Ark's superpower lies in its ability to leverage native Bitcoin script š¦øš»āāļø
Scaling UTXO-based contracts has the potential to enable a new generation of financial applications.
Today, we're happy to share our work on Virtual Channels, bringing instant settlement to Ark .
Few might remember that payment channels predate the Lightning Network ā”ļø
Early implementations, like the unidirectional channels in bitcoinj, never caught on for a variety of reasons
One obvious downside comes from the high on-chain costs associated with channel setups.
Ark allows us to revisit this concept, unburdened by Bitcoin's limited block space.
Cost-effective deployment of payment channels becomes possible!
For users, Virtual Channels offer notable advantages over Lightning:
No backups ā
No liveness requirements ā
No routing ā
Thanks to Tapscript, we can extend bare VTXO script beyond a single signer
By defining additional spending paths, we can encapsulate multi-party contracts within VTXOs, enabling the creation of Virtual Channels
Details and code snippets belowš
https://arkdev.info/blog/bitcoin-virtual-channels/
Virtual Channels are just the beginning!
By extending Bitcoin's script capabilities through Ark, weāre opening the door to a broader financial infrastructure secured by Bitcoin's consensus rules.
\*\* I published this article on 3/26/2020. I'm back in Puerto now and just re-read this to fire myself up for some potential tubes. Now, I want it to live on Nostr.
āWhen in doubt, donāt go outā is a well-known aphorism among surfers. I think itās bs. Let me explain.
\*\**I speak from my experiences as a regular surfer and with my close group of regular surfers in mind.*
In surfing, thereās a comfort zone, an adrenaline zone, an aw crap zone (doubt), and a hell no zone.
**Comfort zone** āIt is in this place where it is safe and fun to try new maneuvers. The heart rate is low and the stoke rate high.
**Adrenaline zone**- This is personally my favorite zone. The surf is big or good enough to get the heart rate up and the juices flowing. Each movement matters and this is where some of the best surfing goes down.
**Aw crap zone** ā This is the land of the I donāt know, the doubt. Itās always damn near impossible to sleep before an aw crap day of surfing. This is the place where limits are tested. Maybe youāre surfing in a new place with new risks such as shallow reef, a difficult takeoff, or itās just huge. This aw crap zone will test and define your limits.
**Hell no zone** ā When you know, you know. This is beyond doubt. Youāre totally satisfied (yet still curious) from watching from afar. Maybe one day!
These zones are bound to change as the surfer progresses. One day there may be no āhell no zoneā as the surf master has pushed his or her limits to the extreme.
## **Pushing**
Pros are only as good as their home breaks. NOT. Tell that to Kelly Slater and the Hopgood brothers who grew up surfing Florida slop. Although, perhaps their garbage wave situation lit a fire underneath them which inspired them to seek out better waves and progress rapidly. Anyways, a surfer grows up surfing their home breaks often. Some people grow up on the North Shore or in Tahiti, others grow up in Huntington. A surferās perspective on waves and danger is influenced by their exposure.
I finally got bored with myself surfing my home waves. Sure, there were days that were outside of my comfort zone and epic, but it was time to go find waves that I had only seen in videos. I decided to pack my backpack and head to those famed Indonesian reefs that Iāve mind surfed for hours, but always had the question mark in my head as to whether or not I could conquer them.
Surfing over shallow reef is something that I was not used to and it terrified me, but I also knew that every surfer does it including five-year-olds so I had to send it. I escaped the first mission unscathed and with some of the best waves in my life.
In order to find those best waves of my life, I had to enter the āaw crap zoneā. The I donāt know land. The unknown. When in doubt, I went out.
## **And Now Iām Here**
)I blew this wave, but wow pretty.
">
*Current forecast looks like it will be right at my edge.. again. We'll see.*
Iām surfing the famous Playa Zicatela every day with the whole world shut down due to Co-Vid19. Iāve always been curious to know what itās like to be inside massive barrels, so Iām slowly making it happen. This is a battle that I chose. Iām learning how to sleep with surf anxiety. The first couple of nights were rough, but Iām starting to accept it now.
This very morning inspired this article. I got up, went to the roof, and checked out the waves. It looked pretty mellow despite the fact that I knew there was a lot of swell in the water. I just thought, eh, maybe itās not big like it was forecasted. I got in the water, took my first wave, wiped out, but whatever. Iāve been here for a week and I still wipeout on just about every first wave. But, I quickly found out that this was not the real set. The next set was enormous, and it sent adrenaline shrieking through my spine and filled my brain with the aw craps. The questioning of my life and why Iām out here quickly followed. Am I good enough for this? (maybe). Could I survive a wipeout that size?(probably). Is my board right for this? (definitely not). The second wave I took was bigger and I pulled the eject cord and jumped from what felt like the top of a cliff all the way to the bottom and got creamed (my perspective). After a couple of flips, I popped up the back laughing and was ready for another. I survived, therefore, I can keep pushing.
