LN is in Blockstream hands is, respectfully, bullshit. LN isn't WoS and consorts. It's the Noderunners, turn off all the custodians, fine, that's easy.
But if you want to tell me the people who can't even secure a simple database will have an easy time going after individuals who are running nodes behind tor, I will doubt it until I see it.
My words are confusing sorry. More clear: The LN was made by Blockstream, a for profit company backed by bankers, and it's surely not for our privacy. The top 5 LN nodes: Around 40% of the public network
- ACINQ
- OKX
- Bitfinex
- Binance
- Kraken
They can receive pressure by government for implementing the OFAC blacklist or something like that.
It's not done yet like in Ethereum (around 40% nodes are censorship compliant) but it's obvious they will try force it. There is nothing we can do against it. It will be more and more centralized and probably more and more censored, I hope to be wrong
If you want to buy something illicit on DarkNet, is it ok for you to do a LN transaction?
I don't desire to do that, but if so, I'd have no problem paying with lightning if it would be an option. LN Sender privacy is great, you could include a free hop like lnmarkets after your node and use tor for eveything. I highly doubt you could be traced back.
Ip is not a problem of course, the problem is more about blockchain / LN traceability, I ask about the DN because it's the hard situation, if it pass this test, it's ok for everyday use. The Bitcoin's blockchain is traceable but if I correctly understand LN, a channel need to be created, Bitcoin pushed in the channel, used in the channel, the channel don't necessary need to be closed. Now I have some questions, is the channel can stay open for ever? If yes, do you think at some point a problem can happen? You said the sender's privacy is ok but there is a seller, receiver, maybe your friend or just someone that can be linked to you. If the receiver can't have privacy, using the LN for privacy is impossible. If I was a DN seller, I will never accept LN in that situation, only a fool will do that ^^
That's the Dilemma.
And There is something disturbing with Blockstream, if they really want to solve the scalability issue, why they havn't upgrade the block size ? Why they did a whole new thing, the LN instead of simply scale up onchain like Satoshi said ? Do you trust Blockstream, a company backed by bankers? I will never trust them, according to the manifesto.
I don't trust Blockstream, or any other for profit company. I'm into bitcoin because it removes trust.
With that being said, it's a good thing they didn't upgraded the block size, if anything we need smaller blocks. Also what makes you think Blockstream can do this without consensus?
From the block size war, Blockstream have the necessity to be involved and control as possible the dev of Bitcoin because there is a clear conflict of interest, Bitcoin need to remain slow with high fees for selling their own solution. Probably it will not be so easy for them to implement a blacklist or something like if the government ask them, but it will be a new war at this point. I hope it will never happen
