🔐 Protect Your Funds: Introducing Watch Swaps on LightningNetwork+ \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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🔐 Protect Your Funds: Introducing Watch Swaps on LightningNetwork+lightningnetwork.plus/posts/364

1479 sats \ 15 comments \ @BTC_LN 8 Feb 2023 bitcoin

718 sats \ 2 replies \ @based58 8 Feb 2023

pretty cool. the incentives for participating in this are very good: your watchertower protect the nodes of your peers, and theirs protect your nodes. This relationship of mutual benefit can encourage people to use their watchertower to protect others "for free", in a colaborative manner, since everyone benefits.

I like the idea of watch swaps, but I have some concerns regarding privacy:

I just wonder about the possible drawbacks: since other nodes will be aware of your channels onchain (they need to be aware in order to monitor the blockchain in case of a forced-close attack), it will reveal your channels and lose privacy. I guess they probably also have to known the latest channel state in order to check if the forced-close used a previous channel state (whose balance benefits the attacker) or if the channel closed did match the latest balance of the channel. This is another thing of concern: the watchtower of other nodes have to know your node's balance on the channels you want them to monitor.

please correct me if im wrong. Id like to know the privacy implications of watch swaps

575 sats \ 0 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 8 Feb 2023

The privacy is pretty decent. Economic activity (not amounts) will be apparent but not much else besides some general channel info. I haven't listened to this yet but been at an event where Sergi spoke, you might find this interesting. https://podcasts.apple.com/sk/podcast/sergi-delgado-watchtowers-and-lightning-privacy/id1496858178?i=1000597772441

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BTC_LN OP 9 Feb 2023

Yes, there are some privacy and resource concerns with watchtowers in general. You have to be careful choosing a partner, and perhaps it's best if you rotate several over time.

266 sats \ 1 reply \ @nikotsla 8 Feb 2023

Excellent, already setup and open one swap :), let's try.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @BTC_LN OP 9 Feb 2023

🔐 Enjoy peace of mind soon!

266 sats \ 0 replies \ @jerrywilliampolley 8 Feb 2023 freebie

Awesome idea, safer is better!

250 sats \ 1 reply \ @l0k18 8 Feb 2023

This is a great idea, when your node goes down or you have to stop it temporarily someone has still got your back. It would make sense to use it among several of your own nodes, not sure if that's easy enough to do anyway or not but this certainly would allow that.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BTC_LN OP 9 Feb 2023

Yes, that's a good idea to use your own nodes, and you don't need Watch Swaps for that. Watch Swaps is if you want to find a node that is willing to watch you and you don't control it.