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I've always been obsessed with scaling Bitcoin to the entire planet, although realistically thinking in the end, this is probably not what will happen.
I've been seeking the perfect solution to scaling, and changes are high that Ark might be it.
There is a new on-chain transaction i.e every five seconds, so yes, Ark constantly demands bitcoin backspace. I consider this approach footprint-minimal as we can fit thousands of transfers in this transfer period.
Since Ark is based on a shared UTXO model, on-chain fees for the shared UTXO are shared among all other participants.
The public key of the intended vTXO is tweaked with a payment commitment that reveals the payment proof when spent. Tweaking details can be found here:
vTXOs in a shared UTXO are self-isolated from each other. One vTXO exiting tree doesn't affect the others.
ASPs can customize their fee tier configs and vTXO liveness delta preference according to fee market & liquidity conditions.
One must own a large chunk of BTC to run an ASP infra. Otherwise, its better to join an ASP federation.
Although intense capital requirements, overall, Ark uses liquidity as efficiently as Lightning since recipients are always one hop away from the senders, unlike Lightning, where the liquidity must be deployed on every single hop.
There is also room for liquidity optimizations:
#192143
Absolutely. That's what I designed Ark for. Ark brings custodial-grade UX to self-custody.
Ark offloads complexity from end users to service providers. End-users do not need to take care of their channel management/liquidity. Everything is abstracted from the user, yet the user retains self-custody.
We plan to use Rubin's congestion control tree idea for vTXO closures. In a disaster case, it could take years to withdraw from the tree, although the four-week locktime is over.
1.We'll have PoC around Ark?
Please don't take my word for it, I've been historically wrong with deadlines, but it's fair to expect a prototype later this year.
2.Ark is compatible with Nostr?
Yes, we plan to use Nostr as the transport layer for Ark; for things like out-of-band communications and coinjoin coordination.
3.What's scenario Ark with PayJoin?
TBH, I don't really know what a PayJoin is and how it works.
4.It will have VC influence like LL, Blockstream?
VC influence on the company, yes. VC influence on the protocol, no.
5.Why CTV is important for Ark?
We need CTV (or a similar proposal) to make Ark work non-interactively. Non-interactive as in receiving funds on the go (without being online).
Connectors output is also a tree of connectors. There is a 1:1 mapping from a connector to an anchor. I used one connector in the whiteboard session to keep things simple.
From an end-user standpoint, Ark is both great for savings and payments.
Ark is great for savings because you can own (and transact) BTC without demanding Bitcoin block space.
Ark is great for payments because you can pay invoices, as it's interoperable with Lightning.
I plan to build an infrastructure firm, similar to Lightning Labs play, to build & ship Ark. I'm in talks with a couple of venture capital firms.
Yeah, Tor makes coinjoins super tricky to coordinate. We're considering less privacy-preserving but more efficient alternatives for the transport layer.
There is room for two main liquidity optimizations.
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vTXO delta auto-adjustments vTXO liveness delta can adjust to liquidity conditions. i.e if we cut the vTXO liveness delta by half (2 weeks), we also cut this liquidity lockup requirement by two, and so on.
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A revocation logic I'm working on a revocation logic where a set of users in a shared utxo give up their ownership of vTXOs by revealing some secret. ASPs can efficiently redeem these funds without affecting the remaining participants before the four-week locktime is over.
Trustlessness is a binary option, not a spectrum. There is no such thing as 'more trust' or 'less trust'. It's either trustless or not, and Ark falls into the 'trustless' category.
Decentralization, on the other hand, is a spectrum, yes.
Decentralized ≠ Trustless.
Protocols/services can be:
- Centralized and trustless (LSPs & ASPs).
- Centralized and trusted (WoS).
- Decentralized and trustless (Bitcoin).
- Decentralized and trusted (Fedimint).