We’re excited to welcome Jesse Shrader (@Jestopher_BTC), CEO and co-founder of Amboss, for our first BTC++ AMA!
Jesse will be online for the next hour, ask him all your best Lightning questions!
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zaps forwarded to @Jestopher_BTC (100%)
Would you rather fight a shitcoin sized Fake L2, or a 100 Fake L2 sized shitcoins?
100 Fake L2 sized shitcoins.
The fake L2's don't stand a chance.
Hahahahahahaah
What did you think of Rene Pickhardt's paper and what do you think are the best ways to address the issues raised?
I think the assumptions that Rene used about how money moves through the network don't reflect reality. In the theoretical world that he created in the research, the lightning network can't work. In reality, it meaningfully supports bitcoin's scaling (we have such low fees now!) and other solutions can slot in to support its scale.
What assumptions did you find unrealistic and which ones lead to the lightning network "not working"?
Congrats on all the work you’ve done in the Bitcoin space. Quick question that might be a bit uncomfortable: what’s the main reason Amboss is OFAC compliant?
I appreciate the care in the question! It is sensitive.
As a bitcoiner, I'm opposed to sanctions and I don't want censorship of money.
As bitcoiners, we should fight for neutrality at the protocol level, meaning OFAC should not be relevant there. Having miner decentralization is critical for this.
At the application layer, where Amboss operates, we created a service to help businesses set up configurable controls. The obvious one is an OFAC policy since businesses MUST comply with OFAC if they want to remain businesses; otherwise they will simply be projects (limited monetization) that aren't connected with a government.
While I'm opposed to sanctions and OFAC control, we have to be realists and very practical to provide services to individual users as well as businesses that require compliance programs.
Do you have a take on the current state of miner decentralization and where things seem to be moving?
There's a lot to be concerned about on that front! Globally distributed mining operations are the way to go; we wouldn't want any country, even the US, to dominate the network.
The BitAxe and HeatBit direction is very powerful and projects like that give me a lot of hope.
Which new developments (protocol, tech, apps) in lightning are the most exciting to you?
I appreciate a lot of thought going into user experience, especially for self-custody and for a broad user base, not just hardcore bitcoiners.
For merchant tooling, I think Flash is doing wonders as is Maybe:Daniel (just won the Breez competition).
For node setups, AlbyHub has made incredible strides.
What is the best way for a platform like SN to handle lightning for new users?
We have lots of people who come to try it out and get stuck setting up their own lightning wallet (opening a channel, getting liquidity on the other side of the channel so they can receive zaps without having necessarily spent any sats on lightning).
Do you think platforms like SN should offer a custodial wallet?
I think it's an individual business decision for SN.
Do users want the simplicity of a custodial wallet? Absolutely.
Does that introduce more risk or compliance costs to SN as a company? Yes.
We've watched some companies just say "Forget the rules, I'm doing it anyway" and those companies are no longer around.
SN did this then pivoted
The best way is probably to make a simple flow to use NWC and Alby Hub for the easiest setup, but it will be a continuous effort to abstract away the complexity.
We'd love to help with liquidity! Our API is a couple of lines to get liquidity going.
If SN has an awesome way to monetize, there's lots of options available.
SN supports NWC, so most of the NWC wallets are easy to connect (Primal, Minibits, CoinOS, Alby, Rizful, etc), but I still find the experience of trying to help a new stacker (often in person) set up their wallet often is a blocker. They want to just do one thing (sign up for SN) doing two things (sign for SN + download wallet app and create new wallet) is often too much.
It seems like lightning enabled apps are going to either have to provide a custodial option or come up with some kind of UX magic that gets their users signed up and a wallet without separate steps.
What is a feature that you would like to see implemented on LN? And a feature that would help improve your business?
I'd like to see easier ways to get lightning addresses. We built ghost addresses to address this, but it was very complicated because different apps cause conflicts (specifically with HTLC interceptors). If there was a management system for HTLC interceptors, you could do a lot more cool user experience upgrades.
Over the years I have heard many bitcoiners say that Amboss is collecting data on the Lightning network and node operators and that we should be concerned about Amboss and what they might do with this data or who they are sharing it with.
Why should node operators and bitcoiners trust Amboss and use it products/services?
This is the nature of Bitcoiners and some may never be convinced.
In general, we make products where we minimize the trust required, including designing products for self-custody users.
Whenever we offer a service, some data is always required to provide a useful, tailored service. If you don't trust anyone ever, you will have a hard time and the user experience will be rough.
Do you think that real, self-custodial lightning will ever be widespread for consumers or is it more likely that solutions like ecash, spark, and arkade will be the norm?
For consumers, I think other scaling solutions make more sense than lightning.
For businesses, the scaling, privacy, and efficiency of lightning is a much greater fit.
