Lightning Network Observer

[cAPSLOCK]

  But if it exists for X amount of time I will recover it.  I just have to decide what X is.

This amount is defined in blocks?
How long this channel has been opened?
I guess it is fair to set roughly the same amount of time the channel was open.

By this metric he has 3 months.  My node made requests for force closes 30 days ago.  The channel was opened 120 days ago.  Leaving him 3 months to return.

Or Channel opened 727763 Close request 741000 current 745150.  It was open for roughly 13k blocks.  So sometime around 758500 would do.

I am in no hurry.  I will also have to learn how to craft the close action by hand... that might be tough.

His node was YOUNG.  Mine was from 2019.  At the time his channel was worth ~2kUSD (half that now).  Who would walk away from this much.  Craig Wright?  Franky?  Really only a raving lunatic!

[cygan]

today i accidentally came across a very good ln-bot for telegram. this bot is a BTCitcoin lightning wallet that can send tips (small amounts) on telegram. to send a tip, add the bot to a group chat. the basic unit of tips are satoshis and with the start of the bot, a lightning address is automatically created for the respective user - in my case the: cryptocygan@ln.tips 

[cygan]

the lightning network is getting bigger and bigger 👌

[n0nce]

I often reference https://walletscrutiny.com/, when it comes to questions like 'How good is wallet X' or 'What wallet would you recommend?'.
Mostly for their regular tests of build reproducibility. Open-source code gains you nothing if the firmware you are flashing to your hardware wallet or the software package you are installing, doesn't match the source.
That's why I value their service a lot.

The other day I noticed they are looking for donations and their donation page supports Lightning payments.
I think it fits the 'Lightning Network Observer' topic since it's a way to spend some sats and support a good cause..

[cygan]

“With Stablesats-enabled Lightning wallets, users are able to send from, receive to and hold money in a USD account in addition to their default BTC account,” said Nicolas Burtey, CEO of Galoy, in a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine. “While the dollar value of their BTC account fluctuates, $1 in their USD account remains $1 regardless of the bitcoin exchange rate.”

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/galoy-brings-us-dollars-to-bitcoin

[n0nce]

“With Stablesats-enabled Lightning wallets, users are able to send from, receive to and hold money in a USD account in addition to their default BTC account,” said Nicolas Burtey, CEO of Galoy, in a statement sent to Bitcoin Magazine. “While the dollar value of their BTC account fluctuates, $1 in their USD account remains $1 regardless of the bitcoin exchange rate.”

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/galoy-brings-us-dollars-to-bitcoin

As the article states, if a lot of people buy e.g. 1BTC worth of stablesats and Bitcoin loses half its value, the company will have to give each such user 1BTC, and the users would be able to cash out 2BTC, right?
In a longer bear market, it will absolutely wreck the company if they don't have enough reserves.

Seeing that they are looking for money in the single-digit-millions-range, it doesn't appear to me that they have sufficient reserves.
Maybe they are working with centralized exchanges in a way that is often suspected already to be happening: those 1BTC I mentioned earlier, will be 'printed' out of thin air at the exchange, in hope that not all users withdraw to non-custodial wallets at the same time.

I'd personally steer clear from something like this.

[dkbit98]

I'd personally steer clear from something like this.

I would agree with you, but I would probably use this as temporary solution more than using other any stablecoins built on top of shitcoin networks.
Imagine people that had tokens like TerraUSD, any stablcoins on solana network, or they would have to pay crazy fees on ethereum for USDT or USDC.
Just for comparison sake, there is a list of 22 failed ''stable'' coins so far, some of them I never heard before:
https://cryptosec.info/failed-stablecoins/

It would be interesting to make something like Stablesats but with decentralized exchanges like Bisq (instead of using OKX), so you would remove biggest risk.
However, this is easier said than done for many resons.

[fillippone]

The other day I read an interesting article by Lyn Alden. It was super interesting, but I forgot to post it here, untile I saw it relaunched by Micheal Saylor:



It’s not an easy ready, but definitely worth it.

A Look At the Lightning Network

Examining the scaling method of the Bitcoin network and its evolution from a store of value to a medium of exchange.

This article examines the relationship between a monetary asset being a store of value vs being a medium of exchange.

Specifically, it focuses on the scaling method of the Bitcoin network as its main example, but also takes a broad look at the history of trade-offs in the cryptocurrency space as well to see why a layered approach makes the most sense.

