Lightning and Ark are Bitcoin, not an altcoin :)

[d5000]

This is a discussion that pops up every now and then, so I try here to contribute to clarify it a bit. It popped up last time in a thread about volatility but at least in detail it is off topic there. And I think it merits an own topic, as there was not even one in the past, the closest one is this one.

Why do I think Lightning and Ark are Bitcoin?

Well, first, as some have pointed out, "X is Bitcoin" is a terribly vague statement which has to be defined.

My logic goes this way:

1) Bitcoin can be defined as a system with a clear goal: to solve the double spend problem.
2) Both Lightning and Ark use exclusively Bitcoin techniques to solve the double spend problem:

-- They use Bitcoin transactions which use exclusively Bitcoin Script rules (e.g. HTLCs), which reference real UTXOs on the Bitcoin chain (not on a sidechain or altchain).
-- If there is any disagreement, the disagreement is solved with a on-chain transaction. This is the so-called unilateral exit (see this definition). Every Lightning or Ark participant can push the transaction "bundle" to the chain whenever they want.

3) There are no additional trust assumptions when you use Ark or Lightning. There is no trust necessary in the Lightning nodes or in the channel partners. [1]

Both Ark and Lightning can be both nailed down to the following statement:

They use only the Bitcoin protocol for transactions and validation, but they only use the Bitcoin blockchain if it is really needed because there is a disagreement, i.e. a double spend attempt.

Or in other words: If you use regular Bitcoin transactions, then often you use the on-chain mechanism even if there is no double spend risk. In reality you wouldn't need that mechanism in most cases.[2]

Conclusion:

If we assume that a transaction is "Bitcoin" if it is secured exclusively by the Proof of Work mechanism in combination to Bitcoin Script rules, then both Ark and Lightning transactions "are Bitcoin transactions".


[1] An argument could be made that there are possible attacks on Lightning that aren't possible to regular on-chain transactions, like the well known Replacement Cycle Attack. But these attacks are based on software bugs and thus can be solved. They are not really different from the situation where an user uses a client which has an exploitable vulnerability. The culprit is not the Lightning concept.

[2] Only the party which makes a payment can double spend, i.e. the receiver is the one protected by Bitcoin's mechanisms. But the payer is "allowed" to double spend by the protocol until the first confirmation. We can say: If the payer is honest, then he can accept a set of restrictions. Lightning and Ark are rulesets with such restrictions. In both, the entity in control of the funds allows the receiver to revert the transaction if he misbehaves, and he's even penalized in the case of LN-Penalty. This occurs by a series of Bitcoin Script commands, i.e. this mechanism is 100% Bitcoin-native.

[Kruw]

You are technically correct, which is the best type of correct.

A simper way to phrase it: A presigned transaction with a timelock is still Bitcoin. That's what Lightning and Ark are built from.

[Ambatman]

Maybe it would be nice if they can see it from the analogy of an highway and express  road built alongside it
With bitcoin native material.
Main is very secure though slow with rules guiding it and you enter and exit only through the main highway
When you switching route the vehicle you using doesn't change to a bike or a boat
Because they different way of reaching similar goal.
And if there's an issue you can fall back to the main road.


Not absolute but it's the simple I could think of.

[Sammysmart001]

I think the whole idea come from
People having the mindset that anything that is off chain is altcoin. Me oh, the difference is that Ark and lightning don’t have their own blockchain or native coin. They are still using Bitcoin and any dispute at the end  can be settled on Bitcoin blockchain. So rather than seeing them as altcoin i see them as Bitcoin layer 2 solution

[MarryWithBTC]

I think the whole idea come from
People having the mindset that anything that is off chain is altcoin. Me oh, the difference is that Ark and lightning don’t have their own blockchain or native coin. They are still using Bitcoin and any dispute at the end  can be settled on Bitcoin blockchain. So rather than seeing them as altcoin i see them as Bitcoin layer 2 solution

You can simply see them as hybrid also, whereby they behave like Altcoins when off chain and become bitcoin when on chain 

This is an argument that will not have an end because some top Bitcoin developers participate in this debate.

But to get a true answer to this debate, you have to ask;
If Blockchain security and decentralization the only qualities that makes bitcoin? If yes, I am just afraid...

Another question is; is your bitcoin in CEX still bitcoin? Or they only becomes bitcoin again when they hit the bitcoin Blockchain. This can help us settle issues.