We even built a self-custody wallet: bancolibre.com to show it's possible! It uses liquid (similar to Aqua) but there's no app download needed and you get a lightning address. Would love for more users and builders on it!
I didn't know about this! I'll definitely check it out.
the business case does make a lot of sense. Something like lightning as the glue that holds all the various payment solutions together.
Right now, we're focused on bringing stablecoins to the lightning network via Taproot assets. Since we have Rails, our lightning yield service, it would give a stablecoin holder the opportunity to earn from cross-asset routing, essentially turning lightning itself into a DEX. With the protective provisions in the CLARITY act draft, this removes many of the concerns around compliance for enterprises.
Amboss makes money primarily through the Magma marketplace. It's proven to be extremely useful for users and I'm glad you appreciate it! We're focused on growth right now and we're seeing massive results. Magma volume has been increasing by 23% every month in 2025, on average. That sends a clear message of growth!
what is the biggest blocker to user onboarding to lightning?
It depends on the person.
For normies, it's bitcoin's volatility. You have to be able to answer the question of how they will make payroll and pay their vendors in a guaranteed way if they start accepting lightning.
For bitcoiners, it's about the technical complexity...they tend to want completely trustless setups (power to them) but they become their own enemy because it becomes so, so complicated.
I certainly identify with that. Lightning is complicated and I've spent more time than I ever wanted wrestling with it
Thanks for the great questions! Have to jump for now
Thanks for the great answers!
Can you share more about how you've calculated this $10B+ of annual Lightning payment processing estimate?
How does this number compare to your estimates in previous years?
view on x.comWe've been getting more visibility into routing activity by deploying nodes through our Rails product, and the insights are great!
The LNMarkets trade volume is massive, props to that team! That's been a very clear volume indicator, which they've occasionally shared publicly.
Speed Wallet has also been growing tremendously.
Then Square with their 4 million merchant rollout spells a rapid growth trajectory that enables extrapolation.
As a lower bound estimate (different calc methodology), we can look at closed channel volume on. Even that indicator shows over $2B in volume in 2025. It's highly conservative though, because lightning cycles a lot in each channel!
https://twiiit.com/Jestopher_BTC/status/2009052955694047685
What is one commonly-held belief in the Lightning ecosystem that you believe is wrong?
Wrong: Adding more bitcoin to your node will solve your liquidity problem.
It's like holding a magnet in front of your car will make it go faster.
What is the last thing you bought with sats?
More liquidity from Magma!
Https://magma.amboss.tech
How to you see growing the user base and increasing adoption in 2026?
UP AND TO THE RIGHT!
Lightning is growing explosively.
While stablecoins are taking off on many blockchains, the reality is that blockchains can't scale to the needs of AI.
Even Stripe's and Paradigm's Tempo blockchain with a promise of 100k TPS (likely impossible without extreme tradeoffs) falls short of AI's needs for TPS. Google is doing 189k searches per second. If you want to scale to the level of one tech company, Google, you need Lightning, which can do 40M TPS.
What role does AI play at Amboss and on the Lightning Network today?
Great question! We use AI to speed up Max Flow calculations, which enables us to quickly identify liquidity bottlenecks within the lightning network.
Can regular joes run routing nodes and sell channels on magma? Or should we stick to just using LN for our personal payments?
Absolutely! Regular node operators can sell channels on Magma and that's been the case since day 1 of Magma. In fact, it's why we created the marketplace in the first place!
What are the biggest bottlenecks limiting Lightning usage today?
While lightning is open to anyone it's still a complex setup. The tools are getting amazing though!
Both the Voltage API for businesses and Alby Hub have made huge strides to make setting up a lightning experience easy.
Secondly, merchants are terrified of Bitcoin's volatility. So, the introduction of stablecoin liquidity via Taproot Assets will be massive to broader adoption. If we make lightning into a protocol for instant payments instead of "spending your bitcoin", we'll take away the friction to moving value over Bitcoin infrastructure.
How has the job of "Lightning Routing Node Operator" changed over the last 5 years?
Which kinds of participants will excel at this game in the next 5 years?
We've watched competition heat up where routing fee rates are moving very dynamically. I love to watch the inbound fee rate market change throughout the day to swap nodes like Loop!
We've seen a lot more automation of nodes including several seller automations on Magma. I'm glad people are using the Magma API to serve people's liquidity needs!
The best operators are the ones that use lightning for payments. The best way to be at the center of the network is to do lots of payment volume!
Is 9.7% the industry high water mark for routing yield? Or are you aware of operators earning more?
view on x.comIt's possible to earn more!
Yield is a funny thing and it's NOT based on how much Bitcoin you deployed; it's based on the routing volume that you're processing. Block processes a lot of volume!
https://twiiit.com/ambosstech/status/2009292022440710582