Vast majority of Bitcoin Lightning payments are custodial, even more are hard-coded into a single centralized node.
This was NOT the case for Bitcoin on-chain adoption in the early days.🤷♂️
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpgXnoTWAAA8oli?format=jpg&name=medium
I agree on the facts but with complex systems is hard to say where they will mute, and on a permissionless network people will opt in for custodial services and there is nothing to do about that IMO.
For me is healthy so long people can run they own nodes un the most self soveraign way possible, so permissionless will prevail. Also I see the development of Bitcoin (and any really complex system) as a discovery proces wich almost certanly the stable solutions will be counter intuitive so I really don't mind that the best answer is different than the fisrt draft of Bitcoin. So long the essense is still intact and it can deliver.
For the nostr use case, or the stacker news use case I don't think that is worth it to go full non custodial for most people just for zapp around a few sats here and there but of course privacy needs and self reliance are different for each person
I just wonder when Lightning will start to achieve trust-minimized adoption levels similar to what on-chain did.
Maybe with mobile nodes like Blixt or Phoenix, having the latter a bit more trust involved but still an improvement in my opinion.
I dont know how much of a seameless UX you can achieve in the future without sacrificing self soveraignty, that remains to be seen 🤔
I think the Phoenix model is the best trade-off. We need many competitors with a similar model to avoid centralization.
But more importantly, we need to stop promoting these inferior alternatives (Muun, WoS, Blue, etc. etc.). I think too often people promoted them because they were easy to use, and didn't care about decentralization.
I don't think that is quite right, dont forget that people are different, they wont go to the extent of running their own nodes ot thwy will but they need a fist step into all of this.
Muun, Blue wallet (LN), etc... serve that purpose well, and nobody knows what the market needs (otherwise they would be making it happend and doing a ton of money in the process) so if people vomuntarily uses that wallets maybe there is something there for us to learn.
Of course I hope all aspire to be self soveraign but is a long long journey, I think we need to be patient
I'm testing Phoenix for the time being, so far is a good experience but well see
This is so sad since it was fully predictable since the start. I wonder when we'll see WoS or CashApp do any significant seizing of funds or censorship from their LN users (for whatever reason). The writing is on the wall…
In the meantime, Lightning users should be pushed (almost bullied) into apps with Phoenix's model or better.
