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488 sats \ 12 replies \ @Scoresby 1 Nov \ on: I saw this tweet reply about spark lightning
It's good to recall Bitstein's Everyone's a Scammer -- not because I particularly doubt what Megalithic is saying, but just because nobody is here "for the good of Bitcoin."
Spark sure seems to have a lot of corporate backing. And there pushing it everywhere. Yet, Bitcoin is an open monetary protocol. I welcome anyone building anything they possibly can that uses it.
People will build shit custodial systems and they will build cool self sovereign stuff. I see things like Spark in the same camp as the etfs. I'm not too interested, but some people are. It's an open system.
This is a great point. People want to use something that works. This is how we all ended up in this fiat hell scape now. Using Bitcoin in 2025 can still be difficult for the average person. If companies are upfront about the trade-offs, then individuals should come to their own conclusions on whether they want to use that technology.
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Fine but don't lie or mislead users about what really is that network.- because is not "another L2 for Bitcoin", is just a scam, just another "corporate network" that will keep you enslaved inside.
There is ONLY one L2 for Bitcoin and that is and will always be Lightning Network.
It's all about this
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I agree I don’t call anything layer two but lightning!
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Fun fact: 2 years ago I've created also a private corporate LN, for a small company. It was a testing pilot with a school.
I used LNbits and a bunch of simple LND private nodes. Only the company's node was connected with a single public channel to the rest of the public LN. But there were other 5 small private nodes, connected to each others with a private channel, using 0-conf trusted channels, that were never confirmed onchain, but working perfectly fine to send/receive sats between these private nodes.
Also LNbits was used for internal use between users in a school that didn't have to go out in the whole public LN.
And that could be easily expanded as a private LN bank, like a separate LN. All transactions are not even visible on any explorer or blockchain, those channels could stay forever open. This was an experiment of creating a bitcoin circular economy and how to use it. And wasn't even necessary of any liquidity management for basic users, not necessary to use any other bullshit Spark.
But yeah people are not willing to test these WORKING solutions, they just eat the shit posted by podcasters and complain that "LN is hard to use for average user..."
You as a long term bitcoiner have the duty to teach all these average users how to use it properly and help them building solutionns.
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LN bits is so hard to use behind Tor did you do this with clearnet nodes?
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Why in the hell you run a LNbits behind Tor ? You are not trusting yourself ?
Only idiots do that. Tor is totally useless for LN.
Read: #944885
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That’s the only way I tried to run it on start9. Most of these node in a boxes use tor by default
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sure is an open system but that doesn't mean we should not be vigilant and call out what is not good for bitcoin.
There are many other good custodial solutions that do not have such evil hidden plans. Are just custodial and people will treat them as such.
The Spark / David Marcus plans ar far beyond to just be a custodial service or an additional network to Bitcoin. This is the mistake many bitcoiners are doing: they look only on the surface... until is too late.
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No, not anything is bad for bitcoin.
I am a real example: I still use cowboy credits on SN !
A centralized custodial service like SN wallet filled with CCs is not bad for Bitcoin, as many think. If you use it for a specific thing, is OK. I could say that is beneficial for me because I do not have to spend my sats on SN. I got more sats in rewards (this is a flaw in SN system) without depositing / buying any CC.
Now comes the important question: have SN an evil plan with the CCs ? I don't think so and will be useless if they will have one.
Some centralized custodial services are bad and some are good and even could add some new good features out of bitcoin network. Important thing is that people can choose wisely and well informed.
Another example of a good centralized service: hosted channels. And HC are also open source and anybody can run it.
Many noobs don't even know what they are. But hosted channels could fix a lot of issues for noobs, and even adding more privacy.
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Yep, it's not a "threat" no more than someone offering to custody gold for you is a threat to gold. It might be a threat to the person that chooses this. Or rather a risk they may not be aware of. Or a tradeoff that is not well understood.
I don't think framing things as threats when they are really just tradeoffs is accurate or helpful to understanding bitcoin. There will always be scammers. We can't save people from their own choices and the consequences. But telling the truth and calling out deception is important
Your comparison to the ETFs is a great one. They are not a threat to bitcoin. Maybe they are to people but bitcoin does break because a company holds bitcoin on people's behalf. Those people are making a decision and that might work out for them. It might not.
When people talk like everything is a threat to bitcoin it makes me think why are they bitcoiners?
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