makeasnek on Nostr: More or less yes. > is a much faster version where we don’t have to wait 10 minutes ...
More or less yes.
> is a much faster version where we don’t have to wait 10 minutes for confirmation
Exactly. You wait < 1 second in most cases, and the fees are much lower too, since you don't have to pay for space in the block. 1% or less in most cases.
Basically, when you move Bitcoin "into lightning" you lock it up into a "smart contract"/"channel". This "channel" is just a ledger between you and somebody else which states the "balance" of the channel. For example, you lock up 1 BTC into a lightning channel. Since you paid the BTC, 100% of that BTC belongs to you, so the balance is 100:0. If you send .1 BTC to the other person, now the balance is 99:1. You and this other person track the balance of this channel over time. And you can chain these channels together, so you can send a lightning payment to somebody you are connected to through somebody else. At any time, you and your channel partner can close the channel and get back whatever portion of BTC is "yours", via the blockchain. But you never have to actually do this. I have lightning channels that have been open for years. That's how it works on the technical side.
On the user experience side, if you are using a custodial wallet (they have the private key), you don't have to think about any of this, it's all managed automatically. If you have a self-custody wallet, you benefit from keeping track of your current channels and how much space they have in them. If you don't, that's fine, you'll just sometimes pay an on-chain tx fee (10c-$1 most of the time) to receive transactions you don't have room in lightning.
Here's the way I describe it to people. Think of a lightning channel as a bucket full of water, and the water as Bitcoin. When you buy the bucket, it is full of water. The amount you paid for the bucket determines the size of the bucket. Since it's full of water when you first buy it, you can't put any more water in. Instead, you have to dump out some of the water. Once you dump some out, you have room to add water back in (receive a payment). You can dump out and refill as infinitely so long as you never try to add more to the bucket than it can hold or pour out more than it has. And you can have many buckets.
> is a much faster version where we don’t have to wait 10 minutes for confirmation
Exactly. You wait < 1 second in most cases, and the fees are much lower too, since you don't have to pay for space in the block. 1% or less in most cases.
Basically, when you move Bitcoin "into lightning" you lock it up into a "smart contract"/"channel". This "channel" is just a ledger between you and somebody else which states the "balance" of the channel. For example, you lock up 1 BTC into a lightning channel. Since you paid the BTC, 100% of that BTC belongs to you, so the balance is 100:0. If you send .1 BTC to the other person, now the balance is 99:1. You and this other person track the balance of this channel over time. And you can chain these channels together, so you can send a lightning payment to somebody you are connected to through somebody else. At any time, you and your channel partner can close the channel and get back whatever portion of BTC is "yours", via the blockchain. But you never have to actually do this. I have lightning channels that have been open for years. That's how it works on the technical side.
On the user experience side, if you are using a custodial wallet (they have the private key), you don't have to think about any of this, it's all managed automatically. If you have a self-custody wallet, you benefit from keeping track of your current channels and how much space they have in them. If you don't, that's fine, you'll just sometimes pay an on-chain tx fee (10c-$1 most of the time) to receive transactions you don't have room in lightning.
Here's the way I describe it to people. Think of a lightning channel as a bucket full of water, and the water as Bitcoin. When you buy the bucket, it is full of water. The amount you paid for the bucket determines the size of the bucket. Since it's full of water when you first buy it, you can't put any more water in. Instead, you have to dump out some of the water. Once you dump some out, you have room to add water back in (receive a payment). You can dump out and refill as infinitely so long as you never try to add more to the bucket than it can hold or pour out more than it has. And you can have many buckets.