Because your “full node” does not actually have any proper indexes for address txn history
Discussion
But why isn't the utxo set enough?
1. Not indexed either
2. Transaction history
I'm suggesting the application simple handling the indexing I understand that has to be a stateful process. There is going to be state stored somewhere. Im suggesting the app store my wallet state without needing to download chain state.
There is just no need to couple my wallet to 800gb of data...
Ah, uh… no app does that I think
They either piggyback off of Bitcoin Core wallet functionality or use the Electrum server
Right... The latter statement is all I'm asking for.
One of a few examples - I'd like to be able to break out a phrase, or a pubkey (whatever format necessary) check the balance (wait a few minutes while scanning utxos) then make it vanish. No connecting to outside servers since I have a copy of the network local. No need to store things on the server and trust the server either.
So electrum sounds good, but see my other comment.
"lightning is so complicated!" they said. "why can't it be dead simple like bitcoin!" they said 😂
That was me. I was they... damn
everything is always more complicated than it seems. thus is life
I'll still die on that hill though. I made a shitty balance watcher in like 50 lines of C# with an rpc connection. LN is retarded. My complaint is it is so simple yet no wallet offers it.