Lightning Network Observer

[franky1]

chivo (el salvador) no longer supports LN (chivo and strike went their separate ways)

instead there is a middle man custodial service that acts
as a gateway from fiat <> chivo
as a gateway from btc <> chivo
as a gateway from fiat <> btc

and as a separate service
as a gateway from btc <> msat

chivo does not use lightning directly anymore. it uses a custodial service
(alphapoint) / river financial

..again lightning was in chivo sept 2021-december(strike partnership)
but due to bottlenecks and liquidity issues. el salv dropped it and went with alphapoint as a custodial service.

[1714308130]

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[cAPSLOCK]

chivo (el salvador) no longer supports LN (chivo and strike went their separate ways)

instead there is a middle man custodial service that acts
as a gateway from fiat <> chivo
as a gateway from btc <> chivo
as a gateway from fiat <> btc

and as a separate service
as a gateway from btc <> msat

chivo does not use lightning directly anymore. it uses a custodial service
(alphapoint) / river financial

..again lightning was in chivo sept 2021-december(strike partnership)
but due to bottlenecks and liquidity issues. el salv dropped it and went with alphapoint as a custodial service.

Franky in this thread...

[fillippone]

Franky in this thread...

We need a bath of realism.
We are still so early, that missteps, errors, scams and complete turnaround are still very possible, or rather in some more advanced questions, light LN; should be considered pretty normal.
So I Like @franky1, who tries to point those faults , not to make fun of it, but to learn from errors.

Edit: how comes the gif are out of orders? Too big?

[JayJuanGee]

For the beginners out there, an old article has just been updated with the latest version of LN and a few wallets:
Lightning Wallets Comparison

In depth functionalities review of all Bitcoin Lightning Wallets, analyzed in 4 categories.

As I said, the original article was first published a little bit more than a year ago, but it was updated and published at the beginning of this month.

Based on your posting from a few days ago fillippone, I had wanted to look into some of the lightning wallet comparison matters, and when I clicked on the link that you had provided, nothing opened  - causing me to web search based on the descriptors contained therein...  which was "lightning 20 wallets 20 comparison"..

Even though my search did not directly bring me to anything exactly with those descriptors, I did find a very recent article on Bitcoin Magazine from Anita Posch - and she is such a great explainer and surely a bitcoin advocate, an open source and self-sovereign advocate with generally great rationales in terms of attempting to figure out trade-offs - including her concerns that sometimes when folks (normies) go into a kind of trusting / custodial mode, they will sometimes get sucked into (lulled like a sleepy baby into) the ease and convenience of such custodial services which might disincentivize them from becoming truly self-sovereign and attempting to control their funds.

Here's a link to her piece:  https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/top-bitcoin-lightning-wallets-in-slow-internet

For sure, I am not even proclaiming to be very self-sovereign myself because many of us who are not able to read the code and even some of us who are using walled-garden Apple/IOS products are having to trust others to read the code and others to NOT put overly encumbered spy/rug pulling mechanisms into their closed sourced hardware (that is limited by their software) products.

Part of my recent motivation had been BlueWallet's announcement that they were no longer going to be offering their custodial lightning product that I had started to use some time in late last year, so yeah I am fairly a newbie in terms of actually attempting to interact with the lightning network - even if in somewhat trusted ways... through that BlueWallet product.

Even though Anita is mostly ONLY comparing around 7 lightning network wallet products (namely BlueWallet, Breez, Muun, Phoenix, Wallet of Satoshi, Zap and Zeus), she did seem to be hitting upon some of my concerns regarding some of the trade offs in terms of the Breez wallet, the Phoenix wallet and her concerns regarding how come Wallet of Satoshi had been becoming so popular in recent times...