[d5000]

If Blockchain security and decentralization the only qualities that makes bitcoin? If yes, I am just afraid...

Why afraid?

These are not the only qualities, but the main goals Bitcoin was built for. "Crypto-currencies" existed since the 90s but they had not solved the double spend problem in a decentralized way. They needed a centralized source of authority.

This feature is a major step forward in technology. It is in the end the source of the value of the "Bitcoin" token. And it also somewhat "ensures" (although not with 100% certainty) the leadership of Bitcoin in the crypto space: Because the Bitcoin PoW is the strongest one (most hashrate/highest attack cost) it is the safest, and thus the most likely to attract bigger "value" holdings (investments), which again increases the price (or at least ensures the advantage over the second best). This is a virtuous cycle which is difficult to "crack" by another PoW altcoin. Ethereum tried it and failed.

PoS is another story but it is far less decentralized than PoW.

There are other qualities that are "derived" or "inherited" from the decentralization+security combo. The most important one is censorship resistance. Bitcoin is the most censorship resistant currency because to censor you need a cartel of 50% of the hashrate, and not only for a single block but for the whole period you want to censor.

Then there are qualities not directly related like the pre-programmed supply (21 million limit).

Another question is; is your bitcoin in CEX still bitcoin? Or they only becomes bitcoin again when they hit the bitcoin Blockchain. This can help us settle issues.

While they're inside the CEX from the point of view of the user they are Bitcoin IOUs (because the protocol doesn't ensure that they belong to them, it's the CEX). From the point of view of the exchange, it is a true Bitcoin they hold in cold or hot storage (and if they don't have a Bitcoin for your IOU, i.e. fractional banking, then no, then it's no Bitcoin).

[Satofan44]

Good thread, this is absolutely true and only the most clueless idiots or malicious individuals would claim otherwise.

You are technically correct, which is the best type of correct.

A simper way to phrase it: A presigned transaction with a timelock is still Bitcoin. That's what Lightning and Ark are built from.

They could be seen as an UI towards managing these types of transactions on a grander level and which enables a more seamless facilitation among more participants. That is all there is. There is no magic, there is no bridge, there is no centralization. This is usually claimed by clueless or hostile individuals. Meanwhile shitcoins basically have almost exclusively master-key based, bridge-dependent and centralized L2s that are not the same in these terms.

Another question is; is your bitcoin in CEX still bitcoin? Or they only becomes bitcoin again when they hit the bitcoin Blockchain. This can help us settle issues.

While they're inside the CEX from the point of view of the user they are Bitcoin IOUs (because the protocol doesn't ensure that they belong to them, it's the CEX). From the point of view of the exchange, it is a true Bitcoin they hold in cold or hot storage (and if they don't have a Bitcoin for your IOU, i.e. fractional banking, then no, then it's no Bitcoin).

They are absolutely only IOUs and numbers in a database. There is not even proof that the Bitcoin exist that are supposed to be "yours". Almost nobody provides any kind of proof of reserves, and even that proof is not adequate to prove that those Bitcoin that are allegedly yours actually exist -- it is just proof that "some" Bitcoin exist related to the exchange. This question that was posed by this user has no relation to the question of Lightning and Bitcoin because in the case of LN, the Bitcoin are on the blockchain the whole time and under the control of the user (just with additional conditions).

Comparing "leaving a CEX" to entering and exiting a L2 such as Lightning is as stupid as it gets. The former is a centralized database of IOUs, the latter is just a state of Bitcoin transactions.

[legiteum]

It's absolutely dishonest to declare something that isn't Bitcoin to be Bitcoin.

Everybody knows that Bitcoin cannot ever scale to handle even a tiny fraction of the world's daily transactions and even the hardcore religious zealots admit this. Thus hard-core religious Bitcoin copers have to pretend that L2s are the same as Bitcoin because they solve Bitcoin's problems of speed and efficiency (well not really, but they try).

But L2s are necessarily centralized to a greater or lesser extent, and thus have the same exact heterodoxy that any centralized system has to hard-core religious Bitcoiners. So you connect a centralized system, pretend it doesn't actually exist, then call the combination "Bitcoin", and voila: "Bitcoin" can scale to handling every single transaction on the planet and do so cheaply and efficiently.

