I would be VERY uncomfortable storing significant wealth with a full custody custodian.  ESPECIALLY when it's Bitcoin.  Just the regulatory and counter party risks together are enough to scare me pretty badly.  And I do not really see a difference between these and an exchange. NYKNYC plain and simple.

But I also understand that keeping your bitcoin in you "coinbase wallet" is about as much as many people can handle.  And self custody is too complex AND risky for the masses.

So we have (still) a real conundrum here.  What are the safest ways for a person to store their bitcoin in a way that they retain control, but is also simple enough for the masses and protects adequately against all the "foot guns".

Personally I think the best middlegrounds currently for Bitcoin custody are the multisig setups like:

https://keys.casa
https://unchained.com

But these are still kind of complicated.  And currently I think that is because all the options are still fairly black and white.

I also think there some interesting possibilities that might emerge from 2nd layers.  Liquid's federated model allows for introducing amounts of trust somewhere between all and nothing.  So I think it will be interesting to see what that company works on as I think they are a little ahead of the curve in regards to trust models.  I also think we might see some creative things around lightning where trust can also possibly introduced in pieces.

In the end, Joe Sixpack is going to need someone to hold his hand.  It might be a custodian, or exchange, or maybe it's Brother-in-law Billy.

I actually thing there is a lot of opportunity for business to be developed in this area.  And to that point I do not think Blockstream's recent funding infusion is surprising.  They are probably the furthest out in development of the sorts of products and systems many are going to need.

Kind of.  Locking Bitcoin into LN channels is a sort of complex bargain.  But it enables you to use Bitcoin as a means of exchange with instant settlement and finality.  It's not going to be a good lace to put ALL your bitcoin.

The more I think about it the more the checking account analogy works.  You keep an amount of money that you need to be liquid in this account.  You might even take your paycheck there.  Pay for your groceries from there. But if you are a saver, and you spend less then you make, then eventually you will also want to move some of that value into savings on the base layer where it is more safe, and less mobile.

While I do believe you have pinpointed the primary reason, Bitcoin also has other properties that stop it from being like gold in that regard.

Gold's weaknesses allow an exploitable attack surface that they have learned to use.

How do you "hold" 100 kg of gold.  It requires trusted third parties.  This means gold certificates, notes, etc.  And we know where all that ends up.

Where IS most of the gold anyway?

I have read this one back around the time it came out.

I think the LN is going to evolve in a way MUCH like the internet.  Is the internet centralized or not?

Yes.

Hmm.  This poll made me realize I am probably an idiot.  Because I would not sell any of them.  But I most certainly would gather together some USD to buy coins during the massacre.

But I will not sell.

Some of my UTXOs date to 2011, or at least are only a handful of transactions away from the time I first got them.  Though I do think Bitcoin is fundamentally moderately fungible (another whole conversation), I do not see a reason I would give these up.

I will take it one step further.

The illusion that there are these two competing paths is a way they can control the masses by making them side with one choice or the other.

It is crystal clear at this point that the WAY big government is "governing" us is VIA big corporations.

Fooling us into "choosing" the lesser of two evils, when in reality they are one and the same.

For them it's not even win/win.  It's just WIN.

These guys...  Billionaires in the current system.  Particularly the ones who play games with ledgers to make their wealth.

They either got there by luck, or by smarts.  I think it is impossible for it to be luck.  Because wolves smarter than them would take any lucky money they make.

So it's knowledge.  And on this level it's knowledge of how the game works.

Bitcoin breaks the game.  That threatens their systems.  NOT their riches.  The path to maintaining their wealth in a world in which Bitcoin becomes important is elementary for people who HEDGE for a living. Lol.

So they do not want their systems broken which have allowed them to profit on the backs of the rest of us. 

I do not take issue with their profit.  I take issue with the fact they want to maintain systems that enslave the majority for the benefit of themselves.

In my opinion Ken Griffin has proved he is EVIL.

I HOPE he has a short position against Bitcoin.  And I would like to think it is the pupusa dealers in El Salvador who are beginning to store their pennies in Bitcoin who make his positions get liquidated.  And I LOVE that his loss will flow directly into the value of those pupusa seller's satoshis.

Selah.  Amen.

