The bitcoin community is in my opinion more critical than it should be about Spark.
It builds on top of statechain with some significant innovations:
- It's a federated state chain, operated by multiple operators
- Only one honest operator out of many is needed to trust the system, improving security and decentralization compared to traditional single-entity state chains. Uses a threshold signature scheme (FROST)
- Traditional state chains required predefining denominations and breaking down funds into fixed pieces. It builds a dynamic hash tree that allows breaking down funds on demand into exact amounts needed for payments, enabling efficient and flexible UTXO (this solves the problem of needing "exact change" for payments)
- Spark supports unilateral exit, users can always settle their funds on-chain independently
- Spark enables offline receiving of payments without the usual custodial trade-offs, which was a major headache in Lightning (which makes Lightning have super clunky UX/straight up unusable in many parts of the world)
- Interoperability. Spark supports full Lightning payment artifacts (Bolt 11 invoices, LNURL, Lightning addresses) and integrates with Nostr for identity and communication
In general I feel like Spark was prematurely criticised and got a bad rep in the Bitcoin community, there are actually some useful innovations that make the bitcoin instant payment UX much much smoother
I like how they do DeFi play book. This is what undeappreciated in Bitcoin space which lacks risk appetite and lacks entrepreneurial activity.
But when it comes to protocols there are / were plenty of them. MercuryLayer tried to build statechains.
Most criticism relates to the marketing as "self-custodial" when its design requires significantly more trust than most systems we label as "self-custodial." It's self-custodial from a regulatory standpoint, like Liquid is. It's better, maybe, because it has this hypothetical unilateral exit.
On the unilateral exit thing though, I don't know anyone that's unilaterally exited successfully, do you? I'd guess most of the systems using Spark aren't designing/testing for that eventuality. I also haven't been able to find good information on how unilateral exits work beyond conceptual descriptions. (Admittedly I haven't looked as hard as I eventually will.)
Also, regardless of the innovations of the system, the federation is tiny and the innovations aren't widely dispersed, so having the majority of lightning consumers depend on it is risky. If the Spark operators decided to KYC, what do we switch to? We can't let self-sovereign lightning solutions atrophy to relatively centralized tools.
nice try Marcus family shill...
We know what are the plans with this crap trap:
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2024/10/investigative-series/the-chain-of-command-how-facebooks-libra-bank-regulators-and-paypal-built-a-new-world-currency/
and
#1275977
IT'S A TRAP!
No need to add anything.
The more they push this crap, more clearer is the Marcus plan...
Why would a nocoiner be attracted to use more expensive payment methods (Lightning) when in EU you have free instant bank transfers?
Different users have different needs.
Keep use lightning who cares. Others will choose what's subjectively better for them.
I don't think it's suitable for mainstream users. You can't even receive offline...
Bitcoin is a natural selection...
Is a stupid concept to "make easy to use" bitcoin for any dumb idiot on this planet. Bitcoin is much more than that.
Why a dev will push a nocoiner into a trap?
We use Bitcoin not because we want to make cheaper payments, but because
I think you do not realize the danger that pose Spark for bitcoin... or you are a paid Marcus shill.
We are at the same stage in bitcoin development as when to send an email you had to write terminal commands.
Emails became widely used only when a simple GUI was available to all.
Better UX drives adoption.
If you can't receive while offline, that is a dealbreaker in many regions of the world.
We can't stop improving... even sending to a simple regular bitcoin address causes massive anxiety to anyone.
The UX is immature...
comparing email with bitcoin is stupid. You just prove me that you have no idea what really is Bitcoin. You see it only as a new technology but is far far far more than that.
We are not in Bitcoin to make life easier, but harder. Harder because you have to learn many more new things, not just clicking some buttons to send money over internet.
So give me a break with "easy UX" concept. If people want freedom, must be responsible for their own actions and read and learn new things.
MAKE PEOPLE SMARTER BY LEARNING HOW TO DO THINGS, not by making it with easier UX.
I really don't give a shit about stupid people that do not want to learn. Stupid people will never bring you adoption, but trouble. Because by design they are stupid.