My view is lightning is a promise to pay Bitcoin, it's like a sort of Collateralized Credit but isn't finalized until the channel state is closed.
There's also no guarantee that those zaps are valid if someone rugpulls the channel against someone without a watchtower as well.
There's no guarantee that someone doesn't take the gold out of your house while you're away if they decide to break in and manage past the locks and find a stash of gold in your house too, but this is both technically and legally surmountable (legally as in libertarian law). The effective technical aspect as it functions in the real world denotes possession and control, which demonstrates its status as a monetary medium. If it is effectively enforceable in essentially all cases such as to be indistinguishable in principle to real bitcoin, then I would call that bitcoin itself for sure, whereas all other cases are perhaps subject to definitions and your standard of proof. OP_CTV assists with this technical aspect too.
A lightning bitcoin payment channel is, at the very least, a strong substitute for bitcoin.
It is Bitcoin-like but it isn’t Bitcoin Proper until finalized on The Blockchain.
Until a lightning channel is closed, it is effectively paper Bitcoin, and only holds theoretical value in lieu of a Bitcoin.
Sure if you want to classify it like that.
All value is theoretical. There is a reason that paper money trades like money. It's all just stuff people value as means to ends.
I appreciate these discussions, and I especially like your technicality in approaching this topic. Thanks!
Thank you, Mr. Bacon, I appreciate your stances on things, you're very reasonable, and nuanced that even if you don't agree with someone you're understanding enough to see their point of view, and understand where they're coming from, or what they mean.
Very few people have that talent unfortunately.
Thank you! That's a very meaningful complement!! ^^
So basically yeah you're right it's sort of a credit system in the way you're leaning, but if it can be called credit, it is the strongest form of credit ever invented. It being a series of distributed ledgers within a distributed ledger with private enforcement all around and no authority, all in the same currency unit with no rehypothecation, it may as well be called real bitcoin, the way I see it.
