Spark is NOT bitcoin.
It's a state chain connected to Lightning.
There is no unilateral exit [to bitcoin].
Any value with Spark is censorable.
The founder of Spark is behind Diem/Libra (Facebook cash), and previously worked at Coinbase, Facebook, and PayPal.
Spark is supported by a16z, Jack Dorsey, and a bunch of other hedge funds and VC's.
No35.7%
No64.3%
14 votes \ poll ended
If most people, initially or for small amounts, are only willing to use bitcoin and lightning via these fallible trusted layers, what do you recommend we do/tell/teach them that changes their mind?
As of today, Spark is the most custodial-like experience we have on bitcoin that plausibly evades the regulatory requirements of custodial services. It makes a bunch of tradeoffs to do that. None of us like that, including Spark I'd guess.
I don't think I'm speculating when I say that most people don't want to deal with liveness and liquidity requirements to custody their day-to-day spending money nor do they want to KYC. That's what motivates the Liquid<>Lightning swap and ecash wallets. Like Spark, they sacrifice being bitcoin to give people something closer to what they want.
They claim there is: https://docs.spark.money/learn/withdrawals#unilateral-exit
I haven't seen a wallet with it implemented yet, but I'd guess they aren't fibbing about it being theoretically possible.
It could be practically infeasible though.
Bitcoin on an exchange, in a custodial wallet, in Liquid, in an ecash mint is also not bitcoin. To be bitcoin by such a definition, you need as much control over your coins as bitcoin gives you, and, other than onchain, lightning is the only thing that gives you that.
Isn't that what the e-gold people thought too, though?
If it gains traction (nowadays, assume for this to be the case when one of the state-aligned hacker collectives starts using it at scale) it will be destroyed if it can be destroyed. There are many forms that that can take: from a lawsuit to a fatal exploit of a protocol bug; there are many plausible attacks on centralized players in answer to this plausible evasion.
This will even happen on decentralized concepts such as L1 Bitcoin, or do we really think that normies will not run back to their banks the moment Patoshi coins move and the FUD campaign starts for real?
I agree that it's likely not a timeless evasion. I see it like custodial solutions - a temporary toehold while we wait for someone to build a staircase. No one should form a critical dependency on it but we can't deny it has some utility however brief.
Yes. I mostly worry about those that inevitably get left behind when that timer expires. Last time I checked there were still proprietary components too, which makes it riskier.
Yes, which is why framing and preparedness are important. OP is closer to the mark than self-custodial but about as one dimensional.
There are. 50/50 They aren't robust enough to open source and not worth making robust enough without scale, or it'll be part of a moat.
I'm not sure which of these options worries me more 😂
at scale*
... which is the real problem
The state went after Samourai and Tornado Cash, those were actually non-custodial unlike Spark. Spark lying to it's users to lie to the state by proxy can only work to the extent they don't flaunt how clever they think they are.
"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime", being a transmitter is just one of a countless potential charges.
There's zero reason to think the state will be arsed to go after Uncle Jim nodes. The scale of Spark is a much more likely target regardless of their crypto-theater. When their heads do inevitably get squeezed over something, their scale of Lightning swaps will hand the state the data it needs to deanonymize swaths of the network.
Further, if they do go down, how many things break? How many Lightning businesses see their traffic drop off precipitously because one API became unreachable?
Using Spark is not just indifference towards trusting them with diminimis amounts, but is an active attack on Lightning itself because of systemic risk it presents.
did burak Ark just never happen cuz CTV never happened?
Two companies are moving ahead with it:
Without CTV, ark users have to
💯! Couldn't agree more...
Spark is “not yet” Bitcoin, in the same way Coinbase purchases are “not yet” Bitcoin.
I would not worry too much about the various on-ramps and short term wallets. Of course with any custodial service the goal is to get the coins in self-custodial form as soon as possible. But first someone needs an introduction to the network. The existence of Spark in no way threatens Lightning or Bitcoin, it’s as best additive, or at worse irrelevant to the cold wallet bearing Bitcoiner.
Spark has a great potential to onboard millions more people into the Bitcoin economy. Do not let perfect be the enemy of good.
a bitcoin IOU is bitcoin, it just isn't yet your bitcoin.
even custodial services are bitcoin, it just isn't yet your bitcoin
the only way forward is to get people to consider that they should have the bitcoin and the only way to do that is to get them used to using others bitcoin
even this is generous, with Lightning it's using trusted swaps... it's literally a shitcoin exchange
If you use it as an on-chain wallet, it's possible... but it's also pointless as an on-chain wallet, the real scam is in the lightning affinity
Definitively no, it's a closed network with a central coordinator, the opposite of Bitcoin being an open network with no central coordinator.
tool in the toolbelt.
my toolbelt is small so no room for it in mine.
but my toolbelt and your toolbelt may be different.
i dont personally recommend to my peeps.
(16min 30sec) "Spark has unilateral exit"
(19min 00sec) "Government may freeze funds until KYC is provided"
Hmmmmmm.
Seems like the same as cashu to me. I agree that it isn't bitcoin. I don't mind it any more than I mind ecash...and I kinda like ecash.
I prefer ecash since it’s private. With very small amounts I’m ok with the theoretical mint rug pulls. It’s still good to try to do some due diligence about the mint.
The frauds evolve untill they fall on fertile land.
unilateral exit is a mistake because it prevents an L2 from actually scaling successfully.
the real problem with spark is that there's realistically only one operator. how can that possibly be bitcoin?
I recently learnt that the 2 are not the same and shouldn't EVEN be compare.
Clever.
If it can be censored, it’s already missing the point of Bitcoin.
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