This is Roy Sheinfeld (@roy) and I'm the CEO and Co-Founder of Breez where we create a n infrastructure for non-custodial, P2P Lightning economy.
I've also came up with LSPs and helped with podcasting 2.0.
Go ahead, AMA!
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This is Roy Sheinfeld (@roy) and I'm the CEO and Co-Founder of Breez where we create a n infrastructure for non-custodial, P2P Lightning economy.
I've also came up with LSPs and helped with podcasting 2.0.
Go ahead, AMA!
What's something you believe about Bitcoin that no Bitcoiners agree with you on?
Not all bitcoiners think btc should be a MoE. There are some small stuff, for example, I don't use the term "wallet" to describe Breez. I don't think the term makes sense in the context of Lightning. Many disagree with me on that.
What's MoE?
Oh is it Medium of Exchange?
Yep
I am curious now - how do you describe Breez?
An app. Or a payment app. Why people don't use wallet to describe Cash, PayPal, Venmo? Wallets are signers. Lightning "wallets" are much more than signers.
100% agree on wallets being signers. Bitcoin does suffer from bad UX terminologies; perhaps they should have been called keychains, as a lot of people today recommend.
A custodial payments app powered by the lightning network is completely justified to get new people onboard or simply if you want things to just work. People need to realize that good custodial lightning companies are not bad. There's always a choice in bitcoin to host your own node and that's the important part - that there is a choice.
Perhaps, but I believe in a non-custodial future that preserves the value proposition of Bitcoin. That's why we're focused on non-custodial. I think on the UX side, we can be on par with what custodial and even fiat solutions offer.
Which Lightning implementation will be the most popular in 2027?
Idk which will preferred in 2023 :) 2027, maybe David Marcus' ;)
lol
Are there any particular books that influenced you as a technologist?
Seriously, the Bitcoin PDF. I read mostly fiction tbh. When it comes to tech, I just read the docs :)
I mostly read fiction too!
What are your favorite fiction novels?
:) I like Nesbø, Akunin (I like detectives). Hemingway from the classics...
Oh and le carre ofc
Have you guys read "WE"? Just read that recently, it's fantastic.
Will add it to the list, thanks!
What is the biggest annoyance in Android or iOS? What do you wish they would do differently?
Background task support is a huge mess. There's no predictable way to get CPU time on both. Makes on-chain sync, graph sync challenging.
I have a question @k00b, wen SN in Breez? 😉
lol Soon™️
I have branch with it half implemented. Exposing our JWT via an API request just requires some heart surgery.
💪💪💪
What is the most requested feature that you don't want to add to Breez?
lol. There are many feature that if we were to develop a custodial solution would be great: receive to a lightning address, offline receive are two popular example. But, we're not compromising on self custody, so it would take longer for us, but we'll get there 🐢
Thank you for not compromising on self custody! Deeply appreciated 👍
🙏❤️
Stablecoins on lightning a do or a don't? Will it move forward adoption? Or do we need to keep it bitcoin only?
The way I see it, Lightning as a network is agnostic to stable coins. In Taro for example, only the edges need to support it. So, it's not really a Lightning feature, it's a way to use Lightning to transfer fungible tokens. It's still btc from a Lightning standpoint. The only question Lightning wise is if it's ready to handle the stable coins traffic. Meaning, it will require a lot more liquidity to handle the traffic generated by stable coins transfers and w/o better liquidity management tools in place, I think we should wait.
Any general advice for early Bitcoin/Lightning companies?
Too many:)
Anyone that is interested to hear more about our journey - feel free to DM
When 0conf channels?
John is playing... It's 15.1 now, right?
Is a custodial wallet ever justified?
It's not a wallet, it's an account ;) I don't blame users. My view is that people don't care, they use what works best for them. The reason they choose to use custodial solutions is because non-custodial solutions can't offer a better UX. I believe that we need build non-custodial solutions that users will prefer to use and I truly believe we'll get there. P2P money has a lot of UX benefits.
Well-said!
Hi Roy, big fan of Breez. It's my go-to wallet when showing others what LN is capable of.
I read this recently: https://blog.blockstream.com/lightning-platform-breez-to-integrate-greenlight-to-build-non-custodial-lightning-apps/
What benefits have you seen since working with Greenlight + c-lightning? How does it compare against LND?
Mainly, it will allow us to split Breez into multiple apps: wallet, podcast player, point of sale, etc. Also, it will be much faster to load and use. More here: https://medium.com/breez-technology/get-ready-for-a-fresh-breez-multiple-apps-one-node-optimal-ux-519c4daf2536
Thanks for the love ❤️
Thats fantastic. like me I am prefer the wallet only feature. POS and the podcast is not my requirements at the moment( I totally admit its a great idea and do the job well).
May i ask when can we have access to the wallet only app?
