Lightning Support.

[nibor]

I can see there is an active development branch here:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/tree/lightning

And list of outstanding items here:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/milestone/8

Seems to me that they are not going for the same architecture for LN as they do for BTC.

In BTC the architecture is to compromise on privacy (but not security of funds) in exchange for low resource usage and fast startup times. Achieved by letting the server do most of the work.

But the LN implementation looks like a full LN node? This seems an odd decision. I would expect them to be running a "electrumxLN" server - and this maintain the routing information etc.. As currently maintaining the routing state is 99.999% of the load on an LN node. Opening/Closing channels and sending payments is very light weight.

If there was a electrumxLN server maintaining the routing map (list of all nodes/channels and able to compute a route from a->z), and ideally be the 1st node in the route as then it would get some LN fees for the service then the client could be very lightweight - and the server could re-use an RPC to an existing implementation to get the routes.

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[nc50lc]

I know there's a video of the developers explaining their LN implementation on Youtube...
AFAIK, there's indeed an optional 3rd-party server to handle LN transactions and to enable you to receive through your channel(s) even though your client is offline.

I will try to find it, I'll just edit this later.
Ehm, I can't tell which one is it, just pick one from google search: Google Search: electrum "lightning network" youtube  

[NeuroticFish]

Maybe this would help: https://youtu.be/BcjKejXlLbM?t=12147
It's from Bitcoin Lightning network Hack Day in Munich, and it's ThomasV presenting the LN implementation in Electrum.
Unfortunately I didn't have the time to watch it...

[nibor]

Thanks NeuroticFish - that was perfect... explains it all.

If @thomasv reads this then he should look at:
https://github.com/ACINQ/eclair/pull/1026
it shows that it is possible to derive everything from a seed - which was one of his concerns.

Also I think that the routing should not be done in the client. Requires receiving a lot of data and once there are 1m+ nodes will take a long time to load each time you start electrum.

[Wind_FURY]

Thanks NeuroticFish - that was perfect... explains it all.

If @thomasv reads this then he should look at:
https://github.com/ACINQ/eclair/pull/1026
it shows that it is possible to derive everything from a seed - which was one of his concerns.

Also I think that the routing should not be done in the client. Requires receiving a lot of data and once there are 1m+ nodes will take a long time to load each time you start electrum.

Electrum's Lightning wallet might be a custodial wallet, which isn't a problem if ease of use, and a smoother user experience is what we want. Sometimes people in the community cry for decentralization when giving up some of it for efficiency is the better path in my opinion.

[nc50lc]

Electrum's Lightning wallet might be a custodial wallet, which isn't a problem if ease of use, and a smoother user experience is what we want. Sometimes people in the community cry for decentralization when giving up some of it for efficiency is the better path in my opinion.

His point was for backup purposes, because with the current suggestions with LN implementation, it's not possible to recover the whole wallet with opened channels using only the Mnemonic Phrase.
I can't find any written articles if it's possible with their "Watchtower implementation" since it saves a backup and keep the channels online even if the client is offline.
Only this non-answered post of shivaenigma to the link below.

Also I think that the routing should not be done in the client. Requires receiving a lot of data and once there are 1m+ nodes will take a long time to load each time you start electrum.

Late: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/2557#issuecomment-438718104, yes it will be done by the client.
But according to the post, they haven't decided to enable the client to forward payments but keeping it disabled may lessen the traffic:

• no forwarding of payments for now (Electrum cannot be intermediate node in a payment route)
• all channels created by Electrum are "private" (no channel_announcement, won't show up in channel gossip)

.
@nibor If you want your suggestions to be discussed, open a feature request in the official Github page (issues) with label: lightning: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/labels/lightning%20%E2%9A%A1