#asknostr
Lightning isn't good enough for the average user. Managing liquidity even with an app like Zeus is frustrating, even when using LSP. I'm currently trying to create an invoice, and it's just not happening - also the LSP channel is bouncing on and off line.. I ran my own lightning node for a while, and it was a complete pain - the average user isn't going to do this. Cashu is fine for small amounts, but it's 100% custodial, yes it's great for privacy and resolving (mostly) liquidity issues but it's doing an about turn on (for the user) one of the most fundamental aspects of bitcoin - self-custody.
I listened to @gladstein on 'What bitcoin did' and I'm sorry to say, he was not listening to the genuine concerns Paul Sztorc was raising (I'm not a proponent Drivechain at all, don't know enough about it).
But @gladstein was not listing to Paul's fact that lightning literally cannot scale/serve the global population, to be used as their primary bitcoin payments rail.
Because of the block size bottleneck, it’s not physically possible for the Bitcoin base layer to create enough UTXOs to give every human a channel anchor. At most, the chain can add a few thousand usable UTXOs per block, which is about 10–20 million new UTXOs per year (depending on transaction structure and usage).
To address these limitations developers are introducing more complexities with things like factories etc, but this was another point that Paul was making, if we start building more and more on top of something that from the get go is limited and has negative UX aspects liquidity etc, it might not be the best approach. Paul's rebuttal was that, look it's working - therefore, no problem etc Or Cashu working and can address scaling, but it's fully custodial, so to Paul's point again, if things like Cahsu are the solutions to lightning limitations, it's not good enough, (we're giving away self-custody)
Additionally new comers to the space will have to grapple with the above - e.g. trust Paul (in the countries he's working in) that trusting other people with their sats (Cashu) is fine for x duration (why they ask?) to then have to explain why it's necessary (and how to) sweep their funds to something like Zeus, explain LSPs, liquidity, nodes etc and finally explain sweeping sats from lightning to bitcoin is necessary, and what full self custody genuinely is. I'm not saying providing this education to each person who comes to the space isn't possible, I'm just saying maybe we're building out the wrong things (the ladder is on the wrong wall)
To sum up:
Lightning UX isn't up to scratch (liquidity issues, LSPs, channel management etc) even Alby/ Zeus is frustrating and plenty complex for a semi-technically proficient person
Lightning wont scale globally, if it does it's done with additional complexity and patch work, with come with significant trade-offs.
I'm looking at Spark at the moment which seems promising, and could 'Simplicity' by @Blockstream be something?
Finally I'd like to thank everyone in this space, and all the work they do especially all those explicitly mentioned above.
@walker
@Gigi
@HODL
@Marty Bent
@jack mallers
@Danny Knowles would love to see more conversation(s) around bitcoin scaling 🙏
Here's @fiatjaf
article on lightning limitations that Paul referenced, but I don't believe @gladstein read (at least prior to the WBD episode)
Reasons why Lightning is not that great