Thanks for doing such a great job. 👏
Is Breez ready to be split into multiple applications? At what point do the wins overcome the risks? Are you planning any direct communication between the LN enabled apps on the same device?
We're working on it. We're going to release another product based on Blockstream's Greenlight. Meaning, the user node will run in the cloud and the keys will be on the user device. This will allow us to spin-off Breez to multiple apps: wallet, podcast player, point if sake, and then more. I wrote about the short term trade offs here: https://medium.com/breez-technology/get-ready-for-a-fresh-breez-multiple-apps-one-node-optimal-ux-519c4daf2536
Thoughts on blinded routing, BOLT12, other privacy propositions?
Blinded routing and PTLC are required to enhance privacy. Both will be supported by all implementations, just a matter of time imo. I also think BOLT12 is needed. There are few enhancements coming up: hold htlcs, onion messages that will enable asynchronous payment (aka offline receive). I'm really looking forward to see some progress with these
?
Aside from Breez (and Stacker News), what is your favorite Lightning app today?
?
?
As a user, I use Bitrefill a lot. I can tell you our users love lnmarket & kollider. I'm also a huge THNDR games fan ⚡
How do you know?
Our telegram group, twitter, emails. We have lively community :)
👀 What's the deal with the question marks?
We're starting a thing 🙂
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Hi there!!! Love the app and the UI.
I hope that eventually could be lighter, feels too slow I'm my Android phone.
Keep adding feature! A wallet that supper podcast, logins, trading is cool as hell.
Thanks you so much 🙏🥰 A lot more is coming. Our new Greenlight app will be slick as f***.
Keep in mind the current Breez app is running a full Lightning node on your device. Including Neutrino and source routing. Our new Greenlight offering gas a different model: the node is in the cloud and only the keys are on the device. It will be much lighter to use.
When do you think Breez wil be a profitable company?
We're running a marathon. A lot of resources are needed to build a scalable non-custodial infrastructure and to educate the market about using Bitcoin as MoE. However, I think it will happen much sooner than people think.
Should bitcoiners stop trying to make everything trustless and guaranteed by the Bitcoin blockchain and start relying on reputation and market forces to provide goods and services instead?
There's no such thing as "bitcoiners". People can do whatever they want. For me, you're describing the value prop of Bitcoin. There's no contradiction between free market and P2P. There's also no such thing as "trustless", there's only trust-minimize.
what was the biggest reason you decided to switch from LND to CLN? I can think of many but what was it for Breez?
btw huge fan of everything you do for Lightning!
Thanks brother 🙏❤️
Main reason to add Greenlight is to be able to support multiple apps working with the same node. So it was more the hybrid (node on cloud, keys on device) we found appealing. I wrote about it here: https://medium.com/breez-technology/get-ready-for-a-fresh-breez-multiple-apps-one-node-optimal-ux-519c4daf2536
How many transactions do you think take place on the lighting network each day?
Hundreds of thousands a day would be my guess.
I had used wechat for work, and Elon's right that it's incredibly powerful. You can literally do everything on that phone, ordering take away, booking flight, looking for places to rent, twitter style message board, even paying invoices for business etc. And the best feature really is the chat, you can chat and send money while attaching messages.
I am wondering if this is the goal for Breez, except of course, no more censorship.
Yes, WeChat-like experience is part of the plan and very feasible in non-custodial Lightning. Integration Lightning into your day to day experience is the key to it's adoption.
Is it possible to earn money by providing liquidity for LN network? Average hourly wage where I live is only 2USD so not much is needed to be sustainable.
Check out Lightning Pool, Blocktank, Liquidity Ads. However, Lightning doesn't generate a lot of yield right now and there are costs involved in running a node.
Thats fantastic. like me I am prefer the wallet only feature. POS and the podcast is not my requirements at the moment( I totally admit its a great idea and do the job well).
May i ask when can we have access to the wallet only app?
Thanks for doing such a great job. 👏
Q3 this year
What's your opinion on channel splicing?
A must have tool for liquidity management. I wrote about it here: https://medium.com/breez-technology/lightning-is-a-liquidity-network-550896ca27ea
Thanks for the article!
I think that its going to be great for mobile wallets too. I can see a single balance wallet that's primarily lightning but can do on-chain spending and receiving via splicing.
Not sure. It's true that splice out is better than a reverse submarine swap from a UX standpoint, but it changes your channel capacity. Meaning, next time you top up via Lightning, you'll have to splice-in. Not ideal.
Good point, I hadn't considered the tradeoffs of changing the channel capacity. Definitely something to think about.
What is the the theoretical risk of custodial Lightning wallets? Could the app creator theoretically suddenly shut down and destroy lightning balances? What assures Breez customers of your security?