Not gonna lie, surfing almost feels like work lately. Almost every day here is just about in my personal aw crap zone.
However, itās worth it for me. This is a journey that I deem worthy of my time. It does it for me. Itās those little moments inside the barrel and gosh-dang-golly hopefully soon getting shot out of the barrel that keep me stoked and looking forward to tomorrow. Itās proving to myself that I can do things I didnāt know for sure were possible.
## **The Process to Progress**
Progression sometimes feels like a snail crawling up Mt. Everest. But when you zoom out, those incremental small improvements compound over time. Each wipeout is a little victory. Each wave that is ridden is a little victory. Your brain is learning from every experience that you choose to give it. Confidence slowly builds as we continue to learn from the masters and even develop our own style. Next thing you know youāre drinking a beer in a barrel that can kill a normal man like Mr. Slater did here.
)Freakin Goat
Stagnation leads to burnout, depression, and boredom (Not scientific facts but Iām right I know it).
*The great danger is that we give in to feelings of boredom, impatience, fear, and confusion. We stop observing and learning. The process comes to a halt. ā*Ā [Farnam Street BlogĀ ](https://fs.blog/2013/01/mastery/)
Iāve seen a few buddies give up surfing or digress. It happened to me while I was focusing on baseball. Itās sad because surfing is fun and the better you get the more fun it is. Itās even more fun with a core group of guys who are at a similar level pushing each other. It can get boring if you donāt push yourself, and it gets scary real quick if you arenāt in surf shape.
*āWhenever we learn a skill, we frequently reach a point of frustration ā what we are learning seems beyond our capabilities. Giving in to these feelings, we unconsciously quit on ourselves before we actually give up.āĀ [FS Blog](https://fs.blog/2013/01/mastery/)*
Progression takes effort. Effort takes a conscious decision to expend your limited energy. Itās the only way to get gains in whatever game you are playing. Also, progression takesĀ **humility.**
I got the pleasure of surfing Kelly Slaterās Wave Ranch. I knew I was going to have fun, but the night before I was damn nervous. Why? Well, I knew thereād be cameras and that I didn't want to blow it. Iād be surfing with pros and I was going to look horrible compared to them. Sure enough, the one right the camera got, I blew. Oh well. No 30-second barrels for the boys. Life moves on.
Full vid here <https://vimeo.com/367128298>
)*Can't wait to go back here one day*
Youāre bound to fail, especially when you take risks. If youāre a prideful person, the setbacks will be greater. Itās how you deal with the failure that determines if you will become a master.
So if in doubt, go out. Your hell no zone is going to start to shrink. This applies any skill that you are sharpening. Youāre only going to get the big clients if you go after them, a piano player will improve by practicing harder songs, a black belt gains nothing from fighting a white belt, etc.
Pick your battles wisely. Thenā¦SEND IT, SURVIVE, LEARN, APPLY, REPEAT.
10/19 - Even though I'm a much more experienced surfer now, I'm still terrified. On my way to go get a board now and get ready for some swell! I'm on my honeymoon, so we'll see how hard I push. I have quite a few more responsibilities now then I did back in Covid times... But if in doubt, I will go out. PV.
just saw some footage. looks pumping. have fun bro
Everyone having a computer is justified.
Ever user being a node in a network defeats the entire purpose.
It's like asking every internet user to run their own ISP.
Ark offers a simple, secure way to optimize onchain costs for pretty much every Bitcoin use cases.
More complex and fancy ways to create channel factories or coinpools might exist but no one is building them nor are they likely too because the complexity invites inertia always.
The longer you look at Ark the more you realize that simple approaches win and we can simply iterate off this as we find product market fit.
Anyone that is interested to learn more or contribute please reach out Iām happy to take a minute to help people familiarize themselves with the protocol.
I donāt think itās productive or desirable for the average person to run a Lightning node.
In fact Iām convinced itās economically unsustainable.
Bitcoin is the longest *valid* chain as determined by economic consensus.
What miners decide to do is irrelevant š
No they didn't. VC-backed companies are not the economically significant actors within the Bitcoin community.
Actual skin in the game Bitcoin holders wanted nothing to do with the fork, as evidenced, for example, by Finex's futures market at the time.
Most of the world does not need to run a Lightning node.
In fact, that would probably be detrimental to Lightning altogether.
UASF worked because economically significant actors rallied behind it.
The larp of every user running a node just for the sake of defending the network is just that... a larp
>Main reason to run a node is to keep the network decentralized.
