Citadel Dispatch

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EPISODE: 45
BLOCK: 711009
PRICE: 1752 sats per dollar
TOPICS: the future of mobile lightning wallets, federated chaumian ecash, el salvador experience, hosted channels, IMMORTAN, simple bitcoin wallet, lightning liquidity, private routing, user experience, better wallet names, jupiter has a lot of moons

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(00:00:00) The rise of cryptocurrency and its potential impact on currencies and nations

(00:03:19) The future of mobile lightning wallets and their importance

(00:08:33) Introduction to Simple Bitcoin Wallet and its goal of making lightning payments more successful

(00:54:09) Proposal for a special protocol for federations to link multiple federations and route payments between them

(00:55:19) Importance of Lightning integration with federations for permissionless access and starting your own federation

(01:01:38) Benefits of Lightning integration for interoperability and direct interaction with other Lightning wallets and merchants

(01:44:44) Discussion about a questionable advertisement

(01:45:15) Opinions on whether the advertisement looked like a scam

(01:47:01) Comparison of the advertisement to Bitcoin in the past

(01:48:01) Discussion about the people at the booth

(01:49:03) Final thoughts on lightning and privacy

(01:50:08) Appreciation for the guests and invitation for future collaboration

(01:50:25) Closing remarks and upcoming episodes

[00:00:00] Unknown:

More area that I hope nation states start paying greater attention to is the rise of cryptocurrency.   Because what looks like,   a very interesting   and and somewhat exotic,   effort to,   literally mine,   new coins in order to trade with them   has the potential for undermining,   currencies,   for undermining   the,   role of the dollar as the reserve currency   for destabilizing   nations, perhaps starting with small ones but going much larger.   So when we think about this new environment in which we find ourselves that we've been discussing for the last   some minutes,   we can't just think about nation states.  



[00:01:24] ODELL:

Happy Bitcoin Tuesday, freaks. It's your boy, Matt O'Dell, here for another Citadel dispatch,   Dispatch. The interactive live show about Bitcoin distributed systems privacy and open source software.   That clip out you just heard was from failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton   explaining   the absolute power and significance of Bitcoin   to the new economy forum.   Huge shout out to the ride or die freaks who are joining us in the live chat. I know it's an earlier time than usual,   but I got   a straight fire group of guests to join us today, and we had to make this time work.   Happy Thanksgiving to all the American freaks out there. I know it's a big family week,   for most of us, so make sure you treat your families   with at least some monochrome of respect when you're talking about Bitcoin.  

Huge shout out to all the ride or die freaks who continue to support the show and keep it ad free, sponsor free, and purely focused on actionable Bitcoin discussion.   The easiest way to support the show is through podcasting 2.0 apps.   My two favorites are Fountain Podcasts   and Breeze Wallet. Breeze, that's b r e e z.   If you just download one of those apps, you can load it up with Sats, search Citadel dispatch, and you can send Sats directly to my node   as you listen to the show.   You can also support dispatch at cildispatch.com,   either through lightning or through Paynim.  

My samurai Paynim is Odell. It is very easy to remember.   So thank you again for supporting the show, and thank you to the ride or dies who continue to join us in the live chat, which, a reminder, I had some people ask me, you can access through Twitter, Twitch, or YouTube, whichever platform you prefer.   With all that said,   we have Citadel dispatch 45   today.   The focus is gonna be on the future of mobile lightning wallets. I expect,   and I think   many Bitcoiners would agree with me,   that the overwhelming majority of new Bitcoiners will come in through phone wallets.   And   on that note, many of them will come in through lightning. So mobile lightning wallets are an extremely important topic   and how we develop them, how we improve them,   how we see them going forward is going to be a very important topic.  

I am very excited to have repeat guest, Fiat Jaffe here, prolific   lightning developer   with very strong opinionated,   very strong opinion. How's it going, Fiat, Jeff?  

[00:04:03] Unknown:

Yeah. It's good.   Not many   prolific contributions   lately, but still strong opinions.  

[00:04:11] ODELL:

Well, welcome welcome back. Happy to have you again.   We have Anton here,   lead maintainer of Simple Bitcoin Wallet, a mobile on chain and lightning wallet. How's it going, Anton?  

[00:04:25] Unknown:

It's been fine. Thanks.  

[00:04:27] ODELL:

Thank you for coming on. And we have Eric Sirion here who has a new proposal for Federated   Chaumian   Lightning Wallets,   that aim to bring more privacy,   and easier UX to mobile lightning wallets. How's it going, Eric?  

[00:04:46] Unknown:

Quite well. Just came back, from an awesome week in El Salvador where I experienced lightning,   in the real world first time.  

[00:04:55] ODELL:

Well, I mean, that's a good place to start.   Are Anton or Fiat, Jeff, are either of you in El Salvador?  

[00:05:04] Unknown:

No. I haven't been there.   No. No.  

[00:05:08] ODELL:

What was your experience like, Eric?  

[00:05:13] Unknown:

Like,   the few shops that supported lightning,   like, not everyone did, but the ones that did and were using,   like,   a community   built wallets,   like, Bitcoin Beach Wallet,   all these good things.   They still had some problems with you. Like, people were entering their own amounts they want to pay,   and,   like, it wasn't as smooth as it could be. So I think that we can do a lot better, and I'm looking forward to contribute to that.  

[00:05:48] ODELL:

Awesome. Yeah. I mean, I I've I've heard a lot of mixed   mixed experiences on the ground, particularly with   the the Chivo wallet, the government wallet,   which I I guess a lot of merchants use because they wanna they wanna instantly convert to US dollars.  

[00:06:09] Unknown:

Yeah. I didn't want to talk about that. That was just terrible. Like,   Jiro just, didn't work. Like,   the people that figured out how to,   generate lightning invoice on Jibo.   Then they had to fight for huge delays before the   sections was with the air. Like,   that's definitely not a good part of, experiencing lightning in El Salvador.   But Bitcoin Beach, was doing much better. So if you want to visit there, that's the place to go.  

[00:06:41] ODELL:

I mean, it kinda makes sense. I mean, Bitcoin Beach has been on the ground,   helping merchants and helping users for at least a couple years now,   if not longer. So,   they did did kinda have a head start in El Salvador.   I mean, I thought it was an interesting   interesting spot spot to start because, I mean, El Salvador is a whole country that got   thrown into lightning,   by their president,   and most of them aren't going to use computers. They're gonna be using mobile wallets,   and most of them aren't gonna be using on chain. They're gonna be using lightning.   So I feel like it kind of was a big kick in the ass to the community,   to   really prioritize   better UX and more user friendly,   mobile lightning wallets,   sooner rather than later. Did you also get that that,   that vibe, Eric?  



[00:07:39] Unknown:

Very much so. And one other thing that showed in El Salvador is that, like, most of the local people, they actually use, like, not self sovereign wallets, but   custodial or semi custodial solutions like, Bitcoin Beach Wallet.   So   and that's exactly what I was thinking when I was developing my ecash idea. And I think,   that's where   and Santon agree with me. And we have many other points we disagree   on, but that's the one thing we might agree on.  

[00:08:13] ODELL:

Yeah.   I'm I'm very excited to get to the disagreement.   Lightning.   I'm very excited to get to the disagreement. But before we before we get there,   I was thinking,   let's start with   let's start with Anton about   a simple Bitcoin wallet. It's a it's a great wallet right now that exists.   It's available on app stores. You can download the APK directly.   Then let's   the basic structure of the conversation today. Then let's then let's move to your Chaumu Unique cash proposal,   Federated Chow Meany cash proposal, and how you expect how you see it working out in practice,   and then let's dive into open discussion on trade offs and critiques and thoughts.  

So, Anton, you wanna start us off? Simple Bitcoin wallet. Why should I use it? What's you know,   why should the freaks care?  

[00:09:12] Unknown:

Okay. So   I'd say that the grand goal here in developing this thing is to make lightning bolt which   actually works.   And,   by this, I mean,   the wallet where you can send an arbitrary lightning payment and most of the time,   it succeeds.   And I guess   most Lightning users   will agree with me as is currently this is not the case. A lot of payments fail all the time.   And, in my opinion, which is   somewhat based on experience,   this is due to liquidity issues which are present on lightning.   And,   what I mean by liquidity here is channel balances of working capital, which is required to   get your payment through in certain direction.  

And this is an issue because   in lightening this,   liquidity, it's not present as some global pool which you can use,   But it's,   like scattered across all these channels, and   levels of liquidity are very different in different directions.   So as a result,   even if we put all the bugs   and inefficiencies   away,   This issue is still present, and,   a lot of payments still fail because of it.   So   my opinion is   if we can develop   any technologies which can help with this, then we should.   And, that's what I've been doing   for the past few months with my library in the world.   And   concrete things I've been working on,   there are 2 things. They're called 1 called   one is called hosted channels, and another one is private routing.  

The end goal of both is increasing liquidity levels,   And,   they are both supported by Simple Bitcoin wallet hosted channels, revised version of them. Actually works for about a month now, and,   private routing is coming this year.   So, hopefully, that will help and provide for the best experience possible.  

[00:11:40] ODELL:

So simple simple Bitcoin wallet is using   a   a mobile focused lightning   implementation in the back end called Immortan. Is are you the lead maintainer of that as well? Yes. That's true.   So   I feel like that's a good place to start. So Immordin,   is mobile focused.   What makes it mobile focused? Like, what is the what is the strategy there when you're developing Amorton?  

[00:12:09] Unknown:

Well, it's focused on private channels mostly.   So and private and mobile are kinda   synonyms, so so there.   And,   when we have private channels, we can have some   pretty unique privacy properties, like a node which can only have private channels, may not have a stable node ID,   and,   that increases privacy because the that node ID is not shown in invoices.   Every node I connect to can see my wallet that it's some kind of different   remote node and, so on.   So and  

[00:12:47] ODELL:

So that's like the public key is is is, like, basically rotating. It's not like a fixed public key? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  

[00:12:55] Unknown:

But, of course, the main focus   is,   again, liquidity via private routing. So if we have these private channels, we can make them route payments   as well.   And that's what it's about, really, plus costed channels, of course. So when I download Simple Bitcoin Wallet,  

[00:13:15] ODELL:

or when any user downloads Simple Bitcoin Wallet, they automatically have a hosted channel   Yes. Open   for 1,000,000 sats to receive   so they can instantly receive funds, which is a common complaint with lightning is that it takes work to be able to receive funds because you don't have inbound liquidity.  

[00:13:31] Unknown:

Yeah. Inbound liquidity problem. Yes.  

