Looks like I’m in the minority here, but my Lightning experience has been really positive and fun.

I installed LND on the same AWS VM that runs my Bitcoin Core node, set up two outbound channels, one with BitRefill and one with Kraken, and use them routinely to purchase goods and services from various vendors. It's truly a thing of beauty. There was a learning curve and a couple hiccups along the way, but nothing that couldn't be resolved via a quick Reddit post.

People might respond, “Good for you, but Aunt Mildred doesn’t have the technical expertise to deploy something like that.”

That may be true, but Aunt Mildred won’t have to do things the hard way and go through the early adopter curve like we did. I imagine she’ll just have a little box, the size of an AppleTV or Roku, that plugs into her WiFi network. With that, and a companion app for her phone, she can be using non-custodial Lightning within an hour. Well ok, maybe longer if she has to wait for the entire Bitcoin blockchain to download to the Bitcoin Core node that runs on her little box.

I think people are severely underestimating the ingenuity of developers who'll be creating these sorts of all-in-one dedicated devices that wrap up all the nastiness and complexity of Bitcoin and Lightning. Aunt Mildred won't even have to know what a UTXO or channel is.

I betcha it'll look a lot like media consumption does today. A few us will download a 4K torrent, place it on our NAS, and watch the content using the Infuse app on our big-screen televisions. But the other 99% of consumers say, “That’s too hard. I’ll just get an AppleTV box with a Netflix subscription, plug it in to a wall socket, and watch Ozark.” I think that's how it's going to be with Lightning, or whatever L2 tech we settle on. Plug-N-Play, baby! 

 Exactly! That’s what I’m trying to say in my post. They won’t have to. They’ll just plug a little dedicated box into their own WiFi network and be good to go. No AWS, no channel management, no understanding of UTXOs, force closes vs cooperative closes, etc. 

 Would love an ELI5 on this.

I don't have a sense of what exactly this guy did wrong. My understanding was that BTCPay allows vendors to *receive* payments. How exactly was it able to swipe his funds?

The extent of my current Lightning involvement is running an LND node with two open , outbound channels, both of which are controlled by Zeus.  Am I vulnerable? 

 Thanks for the response.

I thought long and hard about it, and the only two add-ons that have access to my LND REST address and admin cookie (aka macaroon?) are GetAlby and Zeus.

With Zeus, presumably the cookie would be stored on my phone. No third party should be able to access it, correct?

With GetAlby, I'm not really sure. It's a PC browser-based extension, so hopefully it's stored on my computer locally, as opposed to an Alby server?

I never gave such issues a great deal of thought until reading this fellow's horror story. Just trying to tighten up my OpSec game a bit so as not to repeat his mistake. 

 One does not simply “stack a pleb.” 

 All I know is, yesterday Zeus worked properly, connected to my LND node via REST, and allowed me to easily send and receive Lightning payments.

But today, all those settings have vanished, wallets show as empty, and I’m presented with a bloated (but very colorful) app that’s hijacked my workflow by trying to run its own embedded node on my phone. 

So, yeah. Not good. Not good at all. 

 What on earth are they doing? 

 Sounds like a totally legit plan. I know this for a fact because there are countless testimonials on Instagram giving thanks to random female stock models for their sound trading advice. 

 Agree 100%. For years people questioned my insistence on working from home, as well as my life-long, intense aversion to the chaotic “marriage and family” lifestyle. Both choices were made to maximize silence.

One item on this dude’s checklist that I never really mastered though is finding silence in one’s daily routines. The gym, in particular. It’s downright impossible to find a gym that allows one to workout in peace, without the nonstop barrage of loud music.

It’s clear to me that people don’t want to seek out and embrace silence, but rather, they actively *avoid* it, filling in every spare moment with useless, distracting noise. Whether it’s the bombardment of heavy metal in the gym, or laptop warriors *intentionally* setting up their work environment in a loud coffee shop, I seriously think most people fear silence and being alone with one’s own thoughts. It’s pathological. 

 Interesting. I learned something today. All this time, I thought it was a slang term for “respect.” 

Not to toot my own horn, but I feel like my knowledge of pop culture terminology is getting pretty rad, jive turkey. 

 Short in what manner? Like they literally borrowed Bitcoin (or stole in the case of billionaire SBF), sold it, and now have a BTC liability on their balance sheet? Or do you mean a short futures position? 

Or are you acknowledging the sad but undeniable fact that many billionaires who are physically short in stature (e.g. Tom Cruise, Whoopi Goldberg) all too frequently don’t own enough Bitcoin? 

 Just sent you 100 sats successfully. 

 I got “invalid lightning address” 

 I see it, it works! :) Thanks so much. 

 This period of ridiculously high on-chain fees is what prompted me to spend last week learning about LN, installing my own LND node, and opening channels. 

It’s a simple economic reality that will drive Lightning adoption. 

My not-so-complex decision tree was: Am I willing to pay $8 in fees on-chain to buy a $100 Cheesecake Factory gift card from BitRefill? No, that would be insane. 

But am I willing to spend $8 to fund a $1,000 Lightning channel that I can use with a variety of vendors in an instantaneous and private manner? Yes, absolutely!

You discussed this layered approach in your book, but it didn’t really become a salient point for me personally until the fee situation became a stumbling block in my day-to-day operations. 

 I use JSX for quick flights between San Diego and Las Vegas. 

Plane interior is very cheap, but you waste less time in sketchy airline terminals dealing with TSA “security theater” nonsense, baggage theft, etc.

For shorter trips, where time spent in terminals represents a larger share of your total travel time, JSX is indeed a game changer. 

I’m considering a subscription to SetJet though. I suspect they may provide a better in-flight experience than JSX. 

 They vet you before your first flight. 

There are metal detectors, occasional GSR swipes and sniffing dogs, etc. It’s not like you can bring illicit items on board.

But you don’t have to deal with pervy TSA goons patting you down, lines, and all the mindless security theater that comes with with commercial air travel. 

 Interesting. Didn’t know libraries were still a thing. I remember using one in the ‘80s for my sixth grade book report on Helen Keller. Do they still have card catalogs and microfiche? 

 Yes, for me the old cliche applies:

“Grind in your twenties,
Build in your thirties,
Chill in your forties.”

That’s exactly how those time periods played out for me.

I just turned fifty this year, so I can’t succinctly sum up that decade yet. When I can, hopefully the phrase won’t contain the words boredom, worry, fatigue, or diaper.

Time will tell. 

 Maybe get an EV? I love mine and they usually come with free charging for three years. No more gas bills. :) 

 People can go on about the pros and cons of various hardware wallets, but in the end, the instruction manual for the wallet is going to tell you to write down your seed phrase on a piece of paper. 

That’s going to be your primary threat. You can put the piece of paper in a (easily seizable) safe deposit box, or bury it, or keep it in a safe, or try to get fancy by engraving the seed words into a piece of metal instead of paper. But at the end of the day, you’ll end up with some clunky physical analog item, aside from the device itself, which you’ll have to protect.

Yes, you can enter some kind of multi signature arrangement with the wallet provider. It’ll require no more than a quick phone call from a government agency to get them to cough their side your key set. 

Then, even if you’re ok with all of that, some wallet providers (but not all) can push out firmware updates, which is basically the same thing as a back door.

Not trying to dissuade you from hardware wallets at all. Just trying to say that you have a lot to think through. It’s not the security slam-dunk that many assume.