Bitcoin ecology is twofold. Why does the founder of Nostr call the Lightning Network a scam?
Original author:Jaleel，BlockBeats
Lightning is a scam, said Nostr founder Fiatjaf (@fiatjaf) in a screenshot shared by Blockchair lead developer Nikita. In the comments, another user agreed that the Lightning Network is glitched and unexpected. Polished and asked Fiatjaf why this was a scam.
It has been defrauding Bitcoin users of their time, energy and money for six years, Fiatjaf replied.
Image source: Nikita Zhavoronkov (@nikzh) The “Zap culture” derived from Nostr’s access to the Lightning Network
On November 20, 2019, fiatjaf began to develop the Nostr protocol, hoping to create a simple, open, global, decentralized, and censorship-resistant social protocol. He wrote in his blog that day: Nostr is the simplest open protocol, based on encryption keys and signatures, does not rely on any trusted central server, does not rely on P2P technology, and can create a censorship-resistant protocol once and for all. global social network.
fiatjaf is a person with strong humanistic concerns who hopes to help everyones rights be respected and protected, allowing people to become human beings. As a technical expert, the hundreds of recommended books on his personal website are all about sociology and philosophy.
A year later, in November 2020, the first group of participants gradually expanded, and Nostr began to discuss the possibility of a decentralized social network, the possibility of funding such projects, the possibility of supporting smart contracts and the Nostr protocol name, etc.
Nostr has no institutional financing and no token model, which is in line with Twitter founder Jack Dorseys expectations for the next generation of social platforms. Therefore, he donated 14 BTC to Nostr and has always publicly supported it.
BlockBeats often saw the sentence Please give me your invoice when experiencing the Nostr protocol. In fact, this sentence means exactly, please give me your Lightning Network payment address. You can directly give the other party your payment address. You can also set a payment amount and then give the address to TA.
This is the Zap function after the Nostr protocol is connected to the Lightning Network, making it very simple for creators to monetize their content. BTCStudy contributor A Jian once believed that the Lightning Network must be mentioned when discussing the value of Nostr, otherwise it would be a waste of money.
When anyone expresses their likes, instead of using Like but using Zap, and sending a certain amount of SAT to support the content you like, the creator economy will gain the possibility of growth. When more people naturally When Zap creates content that he appreciates, Zap culture will spread in the Nostr network, creators will be incentivized to output higher quality content, and the business flywheel will start turning.
Connecting to Lightning Network payment has also been Jack Dorseys long-standing idea. He has always hoped to use Repost and Zap to replace Like, because these two operations are value exchanges and have reputation and monetary costs.
Now, Fiatjaf, the creator of Nostr, said that Lightning is a scam and is defrauding Bitcoin users of their time, energy and money for 6 years. Community members@bitrabbit_btcSaid, The creator of Nostr called the Lightning Network a scam and turned into a role similar to the BCH/BSV supporters back then. This is really regrettable.
Creator of GPT-4 BotMira HurleyHe believes that he agrees with the huge consumption of time and energy of the Lightning Network, but believes that the word scam is too strong.
Two developers left one after another
Some clues can also be seen in the current situation of the Lightning Network. Recently, two developers have announced their withdrawal from work related to the Lightning Network.
On October 30, Anton Kumaigorodski, the developer of the first mobile Lightning wallet, announced his resignation on Nostr. Udi Wertheimer, founder of TaprootWizards, reposted the complete announcement on Twitter. Three reasons why Anton Kumaigorodski left the Lightning Network. yes:
Serious Lightning Network development is difficult and time-consuming. The entire Lightning Network protocol is overly complex and getting worse. At this point, it is developed only at a very slow pace by only a handful of well-known experts. Philosophically, I think Bitcoin as a protocol should have a complexity barrier so that it doesnt get past the point where laypeople cant understand and trust it, and I think the Lightning Network has passed that barrier.
After 6+ years of struggle, the Lightning Network has transcended a community of largely ideological users with no apparent success or perspective. My point is that ultimately the Lightning Network is not what the market as a whole expects from Bitcoin and people should look in other directions other than stupid payments and not focus too much on the Lightning Network.
The remaining Lightning Network demand is largely absorbed by various hosting solutions. A truly non-custodial Lightning Network wallet will always be worse than a custodial wallet in terms of user experience, and historically weve seen the majority of remaining users always choose convenience over control. This makes developing end-user unmanaged Lightning Network solutions feel like the most thankless thing in the world.
Loop vulnerability
Previously, Lightning Network security researcher and developer Antoine RiardAn email, an in-depth discussion of the risk of fund loss faced by Lightning Network channels, which are mainly caused by replacement loop attacks in transaction pools. He specifically mentioned a transaction relay interference attack affecting Lightning Network channels, which is entirely possible in practice and can occur even without network transaction pool congestion.
At the same time, Riard said that heFrom now on, we will stop participating in the development of the Lightning Network., because this new replacement loop attack would put the Lightning Network in a very dangerous situation.
However, from an optimistic point of view, this kind of attack is extremely complex and not easy to implement. SlowMist founder Yu Xian also had a similar view. He pointed out on social media that in order to successfully implement this attack, the attacker needs to meet multiple conditions, such as opening two channels on the victim and ensuring that the victim does not discover the HTLC pre-image. Transactions etc. In response to this threat, Cosine recommends that project parties establish channels with reputable parties to reduce risks.
Bitcoin ecology is a world of ice and fire
Since the beginning of this year, Bitcoin’s ecology and narrative have been buzzing with the progress of the Bitcoin Spot ETF. As Grayscale won the lawsuit and BlackRock has obtained the CUSIP prepared for the launch of the Bitcoin spot ETF, the SECs attitude has undergone some subtle changes, and the markets response has been very enthusiastic.
In the past two weeks, the price of Bitcoin has reached an 18-month high and has repeatedly exceeded the $35,000 mark.
However, the Lightning Network on the other side is facing an unprecedented crisis. Two developers have lost confidence and announced their departure from the Lightning Network. There are loopholes that are difficult to solve. The founder of Nostr calls the Lightning Network a scam...
It is also worth noting that from October 31Display of data retrieved by Amboss Space, the Lightning Network has lost 676 channels and 372 nodes in the past 30 days. However, despite the loss in channel and node numbers, the Lightning Network’s liquid capacity increased by 854 BTC ($29.03 million) in one month.
The attitude of the founders of Nostr and other developers towards the Lightning Network has undoubtedly brought new thinking to the Bitcoin community. While the progress of Bitcoin ETF has received strong attention from the market, the Lightning Network has faced unprecedented challenges and controversy. How the future Lightning Network will balance innovation and security will be an important issue that all Bitcoin communities need to face.