The primary goal of this article is to examine the topic of how bitcoin has evolved as a medium of exchange, and more broadly to analyze the order in which new monetary assets can be accepted as a store of value and a medium of exchange.

As a big part of that, I’ll include an analysis of the Lightning network, which is a small but fast-growing payments layer that is interwoven into the Bitcoin network.

[franky1]

and when people do get struck by LN see the flaws of LN. they come back to bitcoin and realise they should never have left bitcoin. and then they appreciate bitcoin

[cygan]

[fillippone]

and when people do get struck by LN see the flaws of LN. they come back to bitcoin and realise they should never have left bitcoin. and then they appreciate bitcoin

Of course it is an anedoctical evidence:



Living in El Salvador using bitcoin only, primarily Lightning.
In a third world state, almost bankrupt.

Looks like a success to me.

[franky1]

btc = bitcoin network.. bitcoin never leaves the bitcoin network
msat. = lightning.. msats are not understood by the bitcoin network

when people make payments measured in msat where they are shown a balance in msat. they are not 'only using bitcoin'

oh and a little hint

the chivo wallet DROPPED LN and instead used a CEX exchange as the backend to the chivo wallet to AVOID using the LN flaws that hit el salvador in september-december 2021

https://gadgets360.com/cryptocurrency/news/el-salvador-chivo-wallet-app-new-relaunch-bitcoin-alphapoint-2746778

yep even el salvador hated LN flaws, failed payment. bottlenecks and blocked funds(offline hubs/channel partners)
now el salv citizens have alphapoint accounts that custodian-ise the btc. and do mysql account balance swaps internally.
yes they can still withdraw to bitcoin addresses or risk locking into LN channels some msat balance but thats has become secondary gimmicks rather the main fund store of the custodian service

it actually pays to obverse lighting with eyes wide open instead of closing eyes and selling the dream using animation and random tweets of narrow use cases that fit your confirmation bias

you can easily find one person that smiles and says they do X when they actually do Y. where as i can show a whole countries government change their systems due to issues thousands/millions of their citizens suffered with.

have a nice day.

[cygan]

lightning capacity in BTC from this day
we are so early

[cygan]

my favorite Bitcoin explorer mempool has now integrated the lightning network. here you can now also get all details and infos about the lightning


https://mempool.space/lightning

[fillippone]

my favorite Bitcoin explorer mempool has now integrated the lightning network. here you can now also get all details and infos about the lightning


https://mempool.space/lightning

I am really puzzled.
What does the map represent? How do they know where Lightning node are located?
Is that an educated guess? Based on which parameters?

[TheBeardedBaby]

my favorite Bitcoin explorer mempool has now integrated the lightning network. here you can now also get all details and infos about the lightning


https://mempool.space/lightning

I am really puzzled.
What does the map represent? How do they know where Lightning node are located?
Is that an educated guess? Based on which parameters?

If you click on any node on the map you'll see detailed info about the node. There's also an ip address which is enough to pinpoint the location.

[n0nce]

my favorite Bitcoin explorer mempool has now integrated the lightning network. here you can now also get all details and infos about the lightning


https://mempool.space/lightning

I am really puzzled.
What does the map represent? How do they know where Lightning node are located?
Is that an educated guess? Based on which parameters?

If you click on any node on the map you'll see detailed info about the node. There's also an ip address which is enough to pinpoint the location.

Kind of magical that it is impossible to know where the 77.6% of nodes (Tor nodes) are distributed.


It is easily possible for large parts of Asia, Africa and South America to be fully covered of nodes, just without anyone being able to tell.

[fillippone]

Kind of magical that it is impossible to know where the 77.6% of nodes (Tor nodes) are distributed.


It is easily possible for large parts of Asia, Africa and South America to be fully covered of nodes, just without anyo

This is the point.
This is a very precise map of the 22.4% del network.
The vast majority of the network, the one more interest in privacy, remains obfuscated.

[fillippone]

A couple of other great tweets about Bitcoin:



I really cannot take a stand on this.
I don’t see  “Bitcoin as Digital Gold”, but I do see “Gold as Physical Bitcoin” as more challenging to move and more difficult to divide.
SoV and MoE functions are reunited in bitcoin because of immediate transferability and infinite divisibility.

Another tweet explains why the above chart is relevant.
Usage over the LN is rampant :



Corollary: there is the possibility to earn from fees:



Of course, careful resource management is necessary.

[cygan]

freshly tapped lightning beer at the btc22 conference in innsbruck/austria�👌