What do y'all think about the the Liquid Network?www.youtube.com/watch?v=W90nOePOz58
1398 sats \ 15 comments \ @0xIlmari 20 May bitcoin
Bitcoin University just released a video about the Liquid Network.
I've seen in the past certain stackers calling Liquid a straight up shitcoin, but that's not at all the message of the video. It is, in my opinion, a fairly balanced summary of what it does and what the risks are.
I personally think calling it an "L2" is a stretch, and "side-chain" is more appropriate. Interestingly, Matthew compares Liquid to Fedimints, and I think it's fair, given the rugpull risk model. Albeit the Liquid Network Foundation members are much more distributed than your average Fedimint manager would be. (That being said, I'm having trouble finding the list of "functionaries", i.e. key holders of the Bitcoin-side assets and network block signers.)
Also, Liquid Network, as it describes itself, is purpose-built for asset issuance, which can range from "useful" tokens (I consider tokenization of real-world assets such as property, stocks etc. to be "useful") to straight up shitcoins (USD included, Tether is prominently advertised).
Liquid does not ultimately solve the scaling problem of Bitcoin, just provides extra "bandwidth" for transacting and it too could get saturated with activity. This is unlike Lightning, which scales Bitcoin itself by orders of magnitude, but of course has its own set of problems/trade-offs.
Personally, I recently pegged in some sats into L-BTC and keep it on my Jade. I think it's a good way to cheaply top up your Lightning balance via Boltz as needed, which I've tested out successfully.
I'm wondering what do y'all think about Liquid. Do you use it? Do you think it's a scam?
write
preview
related posts
72 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 20 May
Great on-boarding tool. Great for DCA, great for daily spending. Works great in combination with lightning.
reply
115 sats \ 1 reply \ @OneOneSeven 20 May
I'll post for Darth since he's probably at the citadel. From #318849:
Liquid is not a L2... is a sidechain.
Liquid was a good intention. It was coming up early in the block size wars as a proposal for exchanges, to have some kind of interoperable network to move funds between them, faster and cheaper than BTC onchain, but still using BTC. I kinda agree with that use case. A federation that is moving funds privately between them.
But then LN was launched and come in force and Liquid kinda lost the use case. The block size war was also over, segwit in place and onchain mempool liberated, so even the exchanges that were excited about Liquid, they were still preferring to do it over onchain as usual.
LN got more and more grip and Liquid was slowly forgotten and became useless. Now Blockstream, want to push people into using it as it would be a "cheapest and fastest" way instead of LN, because they do not want to see it terminated (as nobody is using it). In the end they put a lot of effort and money to build it. IMHO they should go back to the original idea to be used for private entities and not pushed to large masses of users.
Now all those onchain maxis want to use Liquid instead of preparing in time, with calm new LN channels. That's why this crazy mania with Liquid. But as usual when the onchain fees are going down, Liquid use is going to meaningless until zero.
A TLDR:
https://m.stacker.news/31813
reply
42 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 21 May
He forgot balancing lightning channels using liquid
reply
10 sats \ 0 replies \ @GregAsks 21 May
Every shitcon can do the same, as liquid...
reply
94 sats \ 0 replies \ @cristaiji 20 May
I like it so far - have used it with Aqua. I did have an issue with one stuck transaction for 24 hours but now resolved. I'm a fan of Adam Back and Blockstream so fairly bullish.
reply
10 sats \ 0 replies \ @notgeld 21 May
Legit.
reply
10 sats \ 1 reply \ @btcschellingpnt 21 May
Liquid is a great tool that bitcoiners should try out - have it in your 'toolbox'.
A key differentiator for Liquid v Lightning, is that Liquid does not require online infrastructure whereas Lightning does. I use both, and as others have pointed out, boltz.exchange is great for atomic swaps between Liquid and Lightning. I don't think Lightning obsoletes Liquid, although the publicly discussed use case for Liquid (fast private liquidity between exchanges) appears now better handled by Lightning.
As Bitcoin grows, the use cases evolve and change, and so do the tools that deliver against them. boltz.exchange is a good example. So, my advice is run it, use it, understand it, and then you've got the skills to use it if/when you need it .. or the understanding to say: not for me.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 21 May
I can’t tell if hatred of liquid is hatred of Blockstream
reply
10 sats \ 0 replies \ @teemupleb 20 May
“Liquid does not ultimately solve the scaling problem of Bitcoin, just provides extra "bandwidth" for transacting and it too could get saturated with activity.“
Liquid federation members could agree on increasing the blocksize. Also Lightning could run on Liquid.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 21 May
I was wondering if he posted any videos about liquid
Matt K explains things well without trivializing important technical and economic details
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @falsefaucet 20 May
Trade-offs.
Always trade-offs.
Permissioned.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 20 May
Good summary, including the risks and shitcoinery.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kingzing131 20 May freebie
Fundermentally I think liquid has a lot of key advantages over lightning. But I feel it's positioned more for institutions than pleb.
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @leaf 20 May freebie
I feel like liquid was implemented far ahead of its time. When bitcoin starts to have consistently high fees is when liquid will start to see more serious adoption and its value will become more obvious, imo.
Boltz shows how useful it will be. I imagine with high fees many people will progress from lightning -> liquid -> bitcoin as they stack sats
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @itsMoro 20 May freebie
i think liquid is fine, but once you learn how to use lightning the use cases get pretty small. it literally is only useful imo as a bridge to lightning in certain circumstances.