[00:13:34] ODELL:

So   so what's   what's the high level explanation of hosted channels and their trade offs?  

[00:13:42] Unknown:

Okay. So,   hosted channel is a way to add some trust between   peers   on the protocol level,   and, I'd say let the rest of the network leverage the trust. And,   technically, it's a new kind of channel, a hosted channel which does not have chain backing in principle.   So this is where trust comes from.   And, it gets implanted   into lightning node and   to the rest of the subsystems   in that node. It looks just like another channel. So it can participate in lightning stuff like   multipart payments and routing and so on.   And,  

[00:14:29] ODELL:

But it doesn't it doesn't exist on chain. There's no UTXO commitment. Yes. Of course. Yes.  

[00:14:34] Unknown:

That's the idea.  

[00:14:37] ODELL:

That's interesting. So it's it's it is it is custodial by design? Or is it  

[00:14:43] Unknown:

Yes. Of course. It's custodial solution 100%.  

[00:14:46] ODELL:

So when you have a hosted channel,   I'm trusting the provider of the hosted channel for that hosted channel. Yes. You do.   And I get the benefit of what's my benefit out of that? My benefit is, I guess, lower lower fees. I don't have to worry about an on chain transaction.  

[00:15:04] Unknown:

Yeah. You get that. You get inbound liquidity   and, all the lightning stuff like privacy   because   routing graph is still on your device, so you can construct routes locally, and   host the channel provider has no idea whom you're paying to. This is one of the differences between   other  

[00:15:25] ODELL:

custodians who actually know everything about So that would be, like, the difference between something like Wallet of Satoshi, which is just straight custodial, no hosted channels. Yes. Yes. And this privacy is 1. Yes.  

[00:15:37] Unknown:

You you can't say, like,   Wallet of Satoshi. You you tell them, oh, pay this,   porn website for me, and then they will   know. But with the hosted channel, you just view the route on your phone, and the payment goes, and they don't know where it's going. You can also, like, split the pay do a multipart payment. Yeah. Basically, they they won't they even know that the amount.  

[00:16:01] Unknown:

An idea is to mimic,   chain backed lightning channels as closely as possible. So, basically, the only thing because the channel misses is chain part. When it comes to lightning, it can be treated like,   a normal lightning channel. So we have   all,   lightning features like privacy,   then the ability   I mean, then the ability of enriching payments. So we can say that we can always say that the payment that we sent or received was never our payment, and we have nothing   know nothing about it, and it just was a root payment, stuff like that.  

[00:16:38] Unknown:

Okay. And this Apart from the routing privacy, I think the other big benefit of hosted channels is that they are standard. Like, you can choose your   host to channel provider and you're not bound to trust the one app provider like Wallet of Satoshi just because they happen to build the app. But you can choose a friend of yours, for example,   and choose any other host channel capable app.  

[00:17:02] Unknown:

Yeah. You can choose your own node, for example. It won't be custodial then. Instead of opening the normal channel to your own node, which doesn't make too much sense, you can open a hosted channel,   and   that's cool.   And, of course, you can have,   you can have many,   hosted channel providers in single wallet.   So you can have,   say, 2 or 3 hosted channels which lead to different providers, and you can use all them all all them at once for multipart payments,   which is also   an interest in property,   I'd say.   And,  

[00:17:43] ODELL:

Wait. So when I   on Symbol Bitcoin Wallet, I automatically have a open   hosted channel to me,   when I when I start the wallet.   So I have inbound liquidity. If I open a channel   if I load it up with on chain funds and I open a channel   Mhmm. Where I can choose any node, right now that's Clearnet, or if I use Orbot, I can choose one that's Tor.   Does it   is that a normal channel, or is that a hosted channel? That's a normal channel. Right?  

[00:18:15] Unknown:

Well, there is,   hosted channel is denoted as such. There's clear note,   clear text, posted channel, and custodial solution below it.   And normal channel does not have it, so that's how you can discern that. And, yes, of course, if you   open channel to someone by by funding it from your chain wallets, that would be a chain backed channel,   not a hosted   one.  

[00:18:44] ODELL:

Gotcha.  

[00:18:45] Unknown:

By the way, my my Ntx bot node, it has the hosted channels of, enabled.   So anyone could, in theory,   have a hosted channel from the LNTP bot node   through their simple Bitcoin wallet.   Yeah. But it works. It works.  

[00:19:03] Unknown:

Another important thing that probably is the coolest thing about it, in my opinion,   is so far we have been discussing private hosted channels.   And,   just like normal public channels,   2 peers may establish a hosted channel between them and declare it public to the rest of the network.   And   everyone else on the network   can use the channel to route their own payments,   and they can do it without any trust assumptions   or trust assumptions added.   Or in other words, if you are   a sender of payment, and even if you don't like this   hosted channels idea at all, all your channel local channels are backed on chains. Basically, you are using   classic lightning, let's say.  

If you see that some hosted channel exists somewhere deep in the network,   there's   it can totally   it is totally safe to use it for your own payments because   whatever is   whatever happens in that hosted channel,   deep on the network, you can always either get your payment delivered to recipient, or you can   get it back on chain from your local channel.   So   even if you   don't like this idea, don't participate in it in in any way, you can you still only have upside from this, no downside.   And,   linking this to   my liquidity talk at start, this thing, this hosted channels, once they become   public, they increase total liquidity   on the network, and,   that leads to more successful payments,   and,   well, more user satisfaction.  

For example, it's a working scene already. There are   3 nodes   and 2 hosted channels between them.   And,   this has been working for about 3 weeks now, and we have   a few hundred route payments through them.  

[00:21:11] ODELL:

So, I mean, Fiat, Jeff mentioned   that   the l n transaction bot node accepts,   basically, like, inbound hosted channel requests.  

[00:21:22] Unknown:

Yes.  

[00:21:23] ODELL:

How is isn't isn't isn't there a trust issue there for Fiat Jaffe that I could open up   a hosted channel with him   Mhmm. And route a payment through it, and there's no on chain backing? Like, there's no, like, collateral backing it? How does   am I missing something there?  

[00:21:42] Unknown:

When you open a channel like, if you get a channel from my note, it will be all the liquidated on my side.  

[00:21:49] ODELL:

Oh, okay. It's the reverse. So so you Yeah. Of course. You can't just, like, open a hosted channel outbound to some random node.  

[00:21:57] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. Right. You can.   Okay. That makes sense. Really little sense here.  

[00:22:02] ODELL:

Yeah. I was I was a little bit, I was like, that sounds like a massive hole. Okay.   I guess. Well, I'm glad you guys thought about that already.   Okay. So that's awesome. So so you you have the UX benefits   of traditional custodial wallets like Wallet of Satoshi,   but you have,   performance and privacy benefits,   rather than that in an hosted channel model to distill it. Yeah. Almost.  

[00:22:31] Unknown:

Almost. Because,   in order to receive payment,   such a channel still has to be online unlike, say, Wallet of Satoshi, but it's for a very good reason because,   in hosted channels, just like in normal channels,   The final receiver is the one who releases pretty much, and as such,   hosted channel users can prove   then he really received payment, or   if host starts,   like, acting funny, it can prove that,   payments that it has received and,   for which it has released the pre match still   well, the money belongs to receiver.  

[00:23:14] ODELL:

I hope that's So you have to have the wallet open when you're receiving. Right?  

[00:23:18] Unknown:

Excuse me. What?  

[00:23:20] ODELL:

You're saying you have to have the wallet open when you're receiving? Yeah. Basically. Yes.  

[00:23:26] Unknown:

With with a fully custodial thing, you presumably don't have to. Yeah. This is the thing with fully custodial is they receive payment on your behalf. So they can   say things like they never received it. With hosted channel, it's still you who received it. So you can prove that you really received it is if   they say you didn't.   Got it. Another   difference.  

[00:23:53] ODELL:

Freaks in the live chat. I mean, if you have any questions, as always, feel free to,   hit us. Hit us. Whatever you're saying, hit us.  

[00:24:02] Unknown:

Yeah. And it doesn't do you any good,   like, claim that your host or channel provider scammed you. Like, otherwise, if you say you trust them anyway, then you could also just give them the preimage, and then you wouldn't have the problem that you need to keep your wallet open to receive.  

[00:24:18] Unknown:

Yeah. Well, then they can say, yeah, that you never received that payment, and you have no way to prove otherwise.   That's the thing. Yeah. But you're   you're trusting them anyway.   So, yes, there's   trust involved, but it's not that kind of trust that you have in normal   custodial   provider, like, Wallet of Satoshi. In hosted channels,   there's still,   balance distribution is always cryptographically   provable.   So you can prove that, whatever host owes to you that it is the case.  

[00:24:54] Unknown:

So this is the reason to have all this. So it's essentially,   secured by the potential of raising a stink on Twitter that,   some specific host of channel   provide a scammed you. And you couldn't do this giving them the pretty much because then they could just claim you actually never,   like, got an invoice paid.  

[00:25:14] ODELL:

You get, like, cryptographic proof of exit scam?  

[00:25:18] Unknown:

Yes. Mhmm.   Yeah. Is it that's true. Yes. Because,   exit scam is probably the only type of scam that,   host can perform because they can't scan selectively because that will become very visible   immediately.  

[00:25:35] Unknown:

Yeah. But, the,   like, the one thing about   the exit scam is that it happens all at once. Like, the mark of an exit scam. So,   what is the benefit of being able to prove that someone just excellent, just lost their funds anyway, and no no one else   will   trust them anymore. So  

[00:25:56] ODELL:

no I mean, I couldn't presumably I mean, presumably,   someone like Waller or Satoshi could, and they they haven't as far as I'm con as far as I'm aware, but they they could   conceivably   be stealing money from, like, certain individuals   in small amounts without   doing a full blown exit scam? Yes. Totally. They could.  

[00:26:18] Unknown:

That's the thing about lightning. It's it's much worse, I'd say, that even on chain in this regard because   everything is off chain. And if you use   these custodians,   nothing is provable at all. They can do anything. They can claim that, yeah, that whatever payment you receive, you didn't receive, and it's your word against the there's  

[00:26:41] ODELL:

the   I mean, a perfect example feels like the experience people are hearing about Chivo,   which is a fully custodial wallet,   the government wallet of El Salvador where you pay a lightning payment,   and then the sender's wallet says that it was successfully sent,   but the receiver has no proof that   they they don't see it on their side, and then you call support or whatever and support's like, you gotta call up lightning and get your money refunded.   If Chivo was using hosted wallets,   then at least you'd have   you'd have some kind of receipt. You'd have, like, a cryptographic proof that you'd you didn't get your money.  

