Updated my article with security concerns. Summary of the updates/concerns:
1. This is not custodial
2. You do not have to trust any hosted channel whatsoever, this is just a technicality for bridge operators
3. Anyone can operate bridges and compete on fees.
Actually, what you are describing here is what Coinos was (and Coinos Classic still is), or at least comes very close. Basically a three-way bridge between BTC, L-BTC, and Lightning where you can send one in, and take any of the other two out.
Not sure you even need HC for that. As a wallet operator you just maintain three nodes, each with their own balance.
You could scan a LN invoice, and "pay" with your Liquid balance - the booking is done behind the scenes by the wallet (debit Liquid, credit Lightning, dedit Lightning for final payment of the invoice). You can apply a small fee (the bridging fee in your example) on top, accounting for the fact that more people want Lightning than Liquid.
I think pretty much all of that is in the Coinos codebase already
classic.coinos.io
Yes, but for all this you have to trust coinos to not steal your money. What I am talking about is a real Lightning node, connected to Lightning network, requiring private keys, full custody of the funds are by user. The Lightning protocol is the same, only the backing (funding transaction and channel close) does not occur on Bitcoin timechain, but on Liquid.
So you have your private keys and have to sign and payments, there is no third party you have to trust, only infrastructure.
Yes, but anyone can run a Coinos instance - it's open source. It's basically a Docker container with LN node (CLN) Bitcoin core and Liquid elements packaged in it.
But yeah, it's not 100% what you were looking for, but came close conceptually - a three-way bridge where you can pay any of the three chains with funds from another.
It required a manual internal swap step in between, but I guess this could have been automated/abstracted away. I.e pay a LN invoice directly from your Liquid balance.
You'd likely have to rebalance the three stacks (BTC, LN, L-BTC) occasionally, but a skilled operatir should be able to do so cost effectively - given that you can swap BTT <-> L-BTC for a mere 0.1% on Side_Swap and L-BTC <-> LN for theoretically 0% via Peerswap, or Robosats
Well, if you run it yourself, you are becoming a bridge (if for you, not much useful, if for others, you are a custodian).
Yes, it would be something for custodial wallet providers. WoS, Zebedee, BBW etc.
Agreed, makes little sense for personal use
I thought that would be the natural audience for your proposal. As "managing a bridge" is something very few normal ppl will do - or are good at.
Custodial lightning wallet providers probably have enough liquidity already and can open huge channels where the fees don't matter.
My proposal is for those of us that don't like custodial, but also don't like high fees.
