Lightning doesn't absolutely require centralization, but it does cause it. Who's lightning nodes have the most liquidity? That would be places like corporations, BlackRock, etc.
It doesn't. You can run a node on a raspberry pi. The only time having a large amount of liquidity matters is for sending large payments, but multi-channel payments are becoming a thing (break payments up until several smaller payments) so even that is not a problem long-term.
And what about the problem of force closing channels and causing the people to pay the fees on chain which can be quite expensive?
Edit: Also, there are no lightning wallets on fdroid that have been updated within the past year, and some of them specifically say that they have anti-features. If it's not open source, I want nothing to do with it.
And what about the problem of force closing channels and causing the people to pay the fees on chain which can be quite expensive?
On-chain fees are like $.50-$1 most of the time. This only matters if you operate a routing node. If you do, it's something you need to take into account and plan your channels wisely. There's no incentive to force close, non-forced-close is cheaper for everybody, so forced close only really happens if the other node just goes awol for whatever reason. People who are using "regular" lightning wallets never have to worry about this since a lightning service provider (LSP) handles everything. The number of LSPs continues to increase over time and wallets are talking about adding the ability to automatically select LSPs based on published pricing. Importantly, LSPs do not custody funds so there is no rug risk there.
The other situation that gets talked about in relation to channel closes is if a malicious party broadcasts an old channel state to chain (and you have to step in and say hey no actually this is the newest most correct channel state). This is an attack that exists in theory but in practice there is anti-incentive to do it. You lose funds trying it and most lightning wallets and all lightning service providers (LSPs) automatically monitor the chain for this so your chance of actually accomplishing this are basically zero. I have never seen this happen in the wild nor have I ever heard of it happening.
Zeus gets a new version like every month and it's open source. There's plenty of FOSS lightning wallets. Electrum is a good desktop one.
It sounds like you know a good deal about the tech and are interested in it. Encourage you to research more on lightning as well as Ark.
In the last two months alone, Nostr users (decentralized twitter clone like Mastodon) sent each other 3 million tips over Bitcoin lightning. It works, it scales, it's been out for 5+ years now and continues to improve. I can send money to anybody on planet earth in under a second for a penny in fees which i can't even do with my bank account. But it's a failure. Lol.
Just saying, it does have legitimate problems. I have, for example, interacted with the polygon chain and have never interacted with the ethereum chain at all personally.
Lightning doesn't absolutely require centralization, but it does cause it. Who's lightning nodes have the most liquidity? That would be places like corporations, BlackRock, etc.
It doesn't. You can run a node on a raspberry pi. The only time having a large amount of liquidity matters is for sending large payments, but multi-channel payments are becoming a thing (break payments up until several smaller payments) so even that is not a problem long-term.
And what about the problem of force closing channels and causing the people to pay the fees on chain which can be quite expensive?
Edit: Also, there are no lightning wallets on fdroid that have been updated within the past year, and some of them specifically say that they have anti-features. If it's not open source, I want nothing to do with it.
On-chain fees are like $.50-$1 most of the time. This only matters if you operate a routing node. If you do, it's something you need to take into account and plan your channels wisely. There's no incentive to force close, non-forced-close is cheaper for everybody, so forced close only really happens if the other node just goes awol for whatever reason. People who are using "regular" lightning wallets never have to worry about this since a lightning service provider (LSP) handles everything. The number of LSPs continues to increase over time and wallets are talking about adding the ability to automatically select LSPs based on published pricing. Importantly, LSPs do not custody funds so there is no rug risk there.
The other situation that gets talked about in relation to channel closes is if a malicious party broadcasts an old channel state to chain (and you have to step in and say hey no actually this is the newest most correct channel state). This is an attack that exists in theory but in practice there is anti-incentive to do it. You lose funds trying it and most lightning wallets and all lightning service providers (LSPs) automatically monitor the chain for this so your chance of actually accomplishing this are basically zero. I have never seen this happen in the wild nor have I ever heard of it happening.
Zeus gets a new version like every month and it's open source. There's plenty of FOSS lightning wallets. Electrum is a good desktop one.
It sounds like you know a good deal about the tech and are interested in it. Encourage you to research more on lightning as well as Ark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cq0C0SpbkY
In the last two months alone, Nostr users (decentralized twitter clone like Mastodon) sent each other 3 million tips over Bitcoin lightning. It works, it scales, it's been out for 5+ years now and continues to improve. I can send money to anybody on planet earth in under a second for a penny in fees which i can't even do with my bank account. But it's a failure. Lol.
Just saying, it does have legitimate problems. I have, for example, interacted with the polygon chain and have never interacted with the ethereum chain at all personally.