[00:27:21] Unknown:

Yeah. If she were able to use hosted channels, then it would just be a routing note, and, receiving would have actually happened at,   user ports.   So, yeah, it would be a totally different situation.  

[00:27:35] Unknown:

That's actually a good point. Like, it prevents implementation errors kind of. Like, currently,   that feels like a big, implementation bug in Shivo.   But by requiring to query the client for the preimage,   you kind of, like, prevent this whole set of bugs that you   could build into such a system. Yeah. That's true.  

[00:27:55] ODELL:

Cool.   Okay. So that's hosted wallets   and simple Bitcoin wallet. Now let's move,   to Eric's,   Federated Charmin eCash proposal.   Eric, you wanna describe that high level for us?  

[00:28:14] Unknown:

Yeah. And I think it's really good that we, started with hosted channels because,   like,   in some sense,   federated e cache is just an extension of that idea because my observation was, like, most people will not be able open their own lightning notes. So what do we do about it?   Like, letting them   go to banks, to traditional custodians, it's it's   the the worst solution of all.   But on the other hand, like, I can't expect,   someone   who maybe makes $5 a day to open a channel for $4.   That's also not viable.   So   we already touched on hosted channels, and in my opinion, there are 2 major concerns.   The first is obviously trust. Like, you need to trust   your host   channel provider.  

And federated e cash of not really solves, but a problem   by distributing the trust over multiple parties,   of which now some might be malicious without the whole thing falling apart.   Like, if you have a federation of 4, one can just be malicious and, all your funds are safe. The federation   stays operational.   And the second thing that Federated Ecash solves is privacy.   Because while hosted channels provide good payment privacy,   the, like, account holdings privacy isn't all that great because your host of channel provider still sees how much, he owes you. He knows how much you own in in the host channel.   So with e cash, you also hide how much you you own in a certain ecache federation, which is equivalent to the hosted channel provider.  

So on a high level, these are the two things that, federated ecache fixes.  

[00:30:07] ODELL:

So   when I when I attempt to describe your proposal, the way I kind of describe it is   you have the UX benefits of a custodial lightning wallet.   You have   that you have the custodial risk of actual funds loss being mitigated,   because   instead of a single custodian, you have this collection of custodians that have to basically collude to steal your money. So people can think of that like a multi sig custodian.   And then you have these privacy this privacy benefit   of Chaumu and e cash   where not only do you have privacy from the custodian,   but you get increased privacy   for all of your operations on the greater Lightning Network,   the larger that   pool of funds gets in that within that federation. So you you're able to operate   in in both these cases, in both with both,   hosted channels and   Federated Chaumian e cache, you're able to operate   among the Greater Lightning where   grading Greater Lightning Network you can send and receive   from any Lightning Wallet, to those wallets.  



[00:31:26] Unknown:

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.   And the the nice thing about the e cash is that it's   actually perfectly private. Like, at least federation internal ecash to ecash transactions   that you have, essentially   the unlimited set of your entire federation,   more or less. Like, there are some details that I'm leaving out, but, like,   in a ideal federation, that's the case. Then, like, there's the second case with,   interacting with the wider lightning network, and that's a little bit more complicated.   Like, you can definitely hide,   when you're sending a Lightning transaction   that who is the sender,   And   if you're the recipient, who's the recipient?  

It's the problem thing is hiding the other side, like the lightning side. It's actually did some great work because,   like, what you're doing there is you let the lightning, the the client actually route. So you only give only a message to the service   out of the federation,   and then let them,   send   once the product instead of making them relevant and all the stuff, a lot more information.   It's I kind of think of it as a UX trade off. And,   like, one caveat I have to add here is that Federated ECash is a research project right now. Like, there's no product, nothing that you should use or could use, on Bitcoin today.   So I don't even have the lightning integration   as it should be,   implemented yet. Okay. I'm actually not sure if I will go the hosted channel way of routing   or, like, the more traditional   let's tell   the   equation where I want my payment to Google way of routing.  

That's still ongoing   research essentially for me. The host to channel approach is a really interesting trade off.   And other things like   the payment privacy   proposed by, Bastian,   where you essentially   include a plan that path in your invoice, that's also   a great option. And I will see whatever works best and provides the best UX and   best privacy.   Because in my opinion, what is most important is to couple   privacy with good UX so people actually want to use it because otherwise, you will have to 10 people that need privacy use your service. But all the other people that don't really care will use something else, and then you have unlimited set of 10. That's not what we want.  

[00:34:02] ODELL:

Right. Right now private like, using Bitcoin privately is is more difficult and more expensive than the alternative,   and you wanna reduce that as much as possible.  

[00:34:13] Unknown:

Yeah. Let's make it the most convenient and cheapest form of payment.   That's what I'm aiming for with Federated ECash.  

[00:34:22] ODELL:

Awesome.   So I think that was pretty good high level on Eric's proposal.   I know Anton and Fiat, Jeff, have some feedback and some critiques. So I you guys want to jump into that, and we can have some good productive discussion here.  

[00:34:42] Unknown:

Yeah. Maybe   whatever concerns privacy and security,   it's   an interesting question here because   so, you know,   like has been explained   by Eric,   this   federated cache thing wants to be a thing of its own and then also   a lightning scaling solution, kinda.   So   it wants to integrate with lightning. And,   if we are to extend lightning with this solution solutions,   custodial solutions, we can   talk about their quality, I guess,   in the ways that,   for example,   when we're using normal channels,   this graph on device, we can where we we have certain,   useful features   besides off chain payments,   such as, for example,   I can list 3 of them, which are related to privacy and security.  

First is already mentioned privacy when sending a payment   because   sender has a graph on device and can construct route.   And,   second one is   enforceability   on chain when receiving the payment,   which is due   to HTLC mechanics   where receiver   can publish transaction on chain   if   if peer starts to   play some games and not update in the state.   And, the third one is already mentioned, the inability, which comes from ability to route payment.   And the the inability here is ability to always claim that this payment is not yours.   So,   I'd say I'd say a good   extension to lightning, custodial extension would retain as much of those properties as possible. And when it comes to hosted channels,   sender privacy   and   the the liability   are retained in full,   and the enforceability   on chain is, of course, thrown away because there is no chain part, but it's replaced with probability,   which is weaker notion, but   still better than nothing.  

And,   well, yeah. When it comes to,   federated cash, I think there's,   like,   no consideration   has been given to these things yet.   So   this concerns me indeed.  

[00:37:23] Unknown:

Yeah. So   let me start from the back of your,   list of 3 points. Like Mhmm. I think the liability actually becomes less important,   once you have the anonymity that Ecash provides because   when you're sending a payment, then the sender is completely anonymous anyway.   Like, except for maybe leaking, something on the lightning side, which we need to con consider too. But,   like,   so does a host of channels need to do?   So you don't really gain anything from   and see where you're having routed the payment or not. Like, you don't care. Like   Mhmm. Okay. You as a sender and   anonymous in the first way 1st place. K?  

The enforceability,   there, I probably agree with you. Like, e cash   is not auditable, so you fully trust the federation.   Mhmm. But   as I said, like, putting trust in the federation of you. Because,   let's say you have a community where you have 4 people that in the normal circumstances   are well regarded to have reputation and you trust.   But one of them now has accident   and needs a lot of money really short on really short notice.   Otherwise, he dies, for example. Then he would certainly exit scam you in a hosted channel scenario   because   then just how incentives work. But in a federated   scenario, like, one of these 4 cannot just you can't even stop the federation and extort you. It would already need 2 participants.  

So you're much safer as a user. And so I think it might be a reasonable trade off to just fully trust the federation   in exchange for way better privacy.   Because e cash Well,  

[00:39:05] Unknown:

I have another question then,   I have another question then. It's again about lightning integration. How this federation would,   manage a lightning node?   Because,   it doesn't seem like an easy task to me  

[00:39:21] Unknown:

to split Yeah. Like within many   yeah. Please do. That's actually a really interesting question. Like, federated e cache in and of itself,   does not need to have anything to do with lightning.   Like, in the basic,   model that I'm currently building, you have on chain an on chain multisig wallet. We have the majority of backing funds. And   Mhmm. For these, you get eCash tokens issued by using smart contract inside the federation   to   incentivize an external Lightning Gateway, which has its own funds, which are not counted towards the backing funds of the federation,   to make payments for you or to receive payments for you.  

So, essentially, you build a bridge between Lightning and your federation   through these   gate train nodes.   And, so the Lightning,   like, a single third party, but due to the smart console, you essentially rebuild HTLCs   inside the federation,   more or less.   Yeah. That's that's like the current plan. And, like, in some future version of it, I could also,   like, imagine having a fully federated lightning   note. But as you said, that's really complicated. It needs   a bunch of changes to the peer to peer protocol. It definitely needs   taproot and Schnorr signatures,   sees, like, all the   good stuff. So that's not on the   so yeah. Maybe, one thing I should mention is that   by doing so, I assume that the funds held in Lightning   are way smaller than the total packed in funds or the total deposited funds in the federation.  

Because, otherwise,   this, model wouldn't make any sense because the light   note essentially needs to hold a double because they can't be counted duration.  

[00:41:22] Unknown:

So this is what I was going to to say. Like,   I see, like, a a conflict   between having   multiple small federations.   Like, I I don't know if the name mini mint,   is intended to to mean that the the these federations will be small.   And,   like, have having a large federation with a ton of accounts in it.   And   because you need either   you need a large thing with a ton of people using   so so they can transact between them, or you need   very good inter interoperability   between many small providers.  

[00:42:02] Unknown:

Yeah. That's why you need lightning probably.   Do not convince everyone around to use your tokens   beyond your users.  

[00:42:11] Unknown:

Yeah. Exactly. That's, That's my understanding that why lightning is so important. So you have interoperable   between these different means. And I agree, more expensive with on chain transactions get, the larger the federation   needs to grow.   And I'm not entirely sure that, having the lightning node external to the federation   makes it significantly worse, like a 2 x factor, I think.   That's maybe the difference between   10 people, a 10 user federation, or a 20 user federation being economical.   So we will see in the it will be a market process. That's the great thing. Like,   I'm bill we are all building this stuff as open source software, so everyone can just run it, and we will see whatever wins.  

And also,   for me, it's currently research.   Probably won't be ready   for mass market,   in 2 years or so.   I kinda hope to have a working prototype that   a reckless person can set up on Mainnet. Yeah. It's it's research. Excuse me. Is it just me, or the quality is absolutely  

[00:43:24] Unknown:

bad?  

