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17 sats \ 26 replies \ @DarthCoin 5 Nov \ on: Arké Wallet: Ark wallet using second.tech implementation - Christoph Ono Design
I think I grasp the criticisms of Ark, but I'm curious: do you think we should bother with any constructions other than Lightning?
I don't think it is the case that Lightning is the only way to use move Bitcoin transactions off the main chain while preserving many properties of Bitcoin.
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I have nothing against these new developments. The thing I do not like is that they come to present themselves as a new L2 to "fix LN" and that is a damn lie,
All these L2s are just to fool new comers into scams... and fun fact they all depend of LN to function, otherwise are just totally useless. Ark is not doing anything different than LN.
The problem is that are many people that didn't go deeper into studying and learning more how LN can be used in many applications and they just want to be that guy meme "I am here to fix Bitcoin and LN"...
I think my old meme describe it perfectly:
We barely scratched the surface of using LN...
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If there were a lot of people using ark (or statechains)...they might not need so much to rely on lightning. Just as getting sats from lightning to mainchain meant closing a channel in the early days, things like Ark haven't been built out very much.
There is certainly an element of first-mover advantage here: if Ark was proposed at the same time as Lightning, I'm not sure what the landscape would look like today. Lightning benefited from a long run of everyone treating it with kid gloves. Maybe it needed that to get to the place it is today -- pretty sturdy, reliable, and impressive.
I agree that calling these other things a replacement for lightning is silly. And no doubt there is a lot of shady marketing going on. But I'm still interested in what people can do with them because Bitcoin is an open system and people will build whatever they like. Some of it will work, some will not, and a lot will work in ways we didn't expect.
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But I'm still interested in what people can do with them
Scams, gambling casinos, tokens, stablecrapcoins and all that plethora of bullshit.
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yes, but also receiving while offline and low-balance receiving or small amount receiving when you don't already have a channel open. The latter especially is something that lightning has not solved, but it is a legitimate use case.
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also receiving while offline and low-balance receiving or small amount receiving when you don't already have a channel open
Ark solves neither of those things, trust and centralization do. Lightning can do the same thing if wallets were to compromise themselves, Ark is just re-branding being compromised.
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Please tell me if I have this incorrect:
In LN, if I want to receive a low amount of LN sats and do not already have a channel open, custodial is pretty much the only way to go. Someone who does have a channel must receive the sats on my behalf and I have to trust them. If I keep receiving, I will eventually be able to open a channel, but I will have to pay for it (onchain fees + potential purchase of liquidity).
In Ark, if I want to receive a low amount of Ark sats and do not already have a vUTXO, I can still receive sats as a new vUTXO. Now, what is this thing? Does it have unilateral exit? if it's less than ~200 sats, certainly not. If I keep receiving, I will eventually have enough sats in vUTXOs to be able to unilaterally withdraw; however, this won't necessarily impose a cost on me until I withdraw.
In neither case am I talking about receiving sats from a different protocol or from mainchain. While I agree that it's not self-sovereign as the main chain, it also doesn't seem like the above description fits "re-branding being compromised" any more than LN.
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In LN, if I want to receive a low amount of LN sats and do not already have a channel open, custodial is pretty much the only way to go. Someone who does have a channel must receive the sats on my behalf and I have to trust them.
Correct
If I keep receiving, I will eventually be able to open a channel, but I will have to pay for it (onchain fees + potential purchase of liquidity).
Mostly correct.
You haven't received anything yet until its on the chain under your control. You could also spend back your side of the zero-conf trusted channel to a swap and pay the chain fee that way.
Same as you would pay to exit or swap out of an Ark.
I can still receive sats as a new vUTXO
No, you haven't received anything, the Ark coordinator received it with their liquidity and then opened a zero-conf channel with you, exactly as with the above LN example.
Does it have unilateral exit?
Only at the same point in time as you could have opened an LN channel, roughly the same footprint on-chain.
impose a cost on me until I withdraw
Chain costs are incurred when you use the chain for security, same as the LN example, you either upgrade the channel to a secure one, or exit entirely via a swap.
There is a point in Ark where you can have the ability to unilaterally exit your balance while deferring the cost to do so, it's the same cost realized at different times. The trade-off to deferring is that your future receives are still trusted, as they come through Ark's swap bridge. You're trusting them to issue invoices that actually credit you until such time you leave it and use a Lightning channel directly.
The entire premise of Ark scaling or making Lightning better is the insinuation people will defer exit costs forever and do trusted receives forever, that the Ark is a roach motel.
do not already have a channel open, custodial is pretty much the only way to go
No. Take example of how Blixt, Zeus is doing and also Shockwallet. You can have a JiT channel (just in time). The LSP is taking care of opening the channel. And these are the 0-conf channels we were talking about.
And this procedure can be tuned even more to make the newbies experience even smoother.
Again, for me is very clear: Ark will always depend of LN to go out in real world to make payments.
Yeah maybe will be few solutions for merchants to use vsats only with other ark users inside an ASP, but that will make them just an isolated niche.
And as usual I have a prepared meme.
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Yes. I understand this better now. Basically, Ark needs very large and widespread ASPs or it has to use LN.
I shouldn't be calling it Ark so much as Arks. There isn't any single Ark like there is a single LN network. I think I knew this, but I wasn't thinking about the implications.
Maybe there is a world where Arks pay each other onchain in batch settlements once a day or something, but it starts to look even more like custody at that point.
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Ark is copying somehow the same concept as Liquid. Think it like that.
We already have hosted channels, 0-conf channels, cashu etc
There are many ways to onboard "zero sats" noobs.
Do you know that I can open a 0-conf channel with your node and in an instant I can send/receive sats without even leaving a trace onchain and never close that channel?
Zeus also have a nice onboarding strategy: with the graduating wallet 0-sats user start with cashu, stacking slowly.
When the balance is high enough the user can open a 0-conf channel with the LSP or any other node and have a proper LN channel.
But very few people are studying all these aspects and use cases.
Few years ago I did an experiment with a school. Onboardingn an entire school kids and teachers starting from zero sats.
I used a LNbits, a bunch of empty wallets and opening 0-conf channels. In few days they start having each some sats, without knowledge, without buying any sats from exchanges, only from an ad-hoc bitcoin circular economy. And nobody says that LN is hard to use !
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if Ark was proposed at the same time as Lightning
It'd have been laughed off the stage as the centralized trust-based nonsense it is, since then we've been over-run with DeFi-brained clowns and unprincipled VC's that pivoted from Shitcoins 1.0 to Shitcoins 2.0
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