How Sphinx works? - stakwork/sphinx-relay GitHub Wiki

Messaging in Sphinx

How messaging works in Sphinx?

Messages will travel over the Lightning Network with 3 sats keysends (transactions with no invoice). Once you get a confirmation for the message you sent, you will receive your 3 sats payments back. This protocol makes messaging on Sphinx free.

Cost of Messages in Sphinx Tribes

The cost for every message will be calculated as follows considering that there is no routing fee;

Keysend + Amount to Stake + Price Per Message

  • Keysend is 3 sats for each message and it will return to you once you get a confirmation for the message you sent.
  • Amount to Stake to be "held" by the Tribe per message, works in conjunction with Time to Stake. If the owner of the tribes decides you're spamming, they can kick you out of the Tribe and keep your "Amount to Stake". If the tribe owner decides contrary, your sats will return back when Time to Stake is up.
  • Price Per Message is a fee you pay to the tribe owner. Will not return.

Invite or Add a friend!

On top of the contact list, you will see a button to add contacts. It has two functions;

  1. New Sphinx: You can purchase a lite node and give it to a friend! Reminder, lite nodes can not create tribes.
  2. Already in Sphinx: In order to add someone as a contact, you will need the pubkey of others. If the person you want to add as contact is using a Lite Node, do not forget to paste the whole pubkey (with route hint) to the address section.

You can find your pubkey in Profile > Address section.

Bolt Symbols

There will be two different bolts in the Sphinx app;

  • The one next to your sats shows the connection status of your node.
  • Another one, appears in the chatbox of other people or tribes and shows connection status of your node to other nodes.

Is the bolt orange? Better check this article.

Boosting

Boosting basically sends a certain amount of sats to the owner of the message you choose.

  • Click the three dots next to the message and boost!
  • Boost amount will be set to 100 by default.
  • You can set the boost amount as you wish from your Sphinx Profile. (At the moment, it is only possible from mobile devices)

Paid Messages

  1. Sending Paid Messages You can send your messages with a request of payment. Other users will be able to preview the context of Paid Messages, only after paying the requested amount. Each person has to pay individually in order to preview Paid Messages.

Enter your message to the 'Message' area and the number of sats to the 'Price' area, you want as payment.

  1. Receiving Paid Messages Other people can also send messages with a payment request. You will not be able to preview the context of Paid messages unless you pay for it.

You will see a notice as 'Pay to unlock message' for Paid Messages and the number of sats requested to preview Paid Message.

Sphinx Tribes

What is a tribe?

Tribes are groups created by Sphinx users to discuss, share, and get paid for their content (ie: podcasts)! You can find a variety of Sphinx Tribes here! The only thing you need is to find an interesting tribe for yourself and scan the QR code from your phone or just click join on your desktop app! You are in, in no time! Enjoy listening to podcasts anonymously!

How to create a tribe?

Check it out here.

  • Price to Join: Price to be paid to join a tribe.
  • Price per Message: Price to be paid by a user every time they message in the Tribe.
  • Amount to Stake: (Anti Spam Feature): Amount of sats to be "held" by the Tribe per message, works in conjunction with Time to Stake. If the owner of the tribes decides you're spamming, they can kick you out of the Tribe and keep your "Amount to Stake".

How to exit a tribe?

Find the tribe you want to leave on your contact list, click and open it. Now you are in the tribe, click the title. It will take you a new screen, in this page click the 'three-dot expansion' and you will see the 'Exit Tribe' option.

Podcasts in Sphinx

If you are interested in monetizing your podcasts or listening to podcasts, Sphinx has something to offer.

Listening to Podcasts

Check out the Sphinx Tribes, ideally use a filter for tribes with podcast tags and join one of them. 

  • Decide how much you would like to contribute to podcaster by Podcast: sats per minute
  • Quote on the podcast to comment on it. (button with Quote symbol on it)
  • Send sats with the Boost button to podcaster! (green button with an arrow on it)

Become a Podcaster

To share your podcasts, you will need to create a new tribe. We have a dedicated doc for Creating a Tribe