What’s going on with bitcoin and lightning in 2025? When did shadow custodian become self-custody? I know 2024 was rough but it’s a new year and it’s time for self-custody to make a comeback.
Some thoughts below on how to make that happen, and a tweet thread for those of you who can’t read.
https://sats.build/self-custody-lightning-2025/
What spawned this? 2024 was a rough year for Bitcoin. We literally lost a year.
Regulatory was one thing, but tech was a whole other story. Lightning developer brethren, when did we give up and accept shadow custody over self-custody? smh
Ecash and liquid are custodians with extra steps. S/o to nostr:npub12rv5lskctqxxs2c8rf2zlzc7xx3qpvzs3w4etgemauy9thegr43sf485vg for being the most intellectually honest out of all the ecashers.
Instead of retreating to custodial solutions, double down with me and try a little harder. I can’t defend ecash or federation mumbojumbo. I can absolutely stand behind an LSP.
The details are in the post, but the gist is this– we don’t need 100% off-chain yet. NFTs lost (again). We have not pushed the Bitcoin blockchain to the point of needing to scale (yet, but if we make a compelling Bitcoin payments application, maybe we’ll actually have a reason to). We don’t need op_codes we need thoughtful design.
I’m thinking of building this, but in the spirit of Bitcoin, Satoshi’s vision etc. I want you to think of building this too. Maybe we can do it together?