I certainly agree that digital money is the use-case, but I don't think Bitcoin is it.
Transactions are far too expensive and has too poor privacy for that to be the case.
Transactions are far too expensive and has too poor privacy for that to be the case.
There is no record of the tx on a blockchain - it is reasonably private. It is not as private as monero, zcash — sure, but there is no ongoing record of tx.
What feature was given up? Sats are sats and they are accepted where sats are taken.
Otherwise you can't use it on your mobile phone, have problem with finding an available route, having failed payments, having to open new channels and you still have to make regular and expensive Bitcoin transactions when topping up or opening channels.
It’s true that while an onchain tx is simpler to manage, there are many cases where an onchain tx is undesirable. Lightning facilities that.
And no, Lightning is not Bitcoin. That's just marketing for suckers.
Is a Casascius coin Bitcoin? A paper wallet? If I give you a casacius coin, have I given your Bitcoin? Lightning is analogous to being able to fractionally trade a Casacius coin.
Giving someone a casacius coin is not the same as sending someone a digital Bitcoin, as the properties are different. And in the same way sending someone Lightning Bitcoin is different as it hasn't been recorded on the blockchain yet.
https://github.com/lnbook/lnbook/blob/ece69d5c2ac8116ef83c18...
It’s just trading balances. Don’t fear it!
That's not a very useful distinction. The latest channel update, being just a standard Bitcoin transaction, can be published on-chain any time a participant desires.
Would you similarly claim that 0-conf transactions in the mempool are not Bitcoin, as they are not recorded yet?
It's ironic, because volatility is the opposite of what you want in a currency.