When you view it more pragmatically as a decentralized payment system and ecash provides further scaling, then there isn't much copium to be had.
Discussion
Any good links or docs on ecash to get me started? Are there going to be a bunch of hiccups like I've run into here
Follow nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg and have a look at https://github.com/cashubtc
What are your goals? The most straightforward analog to running a lightning node is running a cashu mint. It's also a lightning node, so it won't be less work than now lol. But it's way easier to build on because it's a single api on a single server. Each ecash token is self authenticated. No accounts. The beauty of ecash is it's simplicity.
With recently merged NUT-18, I see the possibility of building a Cashu ‘node’ that can initiate payment requests and use whatever mint is available. All state is stored as nostr events. nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg