bitcoin-dev
Scaling Lightning With Simple Covenants
Posted on: September 11, 2023 02:13 UTC
The email discusses the start of a paper that presents some interesting possibilities.
It mentions that the cost of enforcement is significantly increased compared to other proposals, as it involves more transactions (10+). The email also touches upon the concept of a "dedicated user" contributing to the expected fee, which reduces capital efficiency and raises the question of how much is enough. However, in the worst case scenario of a dramatic dedicated user failure, there would only be a 2x penalty on the number of onchain transactions, which is deemed acceptable if the network is mature enough and such failures are rare.Additionally, the email highlights the common occurrence of a "user goes away" case, where a casual user fails to rollover. In this case, funds would only be returned to the dedicated user. The email suggests that relying on legal and normal custody policies may be preferable in such situations, rather than burdening the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) set indefinitely with the current approach.Overall, the email provides an initial analysis of the paper and raises important considerations regarding the cost of enforcement, capital efficiency, and potential failure scenarios. It also emphasizes the potential benefits of relying on legal and custody policies in certain cases.