Bitcoin timechain fees are high, new user Lightning experience sucks, let's fix it. Here's how - we can do this easily.
Discussion
why?
weak arguments. complicated.
just use monero or even litecoin
I love the sentiment but this is just putting another name on custodial Lightning wallets.
If you're using hosted or "unbacked" channels you're 100% trusting the channel provider not to rug you as you have no on-chain claim to funds.
Wouldn't a better solution honestly be pushing people to swap for a chunk of Monero and spend that? Great privacy, low fees, etc. etc.
If they're worried about exchange rates they should only swap in as much as they need for the month or similar.
Wouldn't that be better than giving up custody for convenience?
Nope, the "custodial" is between the same person's two nodes. This is not a custodial wallet in no part.
Both legs of the channel are owned by the bridge operator, who is one person.
So the payments goes through like in a bridge and it's completely trustless.
Alice->Charlie's Liquid node-[hosted channel]->Charlie's Bitcoin node->Bob
No one has to trust anyone in this case. For Charlie, he receives L-BTC on liquid side and sends BTC on Bitcoin side and charges a fee for the service. It is atomic. That's all.
Updated my article with security concerns. Summary of the updates/clarifications:
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.