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Comment by nunobrito | Hacker News Reader

Not everyone there is a bitcoin boomer. You'll find plenty of monero users and things that are a bit more serious than that.

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It is noteworthy that zapps are based on lightning (which is Layer-2 for bitcoin), and similar in privacy as monero (and instantaneous).

Does lightning work now? A few years ago, I remember they had quite some difficulties. Maybe I should brush up my knowledge.

It is OK for small amounts like paying a coffee or a few cents.

Not reliable for larger values.

What's the "meta" like to find payment channels? That's the thing I found weirdest with LN, I needed to find a channel with enough funding. I presume the custodial LN providers just have their own payment channels?

There is a sweet spot between custodial and self-custodial wallets: "non-custodial" wallets like Phoenix Wallet or Electrum. You keys, your coins - but expect higher fees (which are still way less than CC providers or other payment processors). No need to manage channels yourself.

Interesting, they manage channels for you and charge some fees? Makes sense, I'm not averse to paying for convenience.

It works but requires technical knowledge. I zap (on nostr) every day

Lightning is not anywhere near as private as monero. It's a band aid at best. If it was actually private it would get banned and suppressed like monero.

Then let’s write a nip and create a Nostr client that uses monero. What are you waiting for?

Already here: https://github.com/moStard-org/moStard

This is just an ignorant take on the technology used: https://x.com/SuperTestnet/status/1917510496376197446

Monero has other things working for it though, like the absence of liquidity issues you might face using Lightning.

It nowhere similar to Monero in privacy, because it was never private to begin with. Please read: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/state-of-bitcoin-light...

And attention that Monero isn't the only privacy coin in town, but it is the one that is without doubt more attacked by governments due to its privacy. You don't see the same treatment for neither LN nor bitcoin, instead you see governments supporting it. There is a big difference.

Your link is from 2022 - blinded paths are now here in lightning. Async- and trampoline payments are around the corner. The article is heavily outdated.

I am involved in Lightning and run my own node - it is pretty much private enough for all sorts of micro payments for content creators. Not private enough for organized crime to move large sums, agreed.

You also forget to mention the 51% attack monero recently suffered. Lightning is bitcoin based and way more resilient to that.

By all means, here is a study from 2024 documenting the hard facts about lack of privacy and lack of resiliency: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030859612...

That 51% attack on Monero never happened, despite much noise and headlines saying initially otherwise. You can verify this for yourself.

The paper does not state what you make it out to be (it sees theoretical privacy-lowering attacks, but not as you state it "lack of privacy"). Practical attacks are not even proven.

And it - too - does not look into trampoline payments. Trampoline payments are a new feature that are not yet in a BOLT standard, but tried and tested in beta and used i.e. by Phoenix Wallet or Electrum.

It isn't just "theoretical", those are feasible attack vectors.

Anyways thank you for mentioning Trampoline payments, I've learned something new.

>I am involved in Lightning and run my own node - it is pretty much private enough for all sorts of micro payments for content creators. Not private enough for organized crime to move large sums, agreed.

I don't get it. It's like saying bank transactions are private enough for all sorts of micro payments for content creators, but not private enough for organized crime to move large sums. Technically true, but...

It's either private or not.

You do not even acknowledge that monero payments take minutes (plus waiting for X confirmations) up to hours to finally settle. Lightning payments are instantenous, and take seconds (!). While moneros privacy might be higher that lightning, it is completely unusuable as a web micro-payment network.

I don't think you ever used Monero because payments are settled in a few minutes and the user gets fast notification of incoming transaction.

So that point you raise is fake. However, if you want to pick a more realistic reason then complain about the fees which are still high when doing for example a payment of 5 cents and the fee will often also be 5 cents whereas it should be free.

Anyways, I'm not even a fan of Monero being used for that purpose. The conversation here was about privacy and the lack of it on some virtual coins.

There is no point discussing with you, you twist every argument around - "...payments are settled in a few minutes and the user gets fast notification of incoming transaction." is not even contrary to what I wrote, you repeated my point. Minutes to clear a transaction vs. a second (sometimes a couple of seconds) is not even close to comparable. Anyway, I am out of this thread.

Your claim was:

> It is noteworthy that zapps are based on lightning (which is Layer-2 for bitcoin), and similar in privacy as monero (and instantaneous).

Entire subthread was 99% about your lightning "privacy" claim, which was incorrect.

The difference between minutes vs seconds might be interesting or crucial to many, but that wasn't the most important thing you've been called out on.

Hope this helps with understanding the other guy.

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