[00:43:28] ODELL:

I mean, Eric's   Eric's breaking up a little bit, but I can mostly hear him.  

[00:43:34] Unknown:

Mhmm. Okay.  

[00:43:35] ODELL:

I'm sorry.   I mean,   I I mean, the the last thing he said is that it he doesn't expect to have, you know, a working app available for at least 2 years.  

[00:43:50] Unknown:

Mhmm. Okay. I see.  

[00:43:52] Unknown:

If you're hearing my background noise.  

[00:43:56] ODELL:

No. You've been good about background noise recently.   So, I mean, 2 years,   so, like, realistically, that's, like, 4 years. Right, Eric?  

[00:44:08] Unknown:

Yeah. Possibly. Like, I'm always   taking into account such things. Like, I was at this 2 years thing, like, I mentioned ideally in 1 year, like, for next HCPP, I will have some   working prototype on my net where I run a federation, so only I will lose funds.   That should already work. We need to be really careful with   new experimental   things so that people don't trust.   Yeah.   So I tend to be a little bit more conservative. I mean, I think  

[00:44:45] ODELL:

I think before you even have an app out, like, people are going   to learn the hard way,   the current custodial risks in terms of stuff like while the satoshi and blue wallet.   Well, blue wallet is only custodial for its lightning, at least by default,   not on chain.   I mean, we saw it previously. I don't know if you guys remember,   one of the most popular   at one point, one of the most popular mobile lightning wallets was   Dropbit,   which is a custodial lightning wallet, and   the feds,   the US government,   raided them because   that guy, I think Larry Harmon was his name, was running a mixer as well,   a custodial mixer, and they seized all the funds. Everyone lost all their money,   and people forget that really quickly. But, as I as I see I mean, I I was looking at,   all the videos of people   buying pupusas in, El Salvador this week.  

A lot of people were using wild as Satoshi. Like, a lot of people that you'd think would know better.   You know, they say, oh, it's just for a small amount, but, you know, that small amount tends to grow.  

[00:46:02] Unknown:

Yeah. I remember that's sort of failure to come in. That's the reason my hosted channels are limited to only 1,000,000 satoshi. So they were just, like, entry point, and then user just can't   receive more.   I have no desire to,   like, store any more money for my users.  

[00:46:20] ODELL:

So, I mean, the way I look at it,   from a UX point of view, there's obviously massive benefits to custodial.   As a Bitcoiner,   I am,   emotionally I I'm, obviously,   against   custodial models.   Makes me a little bit sick just thinking about it.   Hosted channels seems like a decent trade off balance in terms of UX,   privacy and security,   for the near term, and then, ideally, something like this   Federated Chamian   proposal,   for the future,   kind of improves on that trade off balance.   Fiat and Anton, do you disagree with that   thought process or that analysis?  



[00:47:13] Unknown:

Not necessarily,   but   I guess I'd better see   something real with relation to this Fedimint, and then I could make a better judgment.  

[00:47:25] Unknown:

What I think is, like, if if Eric managed to get a federated lightning node running,   And then, like, he he will have to implement   something that looks like hosted yesterday to to achieve better privacy for   outgoing and incoming   lightning payments,   then it will be good.  

[00:47:46] ODELL:

I guess even more   more recently than Drop It,   one of my favorite Lightning wallets, which I used to receive donations for the show as well,   is Fiat Jaff's, LNTX   bot, which is a lightning wallet, a custodial lightning wallet that operates   on Telegram. And you got you recently got attacked. Right? You lost all your funds.  

[00:48:11] Unknown:

Not not all funds, but, total funds.  

[00:48:14] ODELL:

It's not not an attack like a bug. So And then I'll start well, you don't think it was an attack? You think it was, like, an accidental fund drain?  

[00:48:22] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. Some random user   and and, like,   started exploiting. This this happened in the past. This this last one was the biggest one.  

[00:48:33] ODELL:

But you don't think it was intentional, or do you think?  

[00:48:37] Unknown:

Oh, I think it was intentional, but, like, the guy spotted on the   he stepped on the bug  

[00:48:42] ODELL:

and without understanding what was happening. And then there's, like, all the ink and money. Money. Yeah. Yeah.   And then, I guess I mean, I don't agree with everything he does, but is it true that Alastair Milne   jumped in and and made you whole so the wallet could keep going? Yes. Amazing.  

[00:48:58] Unknown:

I didn't expect you to. He just he just gave me   ton of money.  

[00:49:04] ODELL:

Yeah. What was it? It was, like, 14,000,000 sats or something like that?  

[00:49:07] Unknown:

Yeah.  

[00:49:09] ODELL:

So was that's, like, like, $75100   or something like that?   Yes. That's it. That's impressive. He just jumped right in there on Twitter. I was impressed. I mean, like I said, I don't agree with everything he does, but,  

[00:49:21] Unknown:

you know, I think he's he's enjoying the bot on his Theragun group.  

[00:49:26] ODELL:

Yeah. I mean, the bot is dope.  

[00:49:29] Unknown:

Yeah. But It's definitely a lot of fun. Not worth that that enough money he he gave me to find the the bot.  

[00:49:36] ODELL:

That's awesome.   So, I mean,   I I didn't realize,   but you guys hit on an interesting point there. I mean,   in Bitcoin land, we like to,   if we see something that's like a theoretical proposal   that looks awesome, we tend to really hype the fuck out of it.   I think I'm better than most,   but I will admit   that with Eric's Charmian   Federated Charmian eCash proposal,   I got very excited, and I'm still very excited   because, I mean, to me, I'm I have a privacy focus,   and I'm, like, constantly trying to educate new users on using Bitcoin privately.   And there's so many nuances, there's so many difficulties, like the fact that you could have, like, an easy, low cost,   you know, mobile focused,   very private way of using Bitcoin,   to me is like   I mean, it would save me so much time. I mean, if someone's only spending a $100, $200,   you know, a 1,000,000 sats,   2,000,000 sats, like, if they can just download an app and have relatively good,   security guarantees in terms of custodial risk, and have very good privacy guarantees   at very low fees,   to me, that's like a holy grail. I would save a ton of time when I'm,   trying to educate new users. Now   one thing that I missed in this whole aspect   is what Anton mentioned earlier, and I I think we need to highlight that a little bit more. I mean, this idea that   the Federation   with these Charmian tokens is separate from the actual Lightning node itself. That seems to be the biggest hurdle here. Would you agree, Eric?  



[00:51:26] Unknown:

I don't see it as such a big hurdle.   I mean, it's also not   intended to stay that way forever. Like, ideally, at some point, we can actually federate a lightning node. But for now, like, it's just so much easier to implement it that way and not just wait another 7 years to get featherweighted lightning nodes.  

[00:51:45] ODELL:

I'm Would it be an old man or would it be a few years? Use it.  

[00:51:49] Unknown:

Yes. Exactly. And I I also need a prompt besides do you need anything besides Taproot to federate a lightning node?   I'm not entirely sure. Like, the problem is I'm not   that much of a lightning developer. I don't know all that much about lightning.   Like, I spoke to some people   I've had   in Miami,   and they were pretty then actually building   a distributed lighting note eventually.   But I think much work that needs to be done before, like even just getting all the benefits   into lightning, eventually, probably,   resulting   in l 2 and all the good stuff. Like, that will take a lot of time. So they are not thinking about it just right now   as far as I'm aware.  



[00:52:40] Unknown:

So I have a question. Like, what what do you have against   having instead of a bunch of federations,   you have a big federation like liquid,   but   that's being a a Chow Meon Mint.   And then you Okay. The the the need for lightning decreases very much.  

[00:52:59] Unknown:

So   at the risk of, pissing off someone,   at Blockstream.   No.   Seriously.   I think this one federation all approach   isn't all that great to onboard   general the general users,   of Bitcoin. Like,   liquid is great, for example, for traders that trust exchanges anyway. They don't really give a shit. Like,   their trust model is far worse, and with liquid, it doesn't get that much worse.   But normal Bitcoin users should have higher standards when it comes to custodial risk. And having this one big federation to rule them all would become a systemic risk over time, in my opinion. And that's not what I want for Bitcoin. That's not what I want to work on. Like, if there's there wouldn't be a possibility   to easily integrate   different   make it federations interoperable. I wouldn't have proposed it. Even so, it's still a really interesting research idea.  

But, like, only   by making them interoperable,   they really   benefit to Bitcoin, in my opinion. Otherwise, there would be too much of a risk that over time it would centralize into, like, just one big federation.  

[00:54:10] Unknown:

So another idea just came to my mind. What if you have, like, a special   protocol   that could be, like, some payment general stuff, but special for federations   that involve a trust between federations   that you could, like, link multiple federations using that.   And then people could route payments between federations.   I'm, like, bypassing lightning completely, but still   splitting the trust between many federations.  

[00:54:41] Unknown:

But what would be the difference between such a inter federation,   payment layer? Like, if you still want to avoid trust between federations, which is really important,   then you definitely need something like lightning. And at that point, why not just connect it to the wider lightning network?   That just has benefits. Like  

[00:55:00] Unknown:

Yeah. Because because we don't know how to make up Federated lightning node. That's the reason.   And we could Oh, yeah. But the c plan to do   a payment channel based on trust   between federations.  

[00:55:14] Unknown:

Yeah. But, I don't want payment channels based on trust. That's that's really bad.   Like, even worse in the case of these federations   The great thing about having Lightning integration with these federations is that you can start your own without   asking for permission.   If you need a trusted channel   to other federations,   then you're at this point where you have   to ask for permission to cooperate with them and, like,   open these channels.   That would be horrible. That would just recreate banking.  

[00:55:44] Unknown:

Well, we still need permission for for lightning nodes, like, to establish a channel. So I don't see   that's the difference there.   It's if it's open, if you can   open channels for anyone, like,   I don't know. I mean, today Yeah. But Like, I know definitely.  

[00:55:59] Unknown:

If I open a channel today.  

[00:56:01] Unknown:

I do care. I hate people opening channels for many months.  

[00:56:06] Unknown:

Oh, wow. Wow.   You have a strong opinion on that.   Didn't know.   Never generally. I imagine lightning to stay this open network where,   like, if I open a channel to you, you don't ask too many questions. Otherwise, it will be a failure. Otherwise, it will be   by regulators.   That's the big problem. If   appears to connect to you,   that you   then lightning will tend to centralize.   So that's why I'm also not too big of a fan of routing hosted channels. Like, they are great for users, for end users,   but between,   your lightning nodes,   they create a a big risk of, like, exit scams. Like, let's say, half your channels,   a host of channels, and then you just put   put all the funds out of them, put them into your real channels, and close them, and you're gone.  

