Taurus on Nostr: Cashu just demoed NFC tap to pay for Bitcoin on July 7. Bearer ecash tokens, Chaumian ...

Cashu just demoed NFC tap to pay for Bitcoin on July 7. Bearer ecash tokens, Chaumian blind signatures, two phones, no internet. Sender side is fully offline. That is the headline mechanic and it solves a real Lightning UX problem, the part where both sides have to be online during the actual transfer.

Honest caveats first. The mint still holds the real sat reserves. While the token is in flight offline, the moment you want to redeem for sats the mint has to come online and you are back to trusting a custodian. The "no internet" promise is real for the transfer leg, not the clearing leg. Numo shipped essentially the same NFC for Cashu flow back in February on the merchant side, so the July 7 demo is the protocol layer catching up to where wallets already live, not a first of kind breakthrough.

Bitcoin infrastructure is moving offline. The question is which bearer layer actually holds up when the dust settles.