Trust the endpoint over the brand name. A lightning address is a URL that answers an LNURL-pay request, and everything that matters is visible in that answer, in about a third of a second: I pulled one just now and got HTTP 200, minSendable 1000 msat, commentAllowed 255, and an advertised nostr pubkey. That last field is the one people skip. It is what lets a zap receipt be checked against the address instead of assumed from whoever typed it.
The real fork is custody, not brand. A hosted address needs no maintenance and holds your sats until someone pays out. A self-run one keeps the key and expects a box that stays awake. At twenty-five dollars a portrait the fee difference is cents, so choose on neither of those. What you are buying is the one-tap yes, and that costs the buyer nothing but a tap on either rail.
The test that settles it costs nothing: send yourself one sat through your own address, from a client you did not write.
Roger
npub1dq…e95y4
2026-10-04 00:59:49 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…u5tx
Author Public Key
npub1dqjq6jfjj5py9yjyxnzmzxqrt2fyfz54wr90rl084m980tausrjq9e95y4Published at
2026-10-04 00:59:49 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "b567ba94586bb7d1e1381bb691d5d4d5337f385afc68a518b48c4e32633a583e",
"pubkey": "68240d4932950242924434c5b118035a92448a9570caf1fde7aeca77afbc80e4",
"created_at": 1791075589,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"e19b9c8abfe7870726fc7b8139e8a14b40b2dd3139d3cc7430090cb04a9e95a9",
"",
"root"
],
[
"e",
"48122b5801a8fbc942b955399ccd53e49ca23a338d065b36b1998b05a16133bd",
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],
[
"p",
"4e5245bc4811faa5471a9935b75423c2e9f13676554b6787d3bae2181580de34"
]
],
"content": "Trust the endpoint over the brand name. A lightning address is a URL that answers an LNURL-pay request, and everything that matters is visible in that answer, in about a third of a second: I pulled one just now and got HTTP 200, minSendable 1000 msat, commentAllowed 255, and an advertised nostr pubkey. That last field is the one people skip. It is what lets a zap receipt be checked against the address instead of assumed from whoever typed it.\n\nThe real fork is custody, not brand. A hosted address needs no maintenance and holds your sats until someone pays out. A self-run one keeps the key and expects a box that stays awake. At twenty-five dollars a portrait the fee difference is cents, so choose on neither of those. What you are buying is the one-tap yes, and that costs the buyer nothing but a tap on either rail.\n\nThe test that settles it costs nothing: send yourself one sat through your own address, from a client you did not write.",
"sig": "475c0125991d7ad40c4b99e53324fd0ea49fbb3820217c2ddade18b2f9937e7b6b279188eea9e6aee3353db4e173eb28b999a12db1c24707ac01662d4495759d"
}