That's a big risk. And secondly,   you   might actually get   the first time before   you do this. You get the big,   benefit.   Unfair benefits   of   the competition,   namely that you don't   need to,   expand as much capital   as you.   I know. So I'm not not too big of a fan of routing host channels, but you might disagree.  

[00:57:42] Unknown:

I haven't heard all of, what you said, but   there was something unfair in there, and then I didn't hear. Can you please repeat that   that part?   What is exactly unfair?  

[00:57:59] Unknown:

Essentially, you get an unfair advantage   over the   your peers that use   fully backed channels.   So, like, I mean, it's not really unfair in that sense, but, like, fortune until people figure out they can use this to exit scam and then the market will have to price in that risk.   The market distortion that, disincentivizes,   actually having the backing funds.  

[00:58:27] Unknown:

Don't know about that.   Well, to me, it's like, if you open a hosted channel, you take certain risk. Yes. You don't put   funds on chain.   So   you have spared some working capital, but you have   risk of exit scam. So   to my understanding, it's fair. You understand your risks   and which is important  

[00:58:49] Unknown:

if something goes wrong, this doesn't spread towards Yeah. Exact. My fear is that people will under   sorry.  

[00:59:04] ODELL:

I mean, go on, Eric. I think Anton finished.  

[00:59:08] Unknown:

Your fear is? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I,   I finished.  

[00:59:14] Unknown:

So you you were cutting   it for me. It's probably me.   But,   yeah, if you   understand these risks, it's great.   Then I'll  

[00:59:28] Unknown:

Yeah. Well, a lot of hosted channels could be a problem. I'd agree with that. But, hopefully,   people won't be taking that much risks.  

[00:59:36] ODELL:

This is specifically   if the hosted channels are   routing hosted channels. If they're private hosted channels   for an end user,  

[00:59:46] Unknown:

then you don't have that person. He was cutting in and out a bit for me. It was probably me. So so,   yeah, my my fear is that,   people underestimate   the the excess game risk.  

[01:00:03] ODELL:

Well, I see I mean it's hard to say.   I mean, my fear is,   lightning has not really operated in adversarial   environment.   I mean, lightning hasn't operated in adversarial environment, period.   So I think most people are underestimating   the risk, period, of having funds on Lightning. Would you guys disagree with that?  

[01:00:29] Unknown:

Yeah. No. No. I I think those some of those attacks that people write white papers about,   they're serious,   and I think also no one is no one who wants to attack is has the knowledge to to operate these attacks  

[01:00:47] Unknown:

so far, I guess. Well, there was this attack when   lightning channels were not   actually backed   by transactions.   So  

[01:00:59] ODELL:

well I guess we were kind of running hosted channels the whole time, and we didn't even Yeah. Yeah. Without even knowing it.  

[01:01:07] Unknown:

Yeah. That's true.  

[01:01:08] ODELL:

I mean, I've I've had a relatively,   you know, multiple relatively large lightning nodes for over 2 years now, and I've just literally   I've just been waiting for my funds to get lost.   That that hasn't happened yet.   No. I mean, this this discussion is super interesting. I would go back to what Fiat Jaffe was saying earlier   about why the lightning component in the first place. And to me,   you know, would Eric's proposal be interesting still if he didn't have the Lightning component? Yes. Because I'm   a I I I care about privacy on Bitcoin being easier,   but it wouldn't be nearly as interesting to me for the interoperability   aspect of it. Like, it's not only   the fact that the federations   can interoperate   very easily. Like, what I've noticed with liquid,   which absolutely nobody uses. I mean, I have mempool dot space up, but if I switch it, I could switch it right now to the to the liquid one.  

Just fucking   absolutely empty.   The the biggest friction to me with liquid is that it's a separate chain,   and it's it's that in and out. It's it's moving between   the two chains that is so difficult. So not only   not only do you have the interoperability   benefit for the actual federation, so you could have more federations that can, you know,   work together via lightning.   You also have that benefit of   being able to   directly   operate you know, directly interact with any kind of other,   Lightning Wallet,   including the ton of merchants that are already onboarded onto Lightning. Like, if you go to El Salvador, like, no one accepts Liquid, no one will accept a new Federation token,   but they're already accepting Lightning.  

So, like, that's the main advantage to me. Or if you use something like Strike to onboard   and you're going bank account through Stripe, like, you can pay into any Lightning Wallet. If if Eric's   proposal   rings true, then you could just go straight into that federation. You wouldn't have to deal with any external swap services or any friction like that.  

[01:03:32] Unknown:

I think his proposal   we we can't say very much because the lightning part is not   decided, but   but it has a kind of a swap thing.   I think it it's not very different from the thing I said. I was, like, I didn't I never finished that my bridge between liquid and,   Bitcoin lighting networks.   Like, something like that could could solve liquid like, could make liquid   reusable,   for example. And then I think   if Eric has federations that have a way to do this, like, they could be usable too.   And that's his idea. Right? It's just not   defining what he's going to  

[01:04:17] ODELL:

I'm going to   switch back from the liquid block explorer because that is just depressing as fuck.   Yeah. No. I mean, that makes sense to me.   We lost Eric, so now we're just having a conversation about his proposal without him.   What do you guys wanna cover? You have anything? And we have some more time here. If you you have any lightning hot takes?  

[01:04:48] Unknown:

Yeah. I tried to use Moon Wallet today for the first time. Oh, not With 2 use. Moon with 2 use.   Moon with 2. Yeah. 2 years. Yeah.   Yeah.   And I couldn't get a payment. I think the idea was that you would receive a lightning payment, and it would open a channel to you. Right? When I tried to pay that invoice, I generated it and it never opened a channel   because I wasn't able to pay the invoice, but the fees were too high. Something like that. All the notes, all the wallets I tried,   they always said that the fees are too high. So this is   like I'm just saying this   to say that this trustless   open channel and demand thing, it's it's very bad idea for me, at least in my  

[01:05:32] ODELL:

experience. Moon Moon is,   you know, like everyone else in this chat, I mean, besides me, is focused on, you know, trying to make mobile   UX,   easy.   The single best thing they've done is that if you scan any QR code,   you're able to,   pay it.   Whether that's a lightning QR code, whether that's   SegWit,   Legacy,   Taproot address, any QR code you can sign, you should be able to pay it. It registers, and you should be able to pay it.   The lightning side   operates on a semi custodial basis,   that that is settled on chain   relatively quickly after the fact. Now I'm pretty sure  

[01:06:25] Unknown:

Is it a a channel like like Phoenix, for example, that opens a channel to you? They don't open a channel to you. They're just using they're using  

[01:06:33] ODELL:

they're using swaps   and,   they're using swaps, and the overwhelming majority of your funds are actually kept in a 2 of 2 multisig on chain,   and they're using on demand swaps.   Now I think their biggest issue is something we're gonna see in the lightning space a lot,   where it is so   it it is it is easy to use, so it's recommended often. And with the with El Salvador and with this, you know,   more people using mobile lightning wallets, their liquidity is just completely wrecked. Like, I they just do not have,   they do not have good liquidity.  

I've noticed there many times trying to receive lightning on moon.   It's definitely a a massive pain point. And I also don't know   how they're   if everything's supposed to settle on chain, like, that does not scale if we actually have sustained high fees on chain.   So   that's a whole different.  

[01:07:34] Unknown:

Well, my understanding is very   I thought it was opening channels. I think their the the v one was with Yeah. It's also news to me. I saw they had some kind of channel somewhere.   I mean, on user side. I knew I knew the v one was based on on swaps.   I didn't know about this multi 6. But then I listened to some podcasts whether the   Dario, the the guy from   said that he had that V2 that had   a variant of l and d running on the phone.   So it's So maybe I'm wrong.  

[01:08:06] ODELL:

Maybe I'm operating under the previous one.   But either way,   I've used Moon, and the liquidity   is a fucking mess.  

[01:08:16] Unknown:

Yeah. Liquidity is always a problem.   The biggest one, I'd say.   U x u x x issues does not come close to this.   I'd say liquidity is the one we should solve somehow.  

[01:08:30] ODELL:

But isn't it just, like, inherently fucked the way, like, liquidity works on the Lightning Network?  

[01:08:37] Unknown:

Maybe.   We are yet to determine this, I guess. Like, the cool part  

[01:08:42] ODELL:

the cool part of of lightning is this, you know, interoperable payment channel network that is relatively permissionless,   but the trade off of that is   that liquidity is divide I guess, like, multipar payments and stuff like that could Mhmm.   Help mitigate it. Right? But you're still   mitigating something. It's still a inherent  

[01:09:04] Unknown:

Yeah.   My hope is that hosted channels and private routing will address this at at least to some extent, if not solve it.  

[01:09:14] ODELL:

So you mentioned private routing earlier.  

[01:09:17] Unknown:

Yeah.  

[01:09:18] ODELL:

If the name is any good, I assume it means routing over private channels. Am I incorrect about that? Yes. It's exactly that.   Okay. It's a good name.   So how far away are we from that? Like, I thought you can't route over private channels because they're not publicly broadcast in the gossip network.  

[01:09:36] Unknown:

Yeah. Oh, well, I I can elaborate on all of that if you want. Yeah. Elaborate. Hit us.   So,   let's start from basics probably. There are 2 kinds of channels on lightning, public ones and private ones. Or   another name for private ones is unannounced channels. That's basically the only difference,   between them and public channels.   Public channels exist   in routing graph, and, they are visible by everyone who has the graph on their devices. And as such,   everyone can use these channels to route payments.   And the private channels,   they just don't do that.  

And, the reason they don't do that is because   private channels are typically opened to mobile devices, which are mostly offline.   So even if they were to broadcast themselves to graph,   it would make very little sense because   most of the times, they would be unusable because the device is offline with the way mobile devices are used.   And, another problem   with that would be scalability. That is if we ever to get millions of phones with private channels, if they all were to broadcast   their info to routing graph, they would just, I guess, either bring it down or make other nodes prude them prune them.   So,   up until recently,   routing routing   through mobile channels was completely invisible.  

But,   since the introduction of private routing,   it actually became   possible   to route through private channels exactly   when mobile device is online, even if it's something like 5 minutes per day, still possible,   and   without them becoming public.   So   I think this   is very interesting area. It,   once implemented, private routing will unlock   this routing liquidity of all those private channels, which was inaccessible   earlier. And,   of course,   this is another way to increase liquidity on network and,   increase increase the number of successful payments.   So   I'm looking forward to that. I'm working on that currently, finalizing this. And, this is expected to happen this year, hopefully,   in simple.  



