I’m confused about this debate, lightning is also not final on chain settlement. And most people are definitely not using lightning channels they control. Is it just higher on the spectrum of self custody but not all the way there?
Discussion
With lightning, there are at least avenues towards self-custodial unruggableness.
lightning is final settlement. the argument of what "most people" use is subjective. we are talking about the properties of the technology. you can of course make the argument that cashu can support a larger number of users, but so can a sqlite database and visa.
cashu is better payments tech than visa, it is not better payments tech than lightning (for non-custody and finality). The arguing past each other is just this tradeoff that some people are not willing to make. custodial solutions are a line in the sand for most bitcoiners.
If its custodial its just not worth investing lots of engineering time into, unless its for small fun things like a persons first zaps. I am not completely against sqlite/tigerbeetle databases for that purpose, as long as its more of a demo account and can't be used for storing lots of sats.
many of us old timey bitcoiners got into bitcoin specifically for the non-custodial properties. its not that surprising that we are not as excited about it as all the ecash hype people are on nostr.
U forgot paper bitcoin tho.
Ecash is worth so much engineering effort! Not because it's custodial but because of the freedoms it enables.
Arguing about who was a bitcoiner first is bad opsec and irrelevant.
I agree with everything else in the above note. ☝️
Wouldn’t mints be better since they are not custodial by a single entity?
You mean fedimint? Yes, unequivocally better in terms of the security model. But federated custody is a really complex engineering problem.
I think fedimint is how ecash scales to larger balances. I probably wouldn't deposit my paycheck into a cashu mint but I would use a fedimint.
All in due time. :)
correct
Lightning is pretty close to on-chain bitcoin because you could, in theory, close your channel and get a UTXO with your lightning balance. But you have to pay on-chain fees, so it doesn't really work if your balance is too small.
Can you convert a nickel into a gold coin? In theory, yes. In reality, no, because a nickel is nearly worthless. No one is going to bother self-custodying 5 cents worth of gold.
Instead, you get a big jar and slowly fill it with pocket change. When it's full, convert to hard money. Same concept with ecash but the lightning channel is your jar. Same concept with lightning, but the UTXO is your jar.