Cake wallet integrates lightning payments with Spark via Breez SDKCake wallet integrates lightning payments with Spark via Breez SDK
You probably saw some articles that Cake Wallet has integrated lightning. Following many other wallets, Cake Wallet is using Spark to solve some of the technical problems presented by using Lightning on mobile.
Roy tells this story of Cake Wallet's eventual Lightning integration. It began in 2024 with Cake attempting to use the Breez SDK which relied on Greenlight (now deprecated) at the time:
Greenlight was a quality-of-life improvement over earlier implementations of Lightning on mobile devices. Running an actual Lightning node on users’ phones devoured resources and required constant sync with the Bitcoin chain and the Lightning Network, which was very challenging to solve with the restrictions of the contemporary mobile operating systems. By moving users’ nodes into the cloud and shifting many of the moving parts into the background, Greenlight did improve the UX.
But Greenlight didn't solve liquidity or liveness problems well enough to make the user experience easy. Roy frames this as:
Greenlight was an advance in the technology, but Lightning needed a fundamental change of the technology.
Is Lightning B2B, while Spark, ecash, arkade etc are B2C?Is Lightning B2B, while Spark, ecash, arkade etc are B2C?
More specifically, I think Roy is saying that the industry had to shift how it was thinking about Lightning. Instead of tying to use it as a payments solution for everyone it becomes the "common language" that connects a bunch of "last-mile" solutions:
Lightning is still a vital part of how we transfer value, but it has evolved to become the common language and payment protocol that connects these last-mile technologies rather than a channels protocol that end users need to master. And Lightning’s connections run deep. Even when bitcoin moves from a Spark entity to Arkade or between a Fedimint federation and Liquid, those various subnetworks speak to each other in fluent Lightning.
Roy concludes with this somewhat sunny statement:
The Spark implementation of the Breez SDK provided Cake with a balanced trade-off between a trust-minimized solution and the UX they deserve. It combines the openness, utility, and finality of bitcoin with features that have eluded Lightning until now, like offline payments.
Talking about custodyTalking about custody
@sethforprivacy, who works for Cake, wrote an article about this integration and how it changed his mind about lightning in general (From lightning hater to lightning builder).
In a tweet responding to someone who said it was sad to see Cake pivoting to Spark, Seth said:
The consensus on SN seems to be that Spark is trustodial (ie. requires enough trust in the providers that we might as well call it custody).
Matt explains how he thinks Cake and Seth should have described Spark instead of calling it self-custody:
There is some further discussion, but I'm curious what stackers think:
If federated statechain swaps fix lightning, and it's actually self-custodial, then there would be more than one of them. I suspect there isn't more than one of them because it's quasi-custodial, and no one but Lightspark[1] has raised enough money and is politically connected enough to survive a legal margin call.
Save maybe Blockstream which is in a similar boat with Liquid. It makes me think that, at least in regard to cryptoh companies, value accrues to those with the largest legal risk tolerance. ↩
There are 3 Spark operators currently:
Spark has been open source for a long time. Including the Operator source code.
Are you saying that each operator runs their own federated statechain? If not, did I say something that requires you pointing out there are multiple validators/signers?
I don't mean to sound like I'm dissing Spark. They are offering a solution to a serious problem in lightning and I'm grateful for it. Afaict no one is dissing Spark. We are, or at least I am, expressing frustration with how the product is marketed (and if you check the receipts, the same folks have the same complaints about "self-custodial" Liquid swaps).
Why are we so frustrated? Because the self-custodial lightning problem isn't actually solved yet, and broadcasting that it is risks us never actually solving the problem.
Also, it tends to inflame things when Spark-aligned folks respond to these frustrations with non-sequitur virtues, albeit real ones.
i agree with that.
I just equally hate how many in here assume that the Lightning UX is great and perfected, and if you can't use it self-custodially you're dumb: "the problem is you", or even better when they say ""bitcoin education"" is needed, as if anybody had to learn TCP/IP or SMTP and have ""internet education"" to use consumer products like Gmail.
fwiw I literally took a break from adding a Spark wallet to SN to write this comment.
I know it's quasi-FUD, because I'm sure more operators will come online, but David's son is the founder/CEO of Flashnet.
Bitcoiners have a high bar. When we say something is off, it doesn't equate to condemnation. It just means something is off. In this case, Spark is getting very close to abusing bitcoin/lightning's halo and unless there's some acknowledgement of that, bitcoiners will expect it's just-the-tip of the iceberg.
didn't know it was run by his son, that's pretty patethic
I wouldn't call it pathetic. I'd say it makes sense considering how young the federation is. I pointed it out because you were using that list to imply buy-in/decentralization/trustlessness.
I'm interested in trying to figure out wtf is going on ... which is hard to do when the definition of "self-custody" is extended to encompass things like:
context is me trying to implement recovery snapshots when receiving payments (customer and their mnemonic are offline ... yet I somehow need to auth as the customer to create a snapshot else lose ability to recover) ↩
Sorry, this is starting to feel redundant. Why in the absolute fuck does anyone care about a shitcoin wallet implementing a gimp quasi-custodial lightning solution?! Seriously, is Cake Wallet some juggernaut 800 pound gorilla in the wallet space? No one cared about this garbage before, why would anyone care about it now. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Someone please make it make sense.
Because I think a ton of bitcoin wallets are going to integrate Spark or Arkade or solutions like these. It seems like they are mostly going to call these "non-custodial" wallets. Is that a problem?
Its the shitcoin part that has me baffled. It isn't like there aren't or haven't been wallets that support lightning. I can't understand why the internet is just positively buzzing because Cake Wallet integrated lightning. Who gives a shit?
I guess they have good marketing? I haven't used Cake Wallet. I was surprised when they said they have 1 million users. That's way higher than I would have thought. It is cool to see lightning show up in popular wallets even if they are shitcoin wallets (seems like a sign that they think their users want it).
Simple. Just lay it out honestly. Even if it hurts. Most normies don't give a fuck if it is trustodial or not... trust and getting rekt is all they know anyway.
Am I going to use it? No.
Am I suddenly going to recommend people to use cakewallet? No.
Is it the best trustodial solution out there? I'd even argue no on that one.
Seth is just defending the party that puts the bread on the table... that's normal. We all got to eat.
"This does nothing for you, it's for our lawyers in case they need to lie to the government"
You seem to have a knowledge of LN.
What grounds would people who attach and show LN wallets to SNs have to worry about privacy?
I miseed this too: #1446846
Ah I knew I should have changed my title. It's more about matt and Seth's discussion than it is about Roy's article.
Is it me or has this story been shared like 5 times already! No shade scoresby 🤣🤣
BTW I downloaded cake wallet and gave it a look 👀
Very decent ux for me, lots of settings to delve through and tweak to your user pleasure
Obviously the spark under the hood is a no go for justin and darth and Other lightning experts
Obviously cake is a shitcoin wallet too whether thats relevant or not is up to the user
But credit to cake and seth for making a very user friendly wallet
I suppose this adds fuel to the fire that most normies will end up using custodial lightning which Obviously angers the stackers trying to fight the good fight 🥊
No, i totally missed that it had been shared already. But what I really wanted to talk about was people's response, so I left it up.
The question is should Cake Wallet be calling this non-custodial...or does it even matter what they call it?
Yeah I guess it's got 12 words and spark, so it is like JS always says.....
Trustodial
Reminds me of some French dude who put a toilet in an exhibition and people went crazy divided, is it art or not art!
Actually thats a shit argument 🤣🤣
made me chuckle.
RIght: this is Corallo's point: call it custody.
https://twiiit.com/roy_breez/status/2028832337387991425