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1 sat \ 3 replies \ @nullcount 5 Jan \ on: Why do people declare the LN a failure? Ask_SN
Segwit was pitched as a partial block size increase that would allow LN. It was widely accepted as a response to high fees in 2017. LN was going to enable the planet to use BTC at scale, no more high fees onchain. It was the ultimate scaling solution.
Turns out segwit would become a major CAUSE of high fees in 2023 (inscriptions). LN fees have risen in response to chain fees. Its clear that still not everyone on the planet can have a UTXO, LN didn't solve that. As LN tooling was built out, its clear that noncustodial LN is really hard if you're not already a systems admin. This led to many LN wallets being custodial.
The LN white paper makes it clear that the "FULL" version of LN will not be possible until Covenants. So, the LN we know and love is still just beta/incomplete pending yet another soft fork. Many in the "ossify now" crowd view LN as an excuse to keep forking BTC and introduce more unintended "attacks" to the base layer, just so everyone can use a custodian or federation for payments.
The Bitcoin white paper declares BTC as peer to peer, no middlemen, no financial institutions. LN is literally built for routing thru middlemen and hub and spoke "mega banks" issuing most of the liquidity. So many see the LN as anti bitcoin.
LN was going to enable the planet to use BTC at scale, no more high fees onchain.
According to absolutely no one, including the authors themselves, who went to great lengths to explain to people both in the paper and in follow up talks, that it doesn't scale to the whole world. (there isn't enough block space for every one to have a channel of their own).
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This is the conversation I want to have! You hit a lot of the topics that I've been craving more discussion about because I'm struggling with a lot of the long term implications of some of these things.
Side note:
The only thing you said that I want to push back on is "noncustodial LN is really hard if you're not already a sys admin."
The only thing you said that I want to push back on is "noncustodial LN is really hard if you're not already a sys admin."
Node solutions from Start9 and Umbrel with apps like Thunderhub and Ride The Lightning are making it quite easy to run a LN node. Sure, it's a half day project to follow along with BTC Sessions on YouTube and set up your node.... and another half day to learn the basics of channel liquidity, etc. But that's it. It's not hard.
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You’re right it’s getting easier but channel management is still hard and needs a lot more automation. There’s rebalancing, adjusting fees, running scripts and tools for picking new partners, dealing with closes and other odd errors, tweaking configs to take advantage of new options and best practices. Compare it to a credit card and a bank account.
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