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@ nout
2024-12-13 22:23:32
#### Background
**The free Alby account is going away** by Jan 3rd 2025. With this users have options to switch to either self hosted Alby Hub or hosted Alby Hub for 21k sats per month (see https://albyhub.com/).
Unfortunatelly neither of these options work for me.
- I'm currently traveling a lot without a single base home, so I can't just run some server "at home" and I want to be able to use it even when I'm in the midst of moving between locations.
- 21k sats/month for Alby Hub is too steep just for using it for Nostr zaps. I'd pay more for the service than what I ever get in zaps. I'm happy to support projects, but the math just doesn't work out.
- Running lightning node, etc in VPS is also prohibitively expensive for this usecase, but I may end up eventually doing this for other reasons. Getting VPS strong enough for self hosted node is around $80/month, but there are also options like https://nodana.io/ for $10/month. (Shill me better options if you have)
If there is a way to run a selft-custodial solution with these requirements (i.e. no "home" node, cheap for small amount zapping), let me know, otherwise this will do and we'll have to wait for BOLT12 in lnd.
## Tutorial
So here's the plan
- Get coinos.io account
- Connect it with Amethyst via NWC
- Install Alby Go to make it easier to use the account on the go
Here are the steps to do on your Android phone. iOS will be similar
- Get [Amethyst](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vitorpamplona.amethyst&hl=en&gl=US) nostr app installed
- Go to https://coinos.io/ , register new account and sign in.
- On the main screen click on the settings gear icon and get the connection code
![](https://image.nostr.build/276ddd0d58965a0180c2e6b6906f3b48c55d31b08838a96d0ab70c82320df0bb.jpg)
- Reveal and copy the connection strings (tap on Copy)
- Open Amethyst and hold the lightning icon under any post
- Tap the "paste" button (see the screenshot)
![](https://image.nostr.build/e2a5d030fe42832b9389e26d92b452a1f257534f6c1086a843de5f828889ef8b.jpg)
- Now click on Save and that's it
- Zapping should now work natively in Amethyst and it will use the hosted wallet
Optional
- One extra thing you can do here is to install Alby Go (https://albygo.com/) and use the same "connection string" to connect it to your coinos.io account. This way you will have a mobile native wallet that's connected to this account (which makes it easier to pay with it, etc)
originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/808573