No... the main reason to run a node is to validate your own transactions privately.
Plebs of little to no economic relevance have practically no impact on the outcome of forks or Bitcoin's "decentralization".
Run a node for your own benefit, or don't, but let's not pretend doing so is an altruistic act.
Iām so sorry I couldnāt make it to Berlin but I promise Iāll make it up to the ecash squad very soon.
We just announced yesterday in Amsterdam that @`Boltz - Non-Custodial Bitcoin Bridge` swaps are coming to Ark, day 1!
Thanks to native support for Bitcoin script operations, Ark allows servers to virtualize many of the same contracts used by existing Bitcoin products and services.
One we're excited about are Virtual HTLCs (vHTLCs). Combined with off-chain execution, we think they open the door to many new, and old, use cases that weren't possible before, or could not scale.
Those properties can extend to other script extensions of Bitcoin and potentially scale smart contract settlements!
Using virtual swaps, we can close Lightning's "liquidity loop" by providing participants with an interface to batch their channel management operations off-chain.
Many infrastructure providers will find interesting ways to leverage the efficiency of Ark swaps and we encourage anyone interested to reach out nostr:npub1hf5sgehj874r3y2hps9r36qap20cffauc7t895var2ajlsg32mcqa7dp8n
need it now
A lot of angst and pessimism on the timeline over the last 24 hours around the prospect of future upgrades to the Bitcoin protocol.
TLDR; A number of highly technical people got together and apparently could not come to an agreement on the various tradeoffs of theoretical applications of covenants and associated OP codes.
Frankly, this is the least surprising outcome anyone could have expected out of this type of exercise.
Putting a bunch of gigabrain engineers into a room is not conducive to consensus. They will, by nature, try to outsmart one another.
"You haven't considered this angle."
"What if we approached it this way?"
"There's a more efficient way."
"Have you really thought through the implications?"
Their drive to achieve the 'right' outcome fuels a race to devise "clever" solutions, each inevitably clashing with the alternatives.
If you're wondering why you should care about this at all. It's because most people involved do agree that multi-party on-chain contracts are necessary to achieve true scale.
The limitations of two-party Lightning channels are increasingly obvious hence the interest in optimizing the flow of capital around the network across larger hubs of individuals sharing UTXOs.
Unfortunately, the lack of first-hand experience with covenant-based constructs is allowing everyoneās imagination to run wild.
We are all attempting to optimize for the end game with little to no appreciation for the present situation.
Some have devised clever ways to implement zero-knowledge technology using Bitcoin script. Others are designing coin pool protocols that can potentially withstand the mass exit of hundreds of thousands of users without catastrophic economic consequences.
All of them are frustrated others can't seem to be as excited as them about their progress.
Meanwhile, a credible opportunity to further our common understanding of multi-party contracts is staring everyone in the face: the Ark protocol.
Unsurprisingly, most every one of these very competent individuals have their own opinions of it.
"The liquidity requirements are too high."
"It can't possibly work without covenants."
"Fees and unilateral exit scenarios are tricky."
Again, not only only are these experts seemingly fixated on perfecting the 'right' outcome, but at times it feels like theyāre trying to control it.
My advice to everyone involved: let go of this obsession with perfection and embrace the good.
There are now two teams iterating through various ways to implement Ark in ways that can solve real problems, TODAY.
Sure, Ark as originally proposed and as currently implemented is not yet the ubiquitous payment grail it was originally propped up as.
A lot of different adversarial scenarios will challenge the different use cases vying to leverage it, but if you give it honest consideration, you will realize it is MUCH more practical than some would want you to believe.
It does not need to immediately find its way into retail user wallets to have a massive impact on the current Bitcoin payment infrastructure.
Various existing sets of counterparties should be able to use Ark as a simple and straightforward way to amortize the cost of their on-chain operations.
And if all you care about is to achieve pie-in-the-sky perfection then there is probably no better alternative as we speak to gain real world economic feedback on the behavior of users of those future protocols.
If you want to accelerate the development of technology that will directly inform the design of future covenant-based evolutions, I believe there is no better way to funnel your energy today than to participate in the conversation, contribute and start building on Ark.
Join us!
A lot of angst and pessimism on the timeline over the last 24 hours around the prospect of future upgrades to the Bitcoin protocol.
TLDR; A number of highly technical people got together and apparently could not come to an agreement on the various tradeoffs of theoretical applications of covenants and associated OP codes.
Frankly, this is the least surprising outcome anyone could have expected out of this type of exercise.
Putting a bunch of gigabrain engineers into a room is not conducive to consensus. They will, by nature, try to outsmart one another.
"You haven't considered this angle."
"What if we approached it this way?"
