Trying to understand the difference between Spark and ecash in this 20 dollars case. Why wouldn't you use Spark?
Discussion
Dogma.
Privacy is dogma?
The “privacy” update here refers to Lightspark no longer publishing all user payments by providing an opt-out api for wallet to their public explorer.
But even after this update Lightspark’s operators still see all payment data. A far cry from the privacy of ecash.
Yes, the trade-off being the custodial trust requirement. If you want maximum privacy (aside from what the mint can see), ecash is an obvious choice for short durations. The issue is that novice users don’t understand what mints are, may not move to self custody, and are more at risk of losing funds if the mint disappears without any notice.
Just stating my personal preference as a user.
As a wallet developer using the graduated SDK I would preconfigure three popular mints in the wallet and preselect one.
The risk of being rugged for the first 20 dollars is there and it needs to be explained in the docs. But this setup would make private bitcoin payments extremely user friendly.
Ecash tokens have mint info encoded in them
Graduated wallets move users to self custody with balance increase. User needs not understand what a mint is.
I prefer privacy, open protocols, and no vendor lockin
As I know, Spark works like Bitcoin, it's an open protocol and no vendor lockin.
Where is the Spark Service Provider source code? Without it third party Spark Entities are not gonna happen.
But above all I’d prefer to not share payments data for first my 20 dollars. Especially when I get LDK’s privacy once I open a channel.
Ok, it's all about tradeoffs, but I think most normal people, a Spark kind solution make more sense. Ecash providers will not want to have the responsibility to keep a lot of peoples money and many providers will have an incentive to steal the money if is too much. And if the police finds one provider and arrest them, other will fear and stop providing the service. It's what I think.
Most normal people use banks, fintechs and credit cards. Even if fiat were to disappear and they had to use bitcoin, why would they change to a wallet?
Re ecash providers getting arrested… we have yet to see evidence of all mints shutting down due to legal risks. I would not operate a mint myself but am happy to pay a fee to someone that does.