Breez is non-custodial. It follows the same security mode Lightning provides. Only users can access their funds. They are the only one who can sign the transactions required to send/receive funds. Custodial wallets are a different animal. The operators of a custodial service can access users funds and can steal them.
What are your thoughts on hosted channels? Do you see values/ a future in this, or is it nothing more than a non-custodial account.
Hosted channels are custodial channels. They are better than a custodial account (because they are auditable), but my focus is self custody.
Is Breez still werking on a Matrix integration? And if yes, what are the Lichtning functionalities that you will add to the Matrix protocol?
We've put it on hold because we want to built it on top of Greenlight. The lightning functionalities are (1) use your node identity to authenticate (a la lnurl-auth) (2) integrate Lightning payments into messaging. We hope to resume development once we have the right infrastructure in place.
@fiatjaf is working on nostr, a alternative for Twitter. At this moment this is, so far as I know, only for public messaging. But maby this setup can also be used for private massages.
https://github.com/fiatjaf/nostr
Do you think this can be a alternative for Matrix? The benefit is that your account is not connected to a thirty party domain name.
I wish we had all those features like right now! :)
What are your thoughts about NFC cards?
Specifically, how would you respond to this comment, left in today's Daily discussion thread:
#29718
It's not very secured at the moment, but I like the satscard approach with a printed code on the card. This can be implemented for lnurl as well.
First time using stacker news and I'd love to join your AMA session. Where can I get access?
You just did... Stacker News is unexpectedly easy to use :)
Hi Eddie, you just need to reply with a Q :)
Apologies, I misunderstood and thought this would be live presentation. Anyways, we have time next week to get to know one another but in the meantime, I'm curious to get your thoughts on what are the key trade-offs of LSPs (vs. Neobanks)? Would it be costs? Do you foresee LSPs being as cost-efficient if regulators start to add requirements (licenses, KYC / AML, other)?
Great question. I think neobanks will have challenges with global outreach due to regulatory requirements. KYC causes friction and AML are limiting. Long term I also think the on-chain cost of a non-custodial solution will be lower, making it very competitive with custodial services.
More next week 😉
It seems like Breez came to the realization that the best non-custodial lightning UX is a Greenlight-like remote signing setup.
What alternatives did you consider?
We think that in order to scale Lightning, this is indeed the best path going forward. But we will offer users to self host the Greenlight environment and we will keep maintaining the "node on device" offering.
I wonder if the Greenlight environment can be generalized into a protocol implemented by all the LN node implementations.
Like is there anything that's really greenlight specific, or do you foresee that all nodes will get this "hosting" ability?
We're working with the Blockstream team to open source it as a first step.
It appears there's active work on this and attempts to expand remote signing to other implementations: https://gitlab.com/lightning-signer/docs/-/blob/master/README.md
Are merchants asking for features added to the simple point-of-sale that Breez offers today? If so, what kind of features? And are there any that Breez is considering adding?
Great question. Yes, we keep adding features to our point if sale solution, almost all are user driven. The last one we've added was sales reports. We're going to add VAT support soon. Full list is here: https://github.com/breez/breezmobile/wiki/How-to-Get-Started-with-Breez-POS
I was really enjoying breeze until the sats I initially put in ran out and found I needed to reinitialize my wallet with a large 2ksat fee (for a second time). I tried refilling before it ran out but it failed after a dozen tries. I rarely go on an uninstall rampage, but I tell you that did it for me. This happened to me today. Losing 50 cents in a vending machine will never be forgotten. I won't be coming back if that's how it's supposed to work. Also lack of a playlist and the ability to choose to auto-add to a playlist and auto-download like podcast addict is a major deficit. Is my experience unique?
Breez charge a fee whenever there's a need to create a new channel. This is different from a custodial solution. Not sure why you failed to top up the wallet, maybe the sender failed to route? Generally, bugs can happen. We're learning and improving the product all the time. Playlist is a feature on our roadmap.
It would be nice to prevent your wallet from being emptied out and closed out simply by listening to podcasts. Needing to spend another buck to open a new channel only to have it happen again will piss people off enough they won't want to spend their time on your platform I didnt see an answer to my original question. I certainly hope closing people's channels isn't your primary revenue model.
We don't manually close channels unless they weren't being used for at least a month. There are cases where channels get closed because of unresponsive nodes or bugs (Lightning isn't yet 100% robust).
It happened to me in minutes. I was unable to generate an invoice to refill my recently emptied wallet without paying another channel open fee.
This is another reason why it seems your channel got closed by the network and not manually by Breez. We don't have any automation in place that close channels... Btw, closing channels is costing us funds. We would much rather keep channels open for active users.
I would like to know about technical details of greenlight and when its going to be open source?
Whan Breez will be build on Greenlight. Will it be possible to connect other apps or services than that from Breez to your Greenlight instance?