Back here on Earth, L2s haven't caught on even after ten+ years of trying. Why? Because they are a pointless waste of time.

If you are going to use a more centralized system, then just use a faster/cheaper/easier system like certain very fast stablecoins that can scale to every transaction on the planet natively. That's why stablecoins now do $trillions in volume while L2s are hardly used by anybody. In other words, why have an L2 at all? Why not just make the L1 work like the L2?

Using an L2 with Bitcoin is no different than using CoinBase, Binance, Robinhood, the ETFs, or some other system that buys/sells Bitcoin for you in batch. In every case, you need to trust the system that is doing your work for you on chain: you can't pretend it doesn't exist. If that system has some sort of problem, then the fact that it promises to "eventually" store your money in Bitcoin does not matter. You either trust them or you don't.

Today, Bitcoin is doing a great job for people as an investment instrument. It will never be a mainstream means of payment. (Unless the architecture is changed to drop things like PoW and went to a trusted groups of nodes--something I have proposed in this thread).

Bitcoin's architectural trade-off has always been there for everybody to see: you can have a fully decentralized system like Bitcoin's where nodes are completely untrusted, or you have speed, efficiency and scalability. You can't have both. It's physically impossible.

And it's not just hard-core tech people like me saying this, the market has spoken here as well: L2s never took off, and they never will.

[ABCbits]

Using an L2 with Bitcoin is no different than using CoinBase, Binance, Robinhood, the ETFs, or some other system that buys/sells Bitcoin for you in batch. In every case, you need to trust the system that is doing your work for you on chain: you can't pretend it doesn't exist. If that system has some sort of problem, then the fact that it promises to "eventually" store your money in Bitcoin does not matter. You either trust them or you don't.

It's somewhat poor comparison. Each Bitcoin L2 and sidechain works differently, which means different level of centralized or minimum trust required. Check https://www.bitcoinlayers.org/.

[Outhue]

Someone gonna need to answer me on this.
Is L2 something we can call Bitcoin still? Aren't they trying to make things better for Bitcoin itself? How are they they real Bitcoin? Let's not forget that there were things that are trying to run via Bitcoin too and we all got disgusted, what are they called again? Those NFT like, I've forgotten what they are called.

Ethereum is a Layer 1 projects, a full smart contract capable one, and some layer 2 came to make Ethereum better, maybe we should start calling them Ethereum too?

[legiteum]

Using an L2 with Bitcoin is no different than using CoinBase, Binance, Robinhood, the ETFs, or some other system that buys/sells Bitcoin for you in batch. In every case, you need to trust the system that is doing your work for you on chain: you can't pretend it doesn't exist. If that system has some sort of problem, then the fact that it promises to "eventually" store your money in Bitcoin does not matter. You either trust them or you don't.

It's somewhat poor comparison. Each Bitcoin L2 and sidechain works differently, which means different level of centralized or minimum trust required. Check https://www.bitcoinlayers.org/.

Yes, I agree, different L2s incur different amounts of centralization, and they make different trade-offs. But none of them are Bitcoin.

(Why not just change the Bitcoin core to be like the L2 and make it fast/efficient/scalable? Why? Because that would break its "decentralized" religion*).

(* Btw, I think the actual answer to this question is: nobody cares about making Bitcoin fast since people use it only as an meme investment instrument and there are already other very good products out there that do the job of transactions better than any L2).

[lionheart78]

You are technically correct, which is the best type of correct.

A simper way to phrase it: A presigned transaction with a timelock is still Bitcoin. That's what Lightning and Ark are built from.

Aren't they protocols made on top of Bitcoin?  Yes, they deal with Bitcoin transactions and settle in bitcoin but they have extra features that are not actually within the Bitcoin protocol.  Being compatible to Bitcoin protocol does not automatically make a protocol Bitcoin, does it?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Where's franky1 when we needed him the most? Such "quality" discussions are buried in this forum, and especially about whether  "Lightning is Bitcoin". Too much energy wasted on people's incompetence and laziness to search how Lightning works.

Lightning and Ark are Bitcoin in the sense that they move the currency and you hold custody each time, as in the Bitcoin protocol.

[legiteum]

Lightning and Ark are Bitcoin in the sense that they move the currency and you hold custody each time, as in the Bitcoin protocol.