On a personal level, I frequently have a decent amount of reluctance to be adding too many things to my life at one time, so when BlueWallet announced that it was discontinuing the custodial aspect of their lightning wallet, I had been considering that I just want to move to one wallet.. and be done with it.. yet, after reading Anita's article, I remain torn enough to likely just suck up the additional time to just plan to add both Breez wallet and Phoenix wallet and to see how the set up of each of those go.. and yeah, so far I have not done anything besides saying that I am going to do it.. so what I actually end up doing may well play out differently, and it may be worth a follow up to describe if their had been any issues regarding the set up of either (or both of those).. so I have funds to move from BlueWallet and then it looks like I have to set up initial channels on each of them.. which would likely be from on chain BTC wallets into each of those services.. the other thing is just making sure that I am comfortable with however I end up choosing to back up each of them.. so yeah, even when wallets (or any other new thing) may well seem to be easy to set up, it seems to be part of the process that any of us might not want to get too far over our skiis in terms of setting things up but then not having had adequately figured out our back ups... and/or keeping those back ups organized... I have some ways that I have access to coins through some of my devices, but I have troubles figuring out how to back them up, so sometimes the solution might be to move the coins (value) to some other mechanism in which a back up seems to be available (or known how to access.. prior to either losing the device or sometimes just having one device can lead to several kinds of vulnerabilities... that some of us might not realize that our devices and our back ups are all in the same place and what would happen if our house burnt down, for example)...

[fillippone]

Based on your posting from a few days ago fillippone, I had wanted to look into some of the lightning wallet comparison matters, and when I clicked on the link that you had provided, nothing opened  -

I like your wall of text to say: "Broken Link!"

Here is the link you searched for:
Lightning Wallets Comparison

Original link also fixed.

[JayJuanGee]

Based on your posting from a few days ago fillippone, I had wanted to look into some of the lightning wallet comparison matters, and when I clicked on the link that you had provided, nothing opened  -

I like your wall of text to say: "Broken Link!"

Here is the link you searched for:
Lightning Wallets Comparison
Original link also fixed.

O.k.. yeah.. that link worked better than the previous one that did not work... ...,

Thanks.. I spent a bit of time looking through the article and some of the articles that were linked therein too, and I am not going to say that I understood all of the things.. but the article did bring to my attention that if I might still be considering Breez and Phoenix as possible lightning network wallets to try out, then maybe I might want to consider trying out Blixt too? 

Blixt seems to be in a similar category as Breez in terms of several of its features, but I had not heard many (if any) folks really talking about Blixt.. so maybe I will add that to my LN wallets that I actually try out and maybe not.. maybe I will become a chicken, instead?.. time will tell.. and likely one wallet at a time.. perhaps over a day or two.. in the coming week or two?...

[mendace]

Blixt seems to be in a similar category as Breez in terms of several of its features, but I had not heard many (if any) folks really talking about Blixt.. so maybe I will add that to my LN wallets that I actually try out and maybe not.. maybe I will become a chicken, instead?.. time will tell.. and likely one wallet at a time.. perhaps over a day or two.. in the coming week or two?...

Blixt is a good wallet but too immature yet in beta testers.  First of all you should consider how you want to use LN, do you just want to play a little with little funds?  (recommended) or do you want to move large quantities?  (not recommended).

If you consider the first choice then go for a custodial wallet like Wallet of Satoshi or you can increase the fun by using the wallet bot on telegram @LightningTipBot and manage it from Zeus.

If, on the other hand, you want to choose a non-custodial one, then blue wallet is an excellent choice or even OBW but you must make sure you backup the open channels or you risk losing the funds.

[JayJuanGee]

Blixt seems to be in a similar category as Breez in terms of several of its features, but I had not heard many (if any) folks really talking about Blixt.. so maybe I will add that to my LN wallets that I actually try out and maybe not.. maybe I will become a chicken, instead?.. time will tell.. and likely one wallet at a time.. perhaps over a day or two.. in the coming week or two?...

Blixt is a good wallet but too immature yet in beta testers.  

That may well be enough of a status update to dissuade me from wanting to venture into that one (referring to Blixt).. so then I am back to Breez and Phoenix as the ones that I am planning to try out..

First of all you should consider how you want to use LN, do you just want to play a little with little funds?  (recommended) or do you want to move large quantities?  (not recommended).