You are almost certainly fine!  (How much did you commit into channels)- (How much have you spent with your node) = Your outbound liquidity number.  The only bit that changes this is the fees you have paid/taken in.  You are fine!  I am sure.

Thanks mOFa.  I do try to keep mine on the tip more or less...  I expect we will see more of this.  Reckless.

Well then...

It was a second bull flag, and we either consolidate ~53k for a while, or we run up to the 56k realm where there is a little resistance... that is the question right now.

FWIW We have made a new high since Mid May at this point... very bullish scenario in my humble opinion.

Thanks for that Arcane Tech link fillippone.  This is good stuff.

I have been thinking a lot about the clustering idea and where it will lead, and what it's natural balances are.

So far the LN is an open protocol that anyone can join and there are different costs and incentives for joining different ways.  As a custodial service customer to a profit seeking node.  But there are also lots of service provider roles we are seeing appear as the network matures.

Take Strike.  They are a service provider that uses the LN as the backbone for really a traditional finance product they offer.  So their incentives for running nodes on the network are different than, say, WoS, Fold, or your average tinkerer like me.  Yet what they do potentially benefits the network. 

It is also possible nodes like Strike's could do net damage to the network (I am not seeing this happening now/yet).    They could sequester traffic or deny traffic etc.

So I am thinking through all the incentive theory etc that we are seeing appear.  I am not sure there has ever been a network like the LN where nodes can benefit from simply participating.  Even the base layer of Bitcoin is much different in it's incentive structure.

But it is natural in systems like this one that traffic (read: information) is going to find the most efficient routes to flow, and the network as a whole will determine what is and is not really advantageous. 

SUPER interesting stuff in my opinion.  I think the LN as a business is where bitcoin mining was before say, Asics.  What i mean is back then mining was unfolding and moving from CPUs to graphics cards, and owning a mining business was an interesting and constantly changing game.  The LN is not the same as this at all... but it's evolution will follow a path, and we are very early still.  What will be the big game changers on this path like ASICS were for the base layer nodes?  What incentives will appear and change for the LN? 

These are the questions that are interesting, and possibly profitable, right now!

So, a nice altcoin slaughtering bull in Bitcoin.

And I am starting to get used to the pattern where we see 5%-20% drops in the major alts during these but little monero finds a floor basically. 

I expect it to likely drop more against Bitcoin if this trend continues, but there is a constant demand for monero, and it has actually become a unit of account arguably as much or more than Bitcoin.  I would say more for sure, but El Salvador is making that false.  Still Monero has carved out a are in which it is being used to price many goods...  And I think that dampens the pullback on days like this...

Oh, and screw Doge, lol... seriously.  Still a clown world, mostly.

You math is on but your eyeballs are off.  He tricked me too.

That is, at 100k sats are a tenth of a cent. Or $0.001

Usually that trick does not work on me.. But this time I was like.. Wait a minute, no, wait.  That does not make sen... oh I get it.

So..  Seems to me, unless this is a head fake this solidly brings us into that next range (not marked on my screengrab) between what... 49-51.5?

And then it's probably not a terribly hard push back to the high 50s.

As usual... what I am seeing missing is any inspiring volume.  But it is also Sunday.  If the markets like this for another bull flag forming I think we see another push into tomorrow, and then range in that above area to paint the flag part...

VERY proud of my state in this regard.  Still a lot of "crypto" talk but I like where we are headed.  Sad that we are under attack from the southern border, and this sort of administration might not continue.  I know some of the lefties on this thread would disagree, but I do not think your political side of the spectrum are going to really be in favor of bitcoin.

Huh... I am sitting about 100 yards from a B-15.  Great bass player that goes to my church (2 doors from my house) has one there he uses.  It's temperamental in it's old age, but still sounds dreamy and humongous.

So unfair.  But I am also glad.   Well, I mean... sort of.  I am not much interesting on there...  But I am a fan of that dude and his ... what are they?  Parody news org?

No.  Elwar is right.  His description is dead on i my opinion.

Everyone wants a future, and no one wants warming to damage the globe.  The thoughts about the importance of these things, and the amount to which man has influence are topics that the scientific community has disagreements on.

This is so loony.  They have proven they can print exactly as much as they need.  Why do they also need to take it away from (some of) us?