Sure, and the Bitcoin ETFs are Bitcoin in the sense that they hold your Bitcoin for you. CoinBase is Bitcoin in that it holds you Bitcoin for you, etc. etc. Most people would consider clicking on the "Bitcoin" button on their Robinhood app, "owning Bitcoin" and "using Bitcoin". But some people think differently about Bitcoin, right?

Many people here are "hardcores" and call themselves (for instance) "decentralization maximalists", and because of that, they say, they love Bitcoin. It's in that context that there's a bait-and-switch that occurs: suddenly they tack on something that is NOT like Bitcoin in their context, and yet they still pretend it's still the Bitcoin they always talk about.

Of course, if you give up being a "decentralization maximalist" (religiously devoted to Bitcoin), then you can get "tempted" by many other very sexy products on the market that are faster, cheaper, easier to use, and can truly scale to handle the whole world.   

[Ucy]

Could be considered Bitcoin (or peharps part of Bitcoin) if both are one system working together, with no barrier to value exchange, because they have compatible/thesame infrastructures, tokens, coins, rules, principles, etc

But it seems both can't exchange values between themselves. You need bridges, which still cannot be used to transfer value to oneanother unless with the use of representative tokens/values.

 By the way, it's better to say it's part of Bitcoin while the whole working-together compatible system is Bitcoin, otherwise it will be like saying an organization inside America is America.

You could however call such Bitcoin's Auxiliary system/network, or Bitcoin sidechain

[BlackHatCoiner]

Sure, and the Bitcoin ETFs are Bitcoin in the sense that they hold your Bitcoin for you.

Yes, the thing is, Bitcoin solves the problem of having to trust third party custodians by giving you the ability to self-custody it. I know you're afraid in the thought of keeping the custody of what is yours, but it turns out not trusting lizard people with your money is something the market values. I know, paranoia.

Therefore, many would define that you own bitcoin if you own the keys to it. Pardon them.

Of course, if you give up being a "decentralization maximalist" (religiously devoted to Bitcoin), then you can get "tempted" by many other very sexy products on the market that are faster, cheaper, easier to use, and can truly scale to handle the whole world.

It's not the best place to advertise Haypenny, just a tip.

[legiteum]

Sure, and the Bitcoin ETFs are Bitcoin in the sense that they hold your Bitcoin for you.

Yes, the thing is, Bitcoin solves the problem of having to trust third party custodians by giving you the ability to self-custody it.

Exactly. Thank you. L2s don't do that. They take custody of your Bitcoin (even if only for a short time, it doesn't matter).

So you can't call them, "Bitcoin" anymore than you can call your Robinhood account's BTC balance, "Bitcoin" (which, to be clear, most people actually do call their Robinhood balance "Bitcoin", but that's another discussion).

It's not the best place to advertise XXXXXXXX, just a tip.

Thanks for the plug (), but it's not a viable place to advertise... anything. The audience here is about 45 people, almost all of whom probably aren't going to try anything new  You would be better off yelling your ad out your window.   

[BlackHatCoiner]

Exactly. Thank you. L2s don't do that.

OK, so who else apart from me has custody to my lightning channel funds?

[legiteum]

Exactly. Thank you. L2s don't do that.

OK, so who else apart from me has custody to my lightning channel funds?

The lightning channel.

[Cryptomultiplier]

Could be considered Bitcoin (or peharps part of Bitcoin) if both are one system working together, with no barrier to value exchange, because they have compatible/thesame infrastructures, tokens, coins, rules, principles, etc

But it seems both can't exchange values between themselves. You need bridges, which still cannot be used to transfer value to oneanother unless with the use of representative tokens/values.

 By the way, it's better to say it's part of Bitcoin while the whole working-together compatible system is Bitcoin, otherwise it will be like saying an organization inside America is America.

You could however call such Bitcoin's Auxiliary system/network, or Bitcoin sidechain

What I know is that lightening and Ark don't use another kind of consensus mechanism to function because they rely on Bitcoin proof of work and are a clear expressions of Bitcoin script in honesty.
The lightning and Ark fall short of being 'Bitcoin' in the truest sense because they by design, cannot have their protocols fully independent but are bound to the original consensus rule of the genesis block.

However, Bitcoin as we know is an economic system that is policed by the consensus rule of the Bitcoin Genesis block of which lightening and Ark isn't capable of and this is the major disparity.