Any insight on this Spark thing? On one level, it sounds custodial (which, in my view, is ok up to "pocket-change" level), but then it sounds more okay with owner holding 1 of 2 keys and is therefore not exactly custodial. All told, I'm not too sure what to make of it.
https://atlas21.com/spark-the-layer-2-launched-by-lightspark/
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110 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 19h
My understanding is pretty superficial. I'd love to play around with it to see how it feels.
One thing I'm not sure about is when the UTXO does exit onchain and it's split up into 100's or 1000's of outputs. Maybe they have something in place that stops anyone with <5000 sats from losing their money.
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147 sats \ 4 replies \ @k00b 23h
It's basically a federated state chain. Shinobi wrote about state chains recently for BM: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/bitcoin-layer-2-statechains. He doesn't touch on Sparkchain but it'll tell you most of what you need to know.
The main tradeoffs stem from it relying on a central coordinator (in spark's case a federation of coordinators):
- if all coordinators are dishonest they can double spend a transfer to a recipient with the help of the sender iirc
- you can unilaterally withdrawal but it's like a lightning force close and your bitcoin is unspendable for a few weeks
- also, I'm not sure if it has consequences for using bitcoin on spark chain, but their token protocol allows for operators to coordinate on freezing funds ... afaict this doesn't affect the bitcoin part of the protocol considering that lrc20 does not hit the chain, but idk.
Spark's docs are very well written, so I'd go there: https://docs.spark.money/home/welcome
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33 sats \ 1 reply \ @BlokchainB 23h
Sounds like corporate Liquid
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165 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 23h
It is a lot like liquid. The main difference is that you can unilaterally exit and get your L1 bitcoin back - which is the main criteria met by things we consider a layer 2.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @crrdlx OP 18h
Thanks for the info. I still don't quite get it, sounds like it's on the custodial spectrum to me from bitcoin...ln...spark...liquid...ecash
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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 23h
It's not custodial, but it's not free of tradeoffs either. Almost forgot to answer that one.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 21h
Fake L2
Just another wrapper on a custodial service to scam the regulator and obfuscate the custodian
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31 sats \ 1 reply \ @seashell 21h
Spark feels like a middle ground between fully custodial stuff like Liquid and fully trustless layers like Lightning. The federation setup means there’s some risk if those coordinators act sketchy, but being able to pull your bitcoin back on chain yourself is a big deal. The catch is that exit locks your funds for weeks, so it’s more of a backup plan than something you wanna use every day for quick payments.
Then there’s the token layer with its freezing powers, which is kinda sketchy if you care about censorship resistance even if it doesn’t touch your base bitcoin. Overall, Spark might work for some niche cases, like moving small amounts inside a trusted group, but it’s not the fully trustless future Bitcoin needs. Just another tradeoff in the messy Layer 2 world worth watching but not something to bet on replacing Lightning anytime soon.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @crrdlx OP 18h
Thanks. I'm think I'm starting to get it a bit...on the custodial spectrum, has done tradeoffs
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @pbl4eagain 5h
its Lightspark's answer to the ln challenges. (inbound liquidity, always online, etc) the company is run by David Markus (ex paypal, libra project at facebook) Technically its state-channels with a few tradeoffs. You can't unilaterally exit without permission as of today from what I understand. Just listened to Matt C on TFTC podcast and he seemed to think it would work well for nostr zaps temporarily and then upgrade to say phoenix once you had enough to open a channel. Similar to Zeus's new upgrade of using ecash to receive immediately without a channel then graduating to a ln channel.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 8h
There's a (partial) risk assessment here: https://www.bitcoinlayers.org/layers/spark
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jestopher_BTC 19h
"Built on Bitcoin"
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