Lightning Network has product-market fit as the open payment protocol


Down wit' OPP?


Onward 🫡


:catclap:


Ecash was the missing piece!


What do you think nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6


hug


I think it is very good news that Mr Steve Lee is on Nostr now.


It really helped shine a light on how LN has become the open payment protocol.


There is yet to be a silver bullet scaling solution for cryptocurrency. Instead, what we have for now, and possibly for a long long time, are many solutions each with distinct tradeoffs that will match different user needs.

The secret sauce to making this all work is LN.

nostr:note1an99hwm4lgpesgmvl0jn7zf55z2tamyq8vg758rgy2h4l6ydrkkseejy4g


Cryptocurrency does not have this problem, Bitcoin does. Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash have excellent solutions. Monero is very good as well. Almost every 2nd layer ETH derivative solves the scaling problem, some better than others.
If you believe Bitcoin is the "one and only", you really should get out from under that rock.
Do yourself a favor, read the Bitcoin white paper and find the section that mentions LN and ETF's.  Then remember Bitcoin worked just fine for fast cheap payments for the first 8 years.


with custodial wallets, like bank accounts.

not your keys, not your coins
no privacy

this is how we win.


the best is a custodial wallet and then using ecash

then you have two trusted third parties in it at once

freedom!


There are various solutions all with tradeoffs. The LN interconnects all of them. https://primal.net/e/note14gy37hq462t07ud60qyt0vd76kntxcthxvuem32unzl6qqq4djlsr4gx2t


I'm not under a rock, and I'm sorry to break it to you, but no cryptocurrency has solved scaling. There's no silver bullet solutions. There are only tradeoffs. LN is _unique_ in that it interconnects these different solutions.

Contrast this with, say, USDC, in which there's no interoperability between the plethora of platforms that support USDC. If you have USDC on Base, try sending it to a Kraken wallet. If you have USDC on SOL in a Phantom wallet, try sending it to a Metamask user.


Do you use LN with self hosted wallets, interacting with other self hosted wallets?

If so, whats your experience with channel management and LN fees?


Yes I've used many and support many who are adopting LDK. I think Phoenix is the best UX with reasonable fees but it is no longer available to me. I like Mutiny as well and it is my preferred non-custodial LN wallet, but they've had problems with their LSP scaling. It is all very early.

Even once all the kinks are worked out, there are fundamental challenges with a LN wallet that make it impractical for small amount spending wallets (eg $20 balance) that are used to zap in nostr or on Stacker News.

There are other solutions such as e-cash that don't have that problem, but e-cash systems make other tradeoffs. Thus back to my original point, which is there's no single solution that serves everyone's payment needs. The good news is there are many solutions in the works, and LN is the open payment protocol connecting them all so users of different systems can seamlessly pay each other. It is quite beautiful.


Exactly my observation. lightning is much more practical than other chains L2s.


Nobody uses BCH. Litecoin network is far less secure.


Interesting, i have used Phoenix, Muun and Breez as well as a couple of custodial wallets.

My experience with the self hosted ones is that it is a pain in the ass still to manage your channels and also the transaction fees were nowhere near a few sats. More aroud 0.3 / 0.5% of the transaction value. Often 30 to 50 cents, a couple times even a few dollars.

Only between custodial wallets i saw really low fees. Also not all the time.

In many cases the fees were higher than in the banking / card networks, mainly when you transact with other self hosted wallets or non mainstream LN nodes.

To me we are also not early anymore, it is 7 years since the split in 2017 and we still do not have a solution which allows easy self custodial usage for non techies. All i see is people using custodial wallets, which is just another type of bank to me.

LSPs are also kind of a trusted third party, at least you depend on them for a smoother experience. They will have to KYC you and adhere to AML laws over time and some already are.

Which upcoming developments in lightning are promising to you?


This https://primal.net/e/note14gy37hq462t07ud60qyt0vd76kntxcthxvuem32unzl6qqq4djlsr4gx2t


Doesnt say much.


Any user of, for example, Phoenix, Mutiny, Cash App, Coinbase, a Cashu wallet, Fedi, etc. can seamlessly pay each other and not even understand each of those represents very different tradeoffs and have completely different designs. What they have in common is using bitcoin as money and LN as the open payment protocol.

If you don't like paying 0.4% fees for a non-custodial mobile LN wallet, then you have the option of using a custodial or e-cash wallet to avoid the fees along with the associated tradeoffs.

Yes, we'd all love a wallet design that supports 8B people, has no fees, is as censorship-resistant and security as on-chain bitcoin, but that doesn't exist today.


As we do not have anywhere near 8B people using it, we should not worry about that. BTC will likely never geht nowhere near that. We also do not have to worry about 10 Gigabyte blocks. This is just parroting the narrative of Blockstream and others.

The fact that you have to pay more for a lightning transaction than for a credit card or SEPA transaction should be outrageous for bitcoin users who were early in the game - but as the majority consists of uncritical number go up Saylor fanboys now with their custodial wallets, i think it is time to accept that BTC as a p2p currency is a failed project.

It provides neither freedom, nor privacy, nor low fees - as an early adopter i move on to other projects which have a better outlook in bringing freedom to the world.

But anyone can do as he pleases, i am sure in 20 years lightning might deliver on its promises of 2017.


I sense from your responses that your hope is LN will offer near-zero fees while also being non-custodial with an economically viable unilateral exit. I understand it was sold this way by some folks but it isn't reality. LN's fees are a function of on-chain fees, which are going to be volatile and will continue to increase over time.

There are efforts to try and share UTXOs with more people which would allow for amortizing these costs over more people. This is awesome R&D, and I hope to see more of it. But so far, I've yet to see a design that doesn't result in some other tradeoff, such as a vastly more expensive unilateral exit or some other trust assumption.

I'm also not sure if you're understanding the point I'm trying to make. I'm saying LN has already succeeded at product market fit, but for something other than what you're imagining. I'm not saying it offers no/low fee non-custodial payments, but I am instead saying it is THE open payment protocol, connecting not only non-custodial LN wallets and custodial LN wallets but also wallets that use entirely different designs such as Fedimint, Cashu, Ark, and statechains. All of these different solutions already support LN as the open payment protocol. There's evidence that indicates LN solves that problem. Hence, product-market fit.

As for bitcoin as p2p currency, you're free to move on, but I'm going to continue working toward that as a north star. Each and every year we'll inch closer toward that, but we also shouldn't shy away from practical, useful products and designs that work today and are moving toward that north star.


You are right, i was stupid enough to believe it could work in a self custodial way with low fees. The way it evolved so far is a shame in my opinion, most people use custodial wallets due to the terrible UX with self hosted LN.

In the end, we just recreate a banking / paypal system where people get KYCed, have to follow AML rules, have zero privacy and not even low fees. Ridiculous.  Slowly the smaller lightning service providers will be bought up from the larger ones. Just like banks.

Custodial services will inflate the supply over time eventually, because it is easy to do and nobody can check if they do it or not.

I got into Bitcoin because it promised P2P self custodial digital cash, which would be revolutionary. To me it seems this chance is gone on BTC until something drastically changes, which i do not see at the moment.

But i can not complain, we dreamed of dumping on wall street and now the ones interested in freedom can finally do it and move on.

I would not have thought i would ever say that but BCH is the real Bitcoin.


Truth on BCH, but is Litecoin so much less secure so as to have been attacked successfully?  Comparatively,  it's true $1B is more than $1M, but who would turn down $1M NSA?


Onward 🫡