Well mostly I am wanting to just have lightning available to me and I also want to get comfortable enough to recommend newbies, in my circle of acquaintance to start with which ever ones that I had chosen to use... so yeah, I will use first, and then hopefully recommending other newbies.. and perhaps largely non-technical folks to start to use whatever I am using.  In theory.. so we will see if I have to change my expectations along the way.

If you consider the first choice then go for a custodial wallet like Wallet of Satoshi or you can increase the fun by using the wallet bot on telegram @LightningTipBot and manage it from Zeus.

Maybe I will look at it again..? I don't know.. Anita did say that it is very user friendly.. but surely it is problematic to get tied into both custodial and closed source, so just like Anita was discussing, I do not like the idea of recommending that others get tied into any of those kinds of custodial and closed sources either... so I am thinking that it might not be a good idea to take the easy and lazy way... even though maybe it has some features that I might want to test out.. . just to know about them.. perhaps? perhaps?

If, on the other hand, you want to choose a non-custodial one, then blue wallet is an excellent choice or even OBW but you must make sure you backup the open channels or you risk losing the funds.

Well part of my motivation to add wallets has to do with Blue wallet closing down its lighting wallet that I had been using.. so I have to look for a replacement.. and OBW does not work on IOS... ..

[mendace]

Well part of my motivation to add wallets has to do with Blue wallet closing down its lighting wallet that I had been using.. so I have to look for a replacement.. and OBW does not work on IOS... ..

Ok I understand that you want to manage your wallet and therefore also the channels, you could also consider making yourself a very simple node with Umbrel and manage it with Zeus from IOS

[aysg76]

I like your wall of text to say: "Broken Link!"

Here is the link you searched for:
Lightning Wallets Comparison

Original link also fixed.

This had me that I laughed out loud but apart from joking,Yes I really like to read all the explanations that JJG writes pointing out to each matter in detail and help us to understand things better on these topics.But good that he also shared all other points covering the part the link was broken and you editing it with right link.

[cAPSLOCK]

Franky in this thread...

We need a bath of realism.
We are still so early, that missteps, errors, scams and complete turnaround are still very possible, or rather in some more advanced questions, light LN; should be considered pretty normal.
So I Like @franky1, who tries to point those faults , not to make fun of it, but to learn from errors.

Edit: how comes the gif are out of orders? Too big?

Not sure.  But I agree that to treat a thing like lightning with the greatest of dubiousness is the best idea.  In fact I think the Monero community engendered the best spirit of healthy doubt and mistrust of any project in the space.  And it must be this way.  A large bug in lightning would put a quarter of a billion dollars at risk.  And we should continue to try to find the problems.  And there are plenty, for sure.

Most of our Frankie's arguments are extremely lopsided though. 

[franky1]

fair play to those that want to make crypto services and niche subnetworks.

but to be ignorant of the flaws and instead only want to do snake oil sales pitches of best case scenario and utopian dreams... isnt helping anyone
just getting outraged because someone is breaking the snake oil sales pitch of utopian fluffy cloud dreams says more about those that still want to recruit victims into a flawed system.. than it says about me who is trying to tell people of the risks/flaws so they can make their own decisions of risk tolerance

lightning even by devs own admissions is not going to succeed as a mass network for millions of users

there is nothing bad in realising these facts, learning from mistakes and then trying something different.

there will be other subnetworks that offer things that mainnet do not. but lightning wont be #1 subnetwork

there are already other subnetworks that require locking up bitcoin and have more bitcoin liquidity locks pegged to the other subnetworks than lightning has

[DooMAD]

there is nothing bad in realising these facts, learning from mistakes and then trying something different.

Except you don't want to try something different.  You want to copy shitty forkcoins and their utterly backwards approach to "scaling" (and it's not actually scaling in the accepted sense of the word).

[franky1]

there is nothing bad in realising these facts, learning from mistakes and then trying something different.

