After playing around with LN I found significant difference in the three world of cryptocurrency :

1. The Bitcoin only world

2. The decentralized world

3. The hype, pump & dump

The Bitcoin only world cares and caters for the development of an economy surrounding Bitcoin. No alts, no shitcoin. This is fairly important as the Bitcoin value is set in stone and the pure value of Proof of Work. No hype. No pump, no dump.

While the Bitcoin only value is the best virtue, it relies on alot of centralized infrastructure. After technically being "Bitcoin only", i had to use custodian wallet to effectively use Bitcoin as money via LN (non custodian is available but fee is a tad high and i cant run my own node) . The infra for swaps also are relatively centealized (like fixed float). The infra for DID is also still centralized (nip05/lud16).

There is nothing wrong with a bit of centralization, the incidence of hack is also lower. It just... not as decentralized as the other alternative.

2. The decentralized

I have been living long in the Atom ecosystem and i believe it is by far the most decentralized ecosystem. It has decentralized bridge (Inter Blockchain Communication) , decentralized dex (osmosis & crescent), decentralized swap (thor), decentralized name service (starname), decentralized margin (kujira).

They focus on development over value, hence is why you see atom is less under the spotlight unlike its ethereum predecessors. Atom is also the predecessor of the proof of stake technology, now powering virtually 85% of blockchain.

One thing atom lacks is securing the value of BTC. It lives in the image of BTC, yes, but it never secures the BTC value, unlike LN. And i think that was the problem. And because of this, atom ecosystem fail to get any value traction. They are not the hype, pump & dump group, nor they are on the store on value (BTC) group. This might change though with interchain security (ICS) but that takes time.

3. The hype, pump & dump

The ethereum & evm as well as solana ecosystem is by far, a game of pump, dump & hype in the name of crypto. The goes on by thesis, and as far as i can conclude, a valueless one.

AI thesis, metaverse thesis, p2e thesis? What is that actually? Does it really matters.

Smart contract allows valuable technology advanced, but atom has it too, solana has it too. What really has it bring to ethereum and evm chain? Most DEX are a copycat of uniswap , no innovation, most lending platform are a copycat of aave.

There is virtually nothing decentral there. Te bridge are glorified mpc and they get hacked oftenly, wrapped asset are nothing but custodian coins glorified as smart contract able. Worst off are the synthetics. None of them works but they are considered as development.

While i enjoyed riding the waves on these, i never find a true crypto value in them. To me, they are not the satoshi vision at all. It is just speculative trade riding on weebs without any legal regulation

What i can conclude is both (1) & (2) may benefit the cryptosphere

A. Bringing better Bitcoin appreciation.

B. Bringing true decentralization to work.

Wdyt?