Over the last year Lightning, has been integrated into
- Largest exchange in world (Binance)
- Largest exchange in USA (Coinbase)
- Largest exchange in Mexico (Bitso)
- Largest exchange in SEA (Coinsph)
- Largest fintech bank in South America (Nubank)
but there are still people out there fading it.
If you look at lightning ā” as a self custodial payment network, it is great. But that's only a snapshot of the present situation.
If you consider that it must become 99% custodial once Bitcoin adoption rises significantly but Bitcoin core stays the same, it becomes a "slightly better than traditional banks" payment system.
Could still be a plus for society. But we shouldn't praise lightning as "the future of money". The improvement just isn't big enough.
Lightning creates a level playing ground for every financial service on the planet.
It is far and away the future for Bitcoin regardless of how people decide to use it. Custodial or not.
You can't "decide" how to use it, if you can't afford to pay the on chain fees. Then you are forced to trust custodians.
You can decide which of the hundreds of thousands of financial services built on it you will use.
Just like you can choose between many fiat banks or fiat paying services today.
No thatās the thing. You have very little optionality in todayās system. Everything is hyper consolidated. Barriers to entry are prohibitively high. Innovation is repressed. Network effects are captured into oligopolies.
Lightning is the bridge to permissionless finance.
I admire your optimism.
Good luck finding these reckless dudes granting the permissionless custodianship. They will be there no doubt. But the question is for how long and how you will be able to find them if publicity is what kills these services...
Phoenix didn't want to do it. Alby are trying to circumvent it. What about Mutiny? Tbh, I don't really know why they stopped developing their wallet... But I can imagine the "money transmitter" -regulation is at least a part of it.
What do you think about JAN3, AQUA wallet and Boltz? For how long will they continue offering their potential "ML" service? Oh and btw, WoS left US appstores, too. Custodianship enables regulation. Regulation forces permission.
Youāre not wrong. I think thatās why āsecond party custodyā as the Fedi people like to call it, or āprivateā custody is so interesting.
The idea that a small private community can start their own custodial service for their members and have it be interoperable with the global system at large - without getting prior permission - is very exciting.
Maybe itās not realistic for everyone to ābe their own bankā but if you and your family and friends can be each otherās bank, thatās in a lot of ways just as if not more interesting.
Lightning is it its early days. There will be better scaling solutions that allow for self custody. I've tried to engage with the ecash advocates but the difficult questions are ignored, so I assume they don't have answers to them.
What questions?
How can ecash holders verify that the mint fully & effectively blinded the signature?
If I'm selling you eggs in El Zonte for ecash, but we realise there's no connection to the mint after you've paid me (ie revealed the tokens) what happens?
I canāt speak to the first one
But the second one is not that different from the days of writing checks or the risk of counterfeit bills or the rare times when the credit card machine goes down
Social responsibility will always be part of the equation in any economy. Trust minimization is a good goal, trust elimination is a pipe dream
Thereās still trust involved in the eggs not being rotten, for example
Second one isn't an issue with Lightning. No ambiguity. Either the payment is made or the payment is not made. None of this fuzzy awkward state where both people have seen the secret so nobody knows who has value.
I expect most ecash transactions will be redeemed as a Lightning transfer anyway, which as you said resolves the ambiguity in most cases
If you want essentially the same assurance with strict ecash though, you can just code your wallet to check for a connection with the mint before unblinding, right?
Surely it's more important for the receiver to check for a connection.
Why? If I check that the mint is available, and then send you coins, and you say āI canāt redeem these, therefore I wonāt give you eggsā then I just redeem them myself and cancel the transaction.
If the mint is not available to him, the seller simply need not hand over the goods.
And btw this is why I think itās totally probable for most ecash to settle via lightning to the receiverās preferred lightning provider (whether self-hosted, blind mint, or custodian) before goods are released. In this case, ecash issuance is just the method to bring a great degree of privacy to what would otherwise be a custodial relationship
The self custodial UX on lightning is just terrible.
Do you have information about how Nubank is using it or will use it?
Not a lot of details are out right now
To get some balance
What are the negatives of visa as a payment method š¤
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Ya so the
So ya the issue with lightning all the devs says is it's no sovereignty and it's centralized so your note kinda proves that ahahah ....right ?
Integration with KYC custodians is not what I'd call a success.
NGU but VGL (values go low)
Phoenix, Bitkit, Alby, Zeusā¦
Thanks for this reminder
UX is still terrible if you dont want to use a custodial wallet. Fees are way higher than a few sats if you dont transact within the same wallet ecosystem.
Lightning has promised a lot and has not delivered on its promises at all. Relying on Lightning to scale BTC was a huge mistake and it has set back BTC development for many years.
People will be able to send money with a bank account! We've come so far.