Except you don't want to try something different.  You want to copy shitty forkcoins and their utterly backwards approach to "scaling" (and it's not actually scaling in the accepted sense of the word).

funny part is that i have been talking about scaling transaction counts onchain before the forkcoins existed

and by scaling.. you have no idea what that word means.

you shout the word "bigger blocks" while ignoring actual options.
i have said even years ago about a block that SCALES
heck i have en said about scsaling transaction counts within the current limits too

then you for years have been saying anyone that wants scaling wants LEAPS of blocksize(facepalm)

as for who does or doesnt want something different. you want people to obediently follow core roadmap and want anyone else suggesting anything else to STFU and F**k OFF
so its you that doesnt want things to change away from a corporate plan

heck for years there have been suggestions made about your favoured subnetwork. and you have screamed how people should shut up and stop talking abut x,y,z

as for other bitcoin things i have said about fee mechanisms that only punish the bloaters. and YOU are the one that shouts how everyone should pay more, whilst letting the bloat continue.  onchain or use another network

heck if its not cores sponsored roadmap, you want all those against it to use other networks

yes YOU have screamed your version of scaling is: "100mb blocks asap" as your argument to say no to scaling

yet many many people including me have been saying about scaling as small but regular adjustments to increase transaction count.. which is the true definition of scaling
also fee mechanisms to reduce spam to allow more genuine transactors. and fee mechanisms that only punish the bloat/spammers to punish the bad and incentivise the good for having more transaction opportunity without impunity for being a lean non spammy user

you cry that removing spam is censorship when reality is the spam bloat censors out genuine transactors

you have things backwards
...
as for lightning. its not fit for purpose.
basic common sense and maths shows the more users on it the more it actually bottlenecks and fails

but rather the fix the flaws you and your idols just want to waste YEARS advertising its dream to people rather than fixing the flaws to make the dream a reality.


lightning has failed so many physics/math/economic policies of effective monetary policy that lightning would have to go backwards and start again if it was to even try living up to its promises

however bitcoin does not need to go backwards. just needs to stop future crap continuing, and concentrate on going forward in a proper scalable way that works and has security precautions of nodes first activation second. to secure the network as a priority. not secure human devs god-mode title

[cygan]

first ever Lightning network conference in Da Nang (vietnam) happens this week (march 23-24)
for more info visit: LIGHTNINGCON VIETNAM
among others the following interesting speakers are present: Jimmy Song, Elizabeth Stark, Dominik Weil and more

[cygan]

https://twitter.com/BTC_Archive/status/1640719353414033408

and here the official announcement👉https://blog.zebedee.io/zebedee-borderless-payments/

[JayJuanGee]

https://twitter.com/BTC_Archive/status/1640719353414033408
and here the official announcement👉https://blog.zebedee.io/zebedee-borderless-payments/

I fixed your (above) quoted image cygan.

You must have had been drunk when you posted it..

hahahahaha

Substantively, I like that message since it sounds like a good development in terms of making lightning payments easier and more widely available.

[fillippone]

https://twitter.com/BTC_Archive/status/1640719353414033408

and here the official announcement👉https://blog.zebedee.io/zebedee-borderless-payments/

I am now wondering what happening in the credit cards war rooms,  where they are discussing how a gaming software House basically stripped their business away from them.

Banks will realize tomorrow.
Regulators cannot even understand what we are talking about.

[mendace]

I am now wondering what happening in the credit cards war rooms,  where they are discussing how a gaming software House basically stripped their business away from them.

Banks will realize tomorrow.
Regulators cannot even understand what we are talking about.

Interesting, too bad I'm not a fan of Zebedee.  I don't like their LN wallet because it's custodial and because there are too many things that could do without it.  If only they would commit to continuing the OBW fork

[fillippone]

A very interesting presentation by Giacomo Zucco, her last week in Viareggio:

The State of Lightning Network - Giacomo Zucco @ Lightning Summit Viareggio 2023


3

March 2023, 30. Talk by Giacomo Zucco about the future of Lightning in front of an audience of Bitcoin industry insiders and in particular Lightning Network. Very interesting insights and connections with Slashtags, Nostr, Greenlight and many other players in the international Lightning scene.

Please note this is a copy of the streaming session, so quality is not great.

Slides are available here.