"There's a more efficient way."
"Have you really thought through the implications?"
Their drive to achieve the 'right' outcome fuels a race to devise "clever" solutions, each inevitably clashing with the alternatives.
If you're wondering why you should care about this at all. It's because most people involved do agree that multi-party on-chain contracts are necessary to achieve true scale.
The limitations of two-party Lightning channels are increasingly obvious hence the interest in optimizing the flow of capital around the network across larger hubs of individuals sharing UTXOs.
Unfortunately, the lack of first-hand experience with covenant-based constructs is allowing everyoneās imagination to run wild.
We are all attempting to optimize for the end game with little to no appreciation for the present situation.
Some have devised clever ways to implement zero-knowledge technology using Bitcoin script. Others are designing coin pool protocols that can potentially withstand the mass exit of hundreds of thousands of users without catastrophic economic consequences.
All of them are frustrated others can't seem to be as excited as them about their progress.
Meanwhile, a credible opportunity to further our common understanding of multi-party contracts is staring everyone in the face: the Ark protocol.
Unsurprisingly, most every one of these very competent individuals have their own opinions of it.
"The liquidity requirements are too high."
"It can't possibly work without covenants."
"Fees and unilateral exit scenarios are tricky."
Again, not only only are these experts seemingly fixated on perfecting the 'right' outcome, but at times it feels like theyāre trying to control it.
My advice to everyone involved: let go of this obsession with perfection and embrace the good.
There are now two teams iterating through various ways to implement Ark in ways that can solve real problems, TODAY.
Sure, Ark as originally proposed and as currently implemented is not yet the ubiquitous payment grail it was originally propped up as.
A lot of different adversarial scenarios will challenge the different use cases vying to leverage it, but if you give it honest consideration, you will realize it is MUCH more practical than some would want you to believe.
It does not need to immediately find its way into retail user wallets to have a massive impact on the current Bitcoin payment infrastructure.
Various existing sets of counterparties should be able to use Ark as a simple and straightforward way to amortize the cost of their on-chain operations.
And if all you care about is to achieve pie-in-the-sky perfection then there is probably no better alternative as we speak to gain real world economic feedback on the behavior of users of those future protocols.
If you want to accelerate the development of technology that will directly inform the design of future covenant-based evolutions, I believe there is no better way to funnel your energy today than to participate in the conversation, contribute and start building on Ark.
Join us!
Could not be more excited to announce my new role leading ecosystem growth nostr:npub1hf5sgehj874r3y2hps9r36qap20cffauc7t895var2ajlsg32mcqa7dp8n
Having observed and commented on the controversial state of Bitcoin layers over the year, it was impossible not to jump on board once nostr:npub1w4sf3hsedukh33akdn5duld2yc5jlk6s02shur8553j0a59sm3jscws08a shared his vision for Ark.
(Thanks to the amazing team nostr:npub1t8a7uumfmam38kal4xaakzyjccht4y5jxfs4cmlj0p768pxtwu8skh56yu for the opportunity to dive deep into this space. Nothing but good vibes and good times.)
Today, Ark is closer to reality than most can imagine, and the implications are yet to be fully appreciated.
UTXO-sharing will play a crucial part in the evolution of Bitcoin scaling and Ark is a monumental first step towards this future.
It addresses many issues of the issues that have crippled the adoption of Bitcoin as a payment infrastructure.
More importantly, Ark is not here to replace Lightning, I believe it will supercharge it ā”ļø
Our first product, the Ark Node, is the perfect companion for Lightning node operators. If you are one of them, please reach out to me.
I can't wait to share more of what we have in store.
Stay tuned ā
Seems like a plus factor - web5 (dApps, SSI like to your DIDs, IPFS, and data walllet) would encourage users on the current internet to take back their identity. I believe TBDās biggest challenge and their most important role will be, not so much in creating this, but in educating people globally to take back their identity from govāts and commerce.
Nostr operates at the application layer, meaning it can sit on top of TCP/IP. It re-imagines and liberates the web interactions from your existing caged situations. TCP/IP itself is a decentralised architecture. The early days that nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m mentioned in this talks - Usenet, Telnet, Gopher - were all decentralised protocols on application layers. While HTTP and SMTP were also decentralized, they inadvertently allowed a few large players to gain massive control, which in turn enabled gov'ts to exert influence over these entities to control large populations of people
Re-imagining a new app layer like Nostr is a lengthy process. Rebuilding architecture like web5 using OSI is also lengthy process. While they are different, both serve the same goal of liberating users in taking back the ownership of theirĀ identities
TBD's biggest challenge is that it deals in consortium, top down hierarchies and institutionalized standards, making it pretty unlikely to ever gain significant traction.