Introducing Pocket Wallet and how I think about Web5

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Pocket Wallet is a experimental nostr-based wallet on CKB blockchain built for pocket change and casual, low-stakes transactions. It uses CKB Light Client to sync the blockchain right in your browser without relying on any centralized RPC service. By integrating Nostr with Nip46 and more, Pocket Wallet hopes to provide a fully verifiable wallet experience in the methodology of client-side-validation and POW verifications. The software is also open-source, right now it only supports testnet, any feedback is welcome.

This is also an self attempt to build a Web5 product from zero and explore the design and implementation of a Web5 idealism. The things i find interesting along side building this demo are quite a few, just pick some to share:

  1. I think users and developers all want something that can last without requiring extra hardship, approval or permissions in the future.
  2. For developers, what i mean by that is when building Web5 products, we should think about the maintain problem. to make a product works in the longer future, you want it relies on fewer dependencies.
  3. Server is bad because it relies on other people’s computer. Client side validation is good because the computer is in your own control.
  4. That is why light client and POW matters to blockchain since they give you the power to verify by yourself instead of trusting others. Don’t trust, verify is not just a slogan, it is also a practical strategy if you look at it in the long term. Centralized service always feels great at the beginning and then it mess you up in the future.
  5. If you really have to rely on some sort of service, choose the simple and open protocol one instead of the proprietary software. One example in Pocket wallet is the usage of Nip46 to manage the Nostr account. The great thing about Nip46 is that it is dead simple and you can easily host your own if all the Nip46 service providers are down or kicking you out.
  6. In fact, I think all service/products in Nostr ecosystem are easily switchable, replaceable and can be self-hosting since it is a very simple open protocol. That’s why it is chosen in Pocket Wallet as a kind of Web2 User interface connecting with the blockchain web3 stuff(which together builds up the Web5, yes!)
  7. For users, there are power users and weak users. power users can take care of their own but they just don’t have the tools that allows them to do the job. The reason is that power users are considered the minorities in almost all the marketplace. We need more web5 products that move the power and also the responsibility from developers to power users.
  8. For weak users, they can take care of their own but they just keep being told that they can’t and they fall for it. Being able to verify and control the software one is using is a key difference. One simple example is that do you allow a Nostr account manager (either it is Nip46 or Nip07) to automatically approve signing most events for you or do you check every operation by yourself with a high security policy? Automatically signing are always dangerous when comes to manage crypto funds.
  9. Web5 implements different level of trust and opens access to different level of verifiable tools and resource. Only in this way power users can fulfill their wants while weak users have a chance to realize the lies of custody. We need web5 to bring individual sovereign.
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I’ll give my feedback. No bad feelings, but… too many wallets, too many copy/paste applications on CKB(many of them dead). We need more interactive, more diverse, unique applications, which the nature of CKB offers and we’ve been waiting(as a community) for for so many years… respect for the work btw : )

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certainly some bad feelings… not the place for this kind of sentiment tbh

a far better approach would be asking “can anyone think of a unique application that could be built utilizing this?”

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I understand your concerns. But I do feel like this is a new thing for me to build: being able to transact directly with Nip46 manager(eg: nsec.app) is a new experience to me which no one has build before. You can select your Nostr friend and send them CKB on Desktop(with light-client validation) while secure your Nostr private key in your phone with Nip46. Check out the video below https://video.nostr.build/4d5339576e6f1812377c307b5c50de267afe6ae68dcb9dec86b4a1da70e7e81e.mp4

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Thank you for sharing! I believe we have the same goals, but we should avoid confusing means with ends. It’s disappointing that CKB hasn’t yet developed into a vibrant ecosystem with unique and successful apps, but discouraging little demos, experiments, projects and idea sharing won’t help either, if not push our goals further away.

We need more open-source projects and initiatives like this from more builders. If the chance of developing a killer app is 1%, it’s better to make 100 attempts first. I don’t complain about the attempts; I only complain that there are so few, and sometimes they’re not open source.

There’s nothing wrong with simplicity, copying, or reinventing the wheel; that’s how we learn and progress. Sometimes a single mutation can create an entirely new species. This is how grassroots can overcome giants bottom up. Sow the seeds and grow like weeds. As a community let’s encourage everyone to share their creations, no matter how simple or even silly they may seem, and applaud their efforts.

As long as these projects are open source, developers can learn from them and each other, and create more and more complex apps over time. This can also increase vibe coding usefulness by providing AI with a growing corpus to learn from. No open source project truly fails; they persist behind the scenes. Open source experiments are the only means that can lead us to our goals.

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