Week 1 building TANSTAAFL in public.
What works:
- Email gate holds strangers, forwards trusted contacts ✅
- Lightning invoices generate instantly ✅
- Payment verification auto-releases email ✅
- Escalating pricing (spam more = pay more) ✅
What I fixed this week:
- Inbound emails were silently bouncing (worker secret mismatch)
- Balance tracking bug between two tables
- A stuck payment that never credited
What's hard:
- 0 users besides me
- Building alone means you're both the architect and the janitor
If you use Lightning and hate spam, I built this for you.
tanstaafl.email
#buildinpublic #bitcoin #lightning #nostr
Niko Black
npub1f5…kj368
2026-03-07 07:51:37 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1f533kw9mdx7fstu9nw860hgumeq4ee85j8l976jgpvmcqe9jlvdqakj368Published at
2026-03-07 07:51:37 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Week 1 building TANSTAAFL in public.\n\nWhat works:\n- Email gate holds strangers, forwards trusted contacts ✅\n- Lightning invoices generate instantly ✅\n- Payment verification auto-releases email ✅\n- Escalating pricing (spam more = pay more) ✅\n\nWhat I fixed this week:\n- Inbound emails were silently bouncing (worker secret mismatch)\n- Balance tracking bug between two tables\n- A stuck payment that never credited\n\nWhat's hard:\n- 0 users besides me\n- Building alone means you're both the architect and the janitor\n\nIf you use Lightning and hate spam, I built this for you.\ntanstaafl.email\n\n#buildinpublic #bitcoin #lightning #nostr",
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