relatively easy and straightforward, and enable not only programming blank cards, but also reprogramming other branded NFC cards to repurpose them towards an repurposed NFC wallet depending on obscurity for security.

I'm currently working on adding the inscription integration using json input fields to make the Stream Card information searchable. I envision the inscription as serving as a verification solution for event hosts, businesses, and individuals that timestamps the exact time, date, data, number of, and exact public LNURL wallets created.

The challenge that we do not yet have a solution for relates to allowing Users to change the Nostr private keys connected to their accounts so they can not have to worry about the Stream Card creator having access to these keys. Private key recovery is currently not possible with Nostr yet either, so this to becomes a risk factor that's not something fixable, yet.

Scaling the programming of these cards up to handle large events and/or companies is another problem I'm still looking for a solution for. Currently these must be manually programmed creating a bottleneck in these processes.

Likewise, high volume inscriptions can become expensive due to the on chain transaction fees incurred. I foresee some solutions for that arriving soon too. Some tools and tactics are already being implemented by early adopters.

Trying it out 🔗

This is still a one off physical integration that I will be sharing a demo video for soon. Likewise, the Figma wireframe is still needing built (I'm looking to add a team member with the skill set to help with that), but the PowerPoint slide template is already functional and available for sharing upon request.