[01:12:09] Unknown:

The the main problem with,   like, the private channel routing should be that you don't know that they exist. Isn't that that? So how do you solve the problem of,  

[01:12:19] Unknown:

like, making the people that want to route through them aware of them?   Yeah. Once the,   wallet   with such private channels becomes online, it would send a special message to all of all of its peer who support private route and that it can private route. It would basically be basically be saying to each peers that I am now online, and I can route   this amount.   That's it. And   peers can use it themselves, and they can further relay this message, maybe 2 or 3 hopes further to inform   their own peers that there exists   private router right now, right here. And all of them would have this knowledge and will be able to use it.  

That's the plan.  

[01:13:09] Unknown:

So   that would make these channels, much less private in nature, which might be okay depending on usage. It doesn't because,  

[01:13:18] Unknown:

an information they will be sending is just,   like, thanks to trampoline routing. They will be basically   saying yeah. They will be saying I can route this amount, but they won't be saying in how. They won't be disclosing how many channels they have. They could have, like, hosted private channels and use it for routing or something   entirely wild then. No.   Something like Telegram group where they exchange 3 majors or something.   But yeah. So  

[01:13:51] Unknown:

what I'm getting is, like,   suppose I have a a node   that has a simple Bitcoin wallet,   connected to it through a to a normal channel or a hosted channel. Mhmm. And and that same simple Bitcoin wallet is also connected to someone else's node.  

[01:14:07] Unknown:

Yes.   And then I guess  

[01:14:10] Unknown:

yeah. And then when that that wallet is online, it sends a message to my node,   and my node is about to make a payment. And so it uses it sends the payment to that simple Bitcoin wallet. Yeah. That simple Bitcoin wallet forwards it to the other node.  

[01:14:26] Unknown:

Yeah. It can use that option. It can use its own graph or   trampoline, this trampoline router, whatever is cheaper or more preferable.   Something like that. Yes.  

[01:14:38] Unknown:

But if I have a peer that's, like, another routing node that is online.   Mhmm.   I can send a message to that peer saying, oh, I have a private channel here and an announcement channel here that's A private router. Let's say   Yeah. This   way.  

[01:14:54] Unknown:

In that tier have a private router right here, right now, which is important. It is online right now, and it is ready to route such an amount. So if you want to route it through the tier, then be my guest.  

[01:15:06] Unknown:

Yes. So I guess for users, you have to be very careful about interactions with hosted channels because   as a user, I might be balancing   my funds really cautiously between different host channel provider because I might not trust any of them fully, and I'm prepared to lose any of these channels. So if I now enable routing between them, then that could, essentially   distort,   the distribution.  

[01:15:33] Unknown:

I guess we can limit, like, oh, I have a a or make a channel host a channel here that has a limit of   an amount. That's the amount that you're willing to lose. But I think this also works, this private routing,   with just normal channels. No no hosted channels involved. Right?   Right?  

[01:15:54] Unknown:

Yeah.   Well,   I can say that, yes, was using private channel for payments or for routing is always a risk, but, like,   I guess we're all grown ups here, so we can manage our risks. We cannot use them if we don't want to   or otherwise.  

[01:16:13] ODELL:

I'm not judged, like, how bad this is. I don't know if we're all grown ups. I don't know if we can manage our own risk.  

[01:16:21] Unknown:

Okay. Then we'll find  

[01:16:26] ODELL:

while I have you oh, yeah. Go. Hit us.  

[01:16:29] Unknown:

One question that,   like, I had while you talked about   it. Did you do any research   how much it would increase the liquidity on Lightning or how much it would actually benefit? Because   I did some probing back in 2019, so it's a long time ago.   But it appeared that the user channels actually made up not that much of capacity. Like, they were pretty small in general, and then there was a big core network, with much bigger channels and a larger routing capacity.   So I could imagine that   enabling   these user channels from time to time only, like, that actually doesn't do a lot of good for quite some implementation complexity and quite some traffic because every time now that someone comes online or goes offline, you need to send messages and stuff like that.  

[01:17:18] Unknown:

Well, I haven't run any simulations   or or something like that, and   I don't have anything definite to say on this. This is, yeah, kinda an uncharted territory.   And they say, I think I should, like, run this and see how it goes. That's the plan.   And then I would be able to say something more concrete   after some time   of it's being on.  

[01:17:46] Unknown:

One thing I like I don't know if you I think you didn't mention this, but   the understanding I had before was that it would be good to have this private routing. So, for example, Breeze, the Breeze node opens channels to to a bunch of mobile wallets,   and they'll   it locks liquidity there that's, like, lost forever or   for a long time. And with this, like, the this can  

[01:18:11] Unknown:

can use these channels to to route their business. Yeah. Currently, liquidity in private channels is basically a loss for looting for But   tiers.  

[01:18:20] ODELL:

But Yes. I've heard,   many Lightning devs   say that the   and I know I know not all Lightning devs agree, especially the ones that I have,   in this conversation right now.   I've heard many Lightning devs say the expectation in the future is that most end users will have a single balanced channel   with, like, a well connected routing node.   Do you guys not   believe that's the expectation, that's not what we should expect? Because, I mean, if that's the case, then they're not gonna be really providing any,   helpful liquidity there if they're just they're just like an endpoint almost.  

[01:19:03] Unknown:

Yeah. If they have only 1 channel, they obviously can't root.   They need to have at least 2.   Well, it's,   it's a hard question because,   in order to pull this   on the provider side, they really need to have a lot a lot of money to afford to open a private channel to everyone.   And then a lot of that liquidity that they put in this channel would be lost because   many of these channels would be offline for,   long periods of time.   So   it's really   a hard feat, I'd say, to prove off to make this all profitable.   So   my understanding   that is that routing is essential to lightnings. Whenever you have a channel, you need to be able to route from it somehow.  

And,   otherwise, it's just broken design.   Maybe I'm wrong, but time will tell.  

[01:20:00] Unknown:

Yeah. I think in my opinion   Wrong. Okay. And in my opinion,   like, the people that have just one channel,   today, like, they probably won't have a channel at all in the future because,   they are typically just,   end users that don't have too much money in Lightning.   So even as a Bitcoin, like, if you can have   an   your your lightning funds essentially that today you have in this, weird one channel that might go offline if your counterparty goes offline. So it's not really that that great for you. But you could put it into a federation, let's say, in the Ecash Federation. And   that would give you   close enough,   like, nearly the same   functionality   as for if you're one big channel today.  

And,   like, the funds that you really want to keep for saving, that you keep on train anyway. Like, that,   it's not something you would keep on your mobile phone wallet, in this one big channel because you might lose it.   So I see these   end user notes with only one channel disappear. Like, you will either be a routing node,   even if it's just the raspberry   even if it's just the raspberry pi at home.  

[01:21:21] Unknown:

Yeah. That could be true.   I'd actually agree with it.   Either you are routing node of some kind, private routing node, public routing node, or probably it would be   a custodial user of some kind.  

[01:21:37] Unknown:

Yeah. Maybe a hostage Makes a lot of sense.   Like, just imagine we are onboarding the next,   like, 6, 6,000,000,000 users.   Like, not all of them are the technical that they are actually able to run a note. Not all of them have the funds to run their own note.   So I imagine, like, if you have your local community of, let's say, 100 or 1000 people, then there will be maybe 4 or   7 of them that are technical enough that, Bitcoiners today even.   And they will still   be self custodying. They will,   like, doing all using all the right cypherpunk tools, that we are building today.   But in addition to that, they will also be providing   the service for their local community that all these other people can access lightning, for example, or federations, or they could be hosted channel service providers depending on what, success succeeds in the market.  

So,   yeah, I see these mobile wallets   with actual lightning channels disappearing because   it just doesn't make any sense to lock funds   in a wallet that is only online from time to time. Like, it's not good use of capital.  

[01:22:54] Unknown:

Do do you have any idea of what is the, like, the   the the way,   Esync   and Breeze are planning to make money on their   their channels on demand  

[01:23:08] ODELL:

thing. I mean, their goal right now I mean, they're just burning money for user acquisition right now. They're just eating it.  

[01:23:15] Unknown:

And then later, they'll have ads on the the wallets.   What?  

[01:23:20] Unknown:

Well, I guess,   the idea is that there will be so many payments that they will be making some money on rooting, I guess.   Something like that.  

[01:23:31] ODELL:

I mean, I have respect for both those teams, but, I mean, also, there's there's some money to be made on data. I don't know if they're willing to actually   go into that business, but there's some data monetization that you can do there.  

[01:23:44] Unknown:

Yeah. I think the secret plan is,   that opening all these channels allows you as a company allows them as a company   to buy a lot of Bitcoin, and that will be enough in the future.  

[01:23:56] ODELL:

They're forced huddling because they just have all these empty chat they have all these channels that no one's using, and it's just sitting there.   Well, hopefully, that works out for them. I,   do you guys know was so, I mean, Eric, I assume, like so what you expect   is instead of users having this single channel open is they're gonna have, you know, some kind of   semi custodial relationship,   whether that's through your proposal or hosted channels   or community wallets or something like that.  

[01:24:29] Unknown:

Yeah. Exactly. Like, there's also a certain   option kind of,   like, channel factories, it's called. It's even more researchy than what I'm doing.   I think that's maybe in 10 years. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong on that.   But where multiple people could come together and run,   like, one lightning note together   and share channels and stuff like that, which is also   pretty cool in my opinion. But, yeah, either you,   like, are actually routing, have multiple channels,   or you,   are using such a note from someone else. Like, there's,   like, no way in my opinion that, some people will be willing to lock up funds for you, just so you can use them as a routing notes. You have to contribute something too by routing.  

So I actually agree with Anton on that. Yeah. Just to go back I think  

[01:25:22] ODELL:

I think you guys agree on a lot.   Just to go back, first of all, that Moon conversation, I'm 99%   sure that Moon, their v two implementation hasn't released yet, and they're still doing swaps, but their intention is to run some kind of mobile lightning client. Maybe they'll choose a Morden. That could be interesting.   But I'm pretty sure v two isn't out yet. You guys know how do any of you guys know how Bitcoin Beach Wallet works?  

[01:25:49] Unknown:

Nope. I have no idea. It's probably the server.  

[01:25:52] Unknown:

From what I'm getting,   the lightning note is,   fully custodial, but it only holds, like, a small percentage of the funds. I think I heard something like 5%,   while the majority of funds are held on chain in the multisig wallet. So it's actually   even closer to,   like, Federated Ecash   than hosted channels kind of because the most of the funds are held in the Federated,   way, just manually.  

