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Yes, is a LaSP. Any walled garden provider (that let's you open a channel only with their node) is a lightning as a service.
But is nothing wrong with that, as long as you know how to use it properly.
Cashu, Spark, Ark are other things, different predators, worse than a lightning as a service.
I will tell you a use case for a phoenixd server (not the normal Phoenix wallet).
You run a LNbits, BTCPay server, AlbyHub with the phoenixd server as backend fundinng source. This is easy to manage your liquidity for the front end of a shop/business running those apps (LNbits etc)
But the fun part comes after that, when you need to swap your funds from that phoenixd node so you will have again space for receiving more payments.
You can do it directly with their ACINQ integrated swap service but also you can use a decoy node or a 3rd party swap service. If you are smart, you can do it WITHOUT leaving any trace related with your phoenixd node and final destination (onchain).
Another thing that these "privacy sites" omit is that through a single meaningless LN channel you can pass through INFINITE amount of sats. When (if) you close that channel, the only trace remained is the final output of that closing tx...
There are many aspects of LN privacy that in these pages are blatantly ignoring, idk if is because lack of knowledge or simply they have an agenda...
You have to take in consideration that LN literally killed a lot of haters, shitcoiners and other businesses that rely on non-LN services, but they still trying to hit on LN.
Please submit a PR or an issue to the repo with what you think should be added (including any sources/links you want me to refrence), I will be sure to add it. I'm just writing this in my spare time, I'm don't know everything on lightning so community suggestions are welcome.
I hope you consider it.
you can pass through INFINITE amount of sats.
This was an important revelation for me. I remember seeing you write about it and I had a channel some time ago which I used in this manner. It was pretty awesome to think that my small little channel could move many times it's size in sats.
I had the same revelation in 2019 when I started my first LN node.
I was playing around, learning and one day when my shitiest channel was empty I made a swap-in from onchain and repeat the process over and over.
I realized how many sats I pass through that damn channel when I close it and saw that the only information remained was just a tiny amount from the channel reserve (I close it when it was empty). On the block explorer was just appearing as a regular tx showing that I "sent" to last destination address X amount of sats (the size of the channel) but not all the swap-ins, that were multiple times more than initial opening.
Do you see something like Phoenix as a liquidity provider or a lightning as a service provider?
With Phoenix mobile, you can only open a channel to the Phoenix node. The same is true for Lexe (as far as I can tell). So, while they are providing liquidity to me, it is also the case that I cannot use the wallet unless I make a channel to their node. This sounds more like Lightning as a service.
But when I read your distinction above, what I thought of as lightning as a service provider was things like Cashu, Spark, and arkade (you use their network and they offer you a lightning gateway as a service).
As always, I have this feeling that I need to read your guides again (actually, I don't think I've read all of them).