Progress report on our core Ark implementation!
With major releases and announcements on the horizon, this update enhances performance & reliability to strengthen our foundation.
👉 Optimized VTXO tree signing
👉 Connector trees
👉 SDK API updates
We built a Coinflip PoC using multiparty contracts on Ark!
Bonus points: it uses Nostr on the backend.
Ark's client-server architecture, built around presigned transactions, provides an interesting framework for coordinating complex multi-party interactions.
A key insight from our Coinflip implementation: Ark operators validate spending conditions off-chain, such that in the optimistic case, complex validation logic doesn't hit the blockchain at all.
Once the game concludes, players settle their balance without intermediary trust.
It's available here: Coinflip is available here: http://coinflip.casino
Check it out! đź‘ľ 
This is not LN on Ark this is just a normal spillman style payment channel.
I fail to see how this is more liquidity than LN. It’s infinitely better for LSPs who don’t have to tie up liquidity in channels with random users. Now that is expensive (Phoenix)
That’s fine either way. I’ll work with people to build a Lightning enabled wallet that blows native ones out of the water then we can check back on the “liquidity issues”.
You clearly haven’t given this much thought.
I can open a single channel towards an LSP and make unlimited number of payments, in Ark, without any liquidity requirement aside from the initial deposit.
Over the past few years Bitcoiners went from dismissing Lightning to cheering on custodial solutions. While many of those solutions have great properties and make sense for low-balance wallets, we shouldn’t lose sight of the goal - great non-custodial UX that Bitcoiners actually *want* to use.
Luckily we have the tech for it (now), we just need the motivation and resources to build great wallets using it!
https://spiralbtc.substack.com/p/custodial-solutions-are-not-solutions
A self-custodial Ark wallet allows users to interface with Lightning payments via swaps in a perfectly non-custodial manner, without exposing them to the friction of channel or liquidity management, or overcharging them to abstract those.
It is the best self-custodial Lightning experience you can possibly create, bar none.
Every Ark builder is interested in complementing Lightning and leveraging the synergies between both technologies. It's a shame you can't recognize the potential here.
Ark is NOT competing with Lightning.
You do NOT have to try to pull it down with your grade school understanding of it just because you feel insecure about the piss poor state of the solutions you are working on.
There is a VERY distasteful “not invented here” attitude from some Lightning developers circles who seem more than happy to point out Ark faults.
Clean your own room first.
If a server that allows you to batch transactions with others is an L2 then yes you can call it that.
Ark transactions are no different than Bitcoin transactions.
Once broadcasted they remain unconfirmed until at minimum the next Bitcoin block.
Unlike Bitcoin, Ark lets users chain unconfirmed transactions and choose when to settle them in a future block, into an Ark batch.
Batched bitcoin transactions.
No expensive ZK professor tech scripts.
No gated liquidity, no fragmented network effect.
Just presigned transactions, collateralized.
Soon.
It's getting close but not yet.
Full time work on the protocol only began last year.
Actual work on an Ark implementation began a year ago at most.
It's been more or less 6 months since teams are working full time on the protocol.
It takes some time but you should expect Ark integration on mainnet within 3-4 months.
Rolling over your VTXOs (participating in a transaction batch) is a bit of an involved process and needs to be abstracted away from users as much as possible but that's an implementation and app level concern that is not a deal breaker.
Ark is sufficient as a scaling solution for the foreseeable future.
We have a lot to learn from the implications it will have on self custodial applications and the entire Lightning ecosystem.
If you're interested in additional opcodes to Bitcoin for security concerns then that's a different conversation but we have plenty of time to put together a compelling vision that can put consensus in motion.
While timeout tree is technically accurate it does nothing to actually explain the purpose of the protocol so I can't say I'm a fan of this description.
As far as I'm concerned, I've had the most success describing Ark as a batching protocol.
It's a familiar concept that resonates with people and doesn't appear overly complex.
Well on average humans yelling "do something" has historically lead to misery, famine and death.
How do you agree on the security target?
How is this any different than agreeing on the “right” inflation rate?
You might say this is semantics but it’s been a useful distinction because every conversation around Ark I’ve had from people who thought of it as a payment pool led to the misconception that:
- There is a single global state UTXO
- Participating users must sign off on state updates
You don’t need the majority of users to generate sufficient economic demand onchain.
Realistically only a small percentage suffice.