[01:26:21] ODELL:

That's kinda how you view, like, the early implementations   of your proposal going. Right? Where you just have, like, a small portion held in a custodial lightning wallet and the majority is held in the federation.  

[01:26:32] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah.   Well, that's the I think the the the multi sig part is like   sorry.  

[01:26:39] ODELL:

Go on,  

[01:26:40] Unknown:

Fiat, Jeff. I think this multi sig part is like some ad hoc thing that you can do or cannot do. For example, LNTPX bought   most of the the   the funds that the balance of users are on the Lightning node,   but, like, I could   close some channels and   make a multi multi sig on chain wallet and and and say my   the analytics part is partly   a federation.   But that I I don't think that changes the the nature of the custodianship. Like,   the   the Bitcoin Beach is, like, is a server with   an API,   HTTP API that the wallet stopped you, like, the normal custodial thing. But they have this this idea of,   local communities each running their own server, which is   not not an uncommon model. Like, Allen Beats also has the same idea.  

And I think hosted channels is, like, an an evolution of that.  

[01:27:39] ODELL:

Because they could actually   they could they could mix host of channels with that relatively easily. Right? Like, the custodial lightning wallet could be using hosted channels,   and then they can have the majority of funds held on chain in multisig.  

[01:27:54] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. The same could be could be true for an hosted channel from Anton today, for example.  

[01:28:02] Unknown:

Yeah. It's exactly true.  

[01:28:03] Unknown:

Yeah. But, we have Jeff. Like, you you of all people should agree that, putting some of your funds in, off   chain, on chain wallet would probably have been a good idea, like, given the recent tech.   Like, that's exactly one thing you are guarding against with that.   Yeah. Yeah. And I agree. Like, even to a bigger degree if, you had the Allen Bits community   where you have a 2 or 3 multisig.   And this community has to decide when to replenish your funds in your writing note. And I agree it would be a lot of work,   then you wouldn't be the single point of failure anymore, kind of.  

Or maybe you still would be because the ledger of the account balances would still be in your hand.  

[01:28:48] ODELL:

Okay.  

[01:28:49] Unknown:

In that sense, yeah, that's problematic. So   combining that with hosted channels so you get actual proof of, how much you own, that would be cool.  

[01:28:58] Unknown:

Yeah. But then it becomes impossible on Telegram.  

[01:29:02] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah.   That's why I'm building my stuff not on Telegram.   Yeah. But, one thing I wanted to ask,   Anton,   before we end this,   like, I got some feedback from people that if we wanted to do   e cache sooner than my federated e cache proposal, why not just combine it with hosted channels? Like,   you could probably integrate,   e cache with hosted channels in a way that, you don't know users' balance anymore. Like,   I guess, from the our conversation we had already,   the problem is that you can't get, the proof of payment and stuff like that because, e cash behaves so differently from a lightning channel. But in principle, you could still do,   the payments and routing stuff. Like, for example,   if someone wants to pay an you to pay an invoice for them, they generate the routing   information or generate the onion,   give it, to the host of channel provider, also give the e cache to the host of channel provider.  

And the host of channel provider knows because of the e cache that they should,   forward the onion message, during the payment.  

[01:30:17] Unknown:

Well, maybe. It's, of course, much easier said than done.  

[01:30:22] Unknown:

Yeah. Certainly. Certainly. But, like, nonfederated e cache is actually, like, pretty old and pretty well established.   Like, when you look at the Rabi Sabi paper, they have a great   a great cryptographic protocol   they use that even allows arbitrary amounts to be encoded in the ecash tokens. So you don't need multiple of them   necessarily, but you can have, Ecash tokens for arbitrary amounts that are still anonymous.   So maybe that is a interesting thing to look at, for you because you could probably have a working prototype much sooner than me because it's,   like, much easier to build it in a centralized way than federated.  



[01:31:06] Unknown:

Well, perhaps I think I should finish basic hosted channels first because Yes.   Although it's in production already, it's not completely ready.   There is still some work to do, so first things first.  

[01:31:22] ODELL:

Well, as an end user,   I would love if you guys collaborated.  

[01:31:28] Unknown:

Yeah. I think it would be a very interesting feature to hide end user balances in these hosted channels   using e cache.  

[01:31:38] Unknown:

You see that Eric is, like, assuming   there will not be   a true corporation   because it's possible for, like,   2 geniuses   programming together.   It's better if each one   does its own thing.  

[01:31:54] ODELL:

Well, I'm happy to be, you know, the monkey head in between if you guys need, some glue there.  

[01:32:03] Unknown:

Yeah. I definitely enjoyed the conversation with you, and it's, also much better to,   talk   voice to voice than on Twitter screaming at each other.   And in the end,   like, we agree on a lot of stuff. Just in the details,   we have   very strongly held opinions that differ.  

[01:32:23] ODELL:

I love the strongly held opinions.   We have we have 2 questions in the chat. The first question,   is asking about Blockstream's   peer swap   lightning balancing protocol.   I think this was released   8 days ago   at in El Salvador.   Are any of you guys familiar with this protocol at all?  

[01:32:49] Unknown:

We have 9 dogs.  

[01:32:51] Unknown:

Okay.   I I talked a bit, after we caught, with Constantine,   who seems to be the lead developer behind us.   And the question is if we can integrate it with Federated ECash somehow   or that you could,   swap balances in and out of ECash.   And   I think, technically, that's possible.   The question is,   like, since   e cache these e cache evaluations are meant to be,   that they're meant to be many of them with different, trust assumptions because there are different people involved. Like, can you actually find one with the   your peer you want to swap with, that you both agree on trusting?  

Because otherwise,   if you can't, then   for inter federation payments, you need lightning anyway, and you would   unbalance lightning channel in that way. And that would kind of destroy the whole point behind PierceRock,   which is that you only   rebalanced channels with direct peers   or with, peers only one hop away in that sense that all involved parties   actually want to do this.   Like, you are not, unbalancing someone else's channel.   So I think it's an interesting idea, but,   complicated in in practice, I guess.  

[01:34:18] ODELL:

Fair enough.   I have not looked into it personally yet.   It would be nice if it is easier to balance channels and to,   have some kind of more distributed marketplace   than   Lightning Labs' pool.   Someone else asked a relatively similar similar question.   Do you think something like a lease pool that node operators participate in would be appropriate to cover the costs of opening individual private channels?   And I I'll just jump in here. I mean,   I know this is Breeze's,   Breeze has has has spoke about this. Breeze with 2 e's   and a   z.  

I have fucking naming schemes of these Bitcoin wallets.   Breeze has talked about this. I mean, the biggest issue is, to me, is UX friction.   It's like, if a new user needs to pay somebody   on lightning to be able to receive on lightning,   it's not necessarily the easiest thing to do from a UX perspective.   It's not intuitive.   That seems to be the biggest   hurdle with this type of stuff. What what do you guys think?  

[01:35:36] Unknown:

No. I think it's true.  

[01:35:38] Unknown:

Yeah. Definitely. And it's even worse. Like, how big,   do you make this channel you open,   when you want to receive your first payment?   Like, if if it's too big, you pay way too much in fees. If it's too small, then at some later point, you will have to pay again. And how do you   teach a user that   at some sometimes,   randomly, basically for them,   they need to pay more in transaction fees. That's totally unintuitive.  

[01:36:06] Unknown:

Yeah. That's tough.   To convince someone.  

[01:36:10] Unknown:

Yeah. So that's another reason why I think these,   like, just one channel lightning notes, that's not the way to go. It's just,   you can't get your x right because either you're spending way too much money on opening humongous channels. Like,   poor Phoenix. I still have a channel open with them, I think,   10,000,000,000 sets or something like that on,   like, something ridiculous. Maybe only 7. But I I accidentally used it as a on chain wallet and didn't notice that they automatically   swap on lightning.   So   I'm I feel really sorry for that. Maybe I should just close it at some point.  

[01:36:45] ODELL:

But yeah. No. Keep it. I don't teach him a lesson.  

[01:36:48] Unknown:

Yeah. Either you do that   or you will have to repeatedly   open new channels,  

[01:36:54] ODELL:

swap in Bitcoin, which is on chain operation again and costs money. So it's not So I mean, right now, simple Bitcoin wallet, Anton's project, like, they they he gives you the ability to buy from Bitrefill or from Ellen Big,   which it would be a similar situation as   the this lease pool that he mentioned, except, obviously, that's   would be,   theoretically more distributed   than 2 centralized providers, but it provides the same UX hurdle. It's like, what the fuck am I doing?   Anton, you have any views there? I mean, obviously, you in integrated those that feature and that I can just press a button and buy a channel from Ellen   Big, whoever the fuck that is.  



[01:37:38] Unknown:

Well   well well, I agree. Again, this   this requires some level of understanding of what is going on. Yeah. And simple Bitcoin wallet is   actually   not that simple   after all. And   and,   it's aimed at somewhat  

[01:37:59] ODELL:

prepared users. I'd say Maybe it should be called, like, advanced Bitcoin wallet.  

[01:38:03] Unknown:

Well, it's  

[01:38:04] ODELL:

Intermediate Bitcoin.  

[01:38:07] Unknown:

First version was called them   that, and then I just decided to not change the name.   So, yeah, it anticipates that user more or less understands what's going on. The user  

[01:38:21] ODELL:

yeah. Yeah.   I mean so I was actually going to   I wanted to bring this up before we wrap this up.   It was like a while I had you kind of thing. As someone who,   you know, still dispatch, the audience here is more technical focused.   I think they have a pretty decent understanding of lightning,   how it works, you know, the basic trade offs.   That's why I do still dispatch.   My other show, rabbit hole recap,   is a more   accessible show,   and I do a lot of education just, like, to new users and whatnot.   And when I'm, like, recommending wallets,   and I already kind of alluded to it with moon with 2 u's, and breeze with 2 e's and a z,   Like, names are important, especially when it comes across on audio.  

And, like, simple Bitcoin wallet is just   like, I respect what you're doing. The wallet seems   pretty awesome, to be honest, and it's very snappy.   But, like, Simple Bitcoin Wallet as a name is a horrible name. It's an absolute horrible name.   Like, what the go download Simple Bitcoin Wallet. Yeah. Which one? No. Simple Bitcoin Wallet. You   know, it just doesn't w's in 3 words.   Yeah. But I do.   There's worse names. I'll give you that. It's better than Moon and Breeze. But,   yeah, I just I don't know if it's a good name for a wallet. It's it's kind of   counterintuitive when you say simple Bitcoin wallet.  



[01:40:02] Unknown:

Also, when it comes to confusing users, there was a really interesting question to chat, if simple Bitcoin wallet is the same as Bitcoin lightning wallet because that's what I asked asked myself too when I first start.  

[01:40:15] Unknown:

Maybe you can explain the evolution because they're probably related somehow because you both worked on them. Yeah. You worked on both. Well, they are only related in a sense that I developed them, both of them. But, otherwise, they are different to worlds.   That's   not any kind of, like, inheritance from one to another. Just different apps.  

[01:40:38] Unknown:

You I think you must clarify that. Simple Bitcoin wallet was a wallet from 2014   or something.  

[01:40:46] Unknown:

2016.   Yeah. It was just a very,   actually, very simple Bitcoin wallet, Bitcoin only.  

[01:40:54] Unknown:

My And it had,   like, a 100 k users,  

[01:40:58] Unknown:

something like that? Yeah. It still has. It's pretty popular.   And,   yeah,   at some point, I decided to upgrade it to lightning also.   So that's the story. Instead of continuing development of,   Bitcoin lightning wallet because   that turned out to be a dead end and not easily upgradeable   to private routing and other stuff that they wanted to go with.   So I decided to continue on that   in simple Bitcoin world.  

[01:41:28] ODELL:

I mean, Bitcoin Lightning Wallet was also a horrible name, for what it's worth.   And this is all love. I mean, so   just, some just my 2 stats, you know, take it or leave it. I appreciate you regardless.   You know, Jupiter has, like, 20 something moons,   and, like, Bitcoiners like moons.   So, like, you could pick 1 of the Jupiter moons,   could be a good name. You know, like Europa, Callisto,   Thebe.   Those are good names for for wallets.  

[01:41:58] Unknown:

That's a nice proposition. Thank you. I'll think about it.  

[01:42:03] ODELL:

Yeah. Do you see someone in the comments? It's simple Bitcoin wallet with Wise.   Yeah. Don't do that.   But, yeah, I do appreciate you guys.   Last thing before we wrap up, I mean, I Fiat, Jeff, you sent out a tweet,   Something about implementing,   lightning in your app is a pain in the fucking ass.   You wanna talk about that at all? Or  

[01:42:30] Unknown:

I don't know. I think I'm just very unlucky because   all the nodes fail with me. Right now, I have a a bug on the clear that doesn't route payments bigger than,   8,000   sets. Like, if   it it has the channels, but it doesn't find any routes. And,   yeah, it's being being being debugged by   Eclair people and also Intel helping.   But, yeah, I have I have so many bad experiences with c lightning before, and many of the bugs that resulted in exploited   bugs exploited money,   whatever,   was, like, because the APIs were not clear, and they they didn't   do what I expected them to do. And, anyway, many, many bugs. And, also, I know that that all the other custodial services   had similar bugs,   But that's where I was coming from.  

I I wanted to ask one thing to to Eric, like, if he saw the   because I just saw a picture of that. I I stand on the the conference on El Salvador   with,   simple Bitcoin wallet stuff and   stuff being given out.  

[01:43:38] Unknown:

It was very funny. Yeah. It was the the best,   proof of, the best,   like, ads ever. Like,   I had to take a picture of that.   It felt so nineties.   Yeah. Maybe if people don't know what we are referring to. Like, there was   a big poster with a beautiful lady,   advertising Simple Bitcoin Wallet.  

[01:44:06] ODELL:

Oh, no. Was isn't it Alan Big, or was it Simple Bitcoin Wallet? I think it was Simple Bitcoin Wallet.  

[01:44:12] Unknown:

Was it? It's handled by a big guy. Yes. And he was promoting both himself and my wallet. Oh,  

[01:44:21] Unknown:

yeah. Because  

[01:44:22] Unknown:

the lady was on the on the Yeah. Most of the lady told you. We had a designer who was making his stuff, and   and he was like we also asked him whether he's this lady is appropriate or not. He said that it increases   engagement guaranteed.   So it must be there if you want, like, more attention.  

[01:44:44] Unknown:

I didn't know if it was, like, a parody or not. So it definitely,   created engagement.   I just It was. Was standing there, mouth open, like, okay. Is this, are they are they for real?  

[01:44:59] ODELL:

I mean, I'm pretty sure, like fuck. Someone said on Twitter, they were like,   this is, like, why would you just put that clip art woman on it? And then someone else was like, well, we're talking about it on Twitter. Like, we're looking at the the picture on Twitter right now, so it fucking worked.  

[01:45:15] Unknown:

Yeah. But did it look like a scam, or you think it was a good wallet? Totally. Totally.   Totally look like a scam.  

[01:45:25] Unknown:

I mean, who wants to try to sell stuff to beautiful women? Typically, car companies and scammers.   Maybe because of scams.  

[01:45:40] ODELL:

I was trying to find the picture, but I failed.   Eric, you were the one who posted it?  

[01:45:46] Unknown:

No. Definitely not.   I put I sent it to some, people in private because it was so weird. Yeah. I I did see I did see it on Twitter somewhere.  

[01:45:56] ODELL:

It doesn't seem more to cost management. So, like, you have a relationship with Alan Big?  

[01:46:03] Unknown:

Yeah.   He pays he pays for the work I do currently.  

[01:46:08] ODELL:

Oh, okay. So good dude?  

[01:46:10] Unknown:

Yeah. Totally.  

[01:46:12] ODELL:

Because, I mean, all of his can tell.   All of his nodes are, like, operate out of Virginia, like,   30 minutes out of, like, Langley, like, the CIA headquarters.   And he was, like, half he was, like, half the liquidity on the Langley network. So  

[01:46:30] Unknown:

Yeah. As far as I could tell, he's a well intentioned guy. So   that's it. That's all I can say. That's good. I think that's,  

[01:46:40] ODELL:

oh, I have the Eric sent me Eric sent me the tweet.   Let me see if I can Not Fiat Jeff, but   Oh, yeah. Fiat Jeff sent it to me. Let me see if I can get the   I gotta put it up for everybody.  

[01:46:56] Unknown:

Yeah. It was really hilarious.  

[01:46:58] ODELL:

There it is.  

[01:47:02] Unknown:

Like, I came there the day before the conference.   It was already open and just walking around, and suddenly I spot this, without any other people around.  

[01:47:12] ODELL:

You know what it felt like? It felt like it felt like Bitcoin, like, in 2013, 2014,   where, like, it was just all, you know, like, sexy ladies at the booths.   But it's funny because, like, both lnbig and simple Bitcoin wallet, like, there's no flare involved with either of those projects.   Like, you guys just keep building   and, you know, you you put out this work and the work speaks for itself,   and there's no marketing flare. There's there's no,   like, grandiose or anything. And then   then you guys have a lady on there. The thing is This is hilarious.  

[01:47:51] Unknown:

Anyway It was it was totally his idea, so I don't know   what's going on with his head.  

[01:47:58] ODELL:

We were talking about it, so it obviously worked.  

[01:48:01] Unknown:

I wanted to know if the people there were explaining,   like, how it worked, and then it was a good   good good thing   if they explained it well or something.  

[01:48:12] ODELL:

Who were the 2 people that you had at the booth?   There's locals?  

[01:48:17] Unknown:

Yeah. There's some locals of Adorns   who   who were hired by a big guy to do all of this.  

[01:48:25] ODELL:

I thought it was cool that he, like, you know, he, like, sponsored it as a NIM. Like, he's,   he has great OPSEC. No one really knows anything about   him.  

[01:48:35] Unknown:

I thought that was pretty cool. That actually was hilarious. I went to the, Ellen Bic stand and, like, asked the guy, oh, are you Ellen Bicca? And he was like, no. No. No. I'm just some local guy presenting it for him.   Had a good conversation and was super funny.   So big shout out,  

[01:48:51] ODELL:

to from me too. Awesome. Well, guys, I mean, this has been an absolutely fantastic conversation. I appreciate you all for coming on. I think it's been very productive. I hope you guys agree.   Yeah. I'd like to wrap up the show with some final thoughts.   So we'll start with final thoughts.   Fiat, Jeff, final thoughts. Let's go.  

[01:49:13] Unknown:

Oh,   hosted channels are the only way for lightning to work in the future.   That's my final thought.  

[01:49:20] ODELL:

Very good. Final thoughts, Eric.  

[01:49:27] Unknown:

Let's make privacy the most user friendly option.  

[01:49:32] ODELL:

Fuck. Yeah. Thank you, Eric.   Anton, final thoughts.  

[01:49:37] Unknown:

Yeah. Well, I'd like to point once again that liquidity issue is important and   must be solved for lightning to flourish. Privacy can come later   as important as it is.  

[01:49:51] ODELL:

Fair enough. I think they're interconnected,   but I agree.   So, guys, I mean, I do a lot of work in open source development funding   in education.   Obviously,   I have this show in rabbit hole recaps. So if you guys ever need anything, do not hesitate to reach out. You have my contact information. I hope to have all of you on again   sometime soon.   I really do appreciate all the work you've done, and I appreciate you guys joining us.   And,   thank you.  

[01:50:22] Unknown:

Thank you too.   Yeah. Thanks for having me.  

[01:50:26] ODELL:

Cheers. And a big thanks to the Phreaks, who joined us in the live chat and who have listened to this show.   I have some,   great lineups,   set up for the following Bitcoin Tuesdays.   Next week, we are gonna be jumping into mining again in terms of trying to source cheap power will be the focus next week.   And then after that, I will have the boys from Noddle on,   to discuss,   operating a business regarding   self sovereign users and trying to make using your node as easy as possible. So thank you to the freaks to listen for listening, and thank you to our guests, for both their contributions to Bitcoin and for joining us. Cheers, guys.   Here's some new escape music for you.  

Love you freaks. Don't stop believing.   We have, I'll see you guys for a rabbit hole recap tomorrow, special Thanksgiving   edition,   and I'll see you next Bitcoin Tuesday   for another sale of dispatch.   As I said earlier, we will be focusing on   mining again,   home mining and sourcing cheap power.   I reminded you guys, I think, 2 episodes ago, but I do have,   the cheapest discount code to Bitcoin 2022 because I'm helping them out over there, and I'm not taking an affiliate cut.   So if you want, you can use the code open source.   Do not share that on Twitter. Otherwise, people will get mad because it's a higher code than everyone else because I'm not taking that cut. So cheers to that,   and I'll see you guys tomorrow.  

Stay humble, stack subs.