ZmnSCPxj [ARCHIVE] on Nostr: 📅 Original date posted:2021-02-11 📝 Original message: Good morning Andres, > ...

📅 Original date posted:2021-02-11
📝 Original message:
Good morning Andres,

> Hey ZmnSCPxj,
>
> On Thu, 11 Feb 2021 at 15:33, ZmnSCPxj <ZmnSCPxj at protonmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Good morning Andres,
> >
> > > This looks cool but would hinder UX too much for certain scenarios: e.g. if the escrow in place is part of a bitcoin exchange, then you require the bitcoin buyer to have bitcoin already, which makes it harder to on-ramp new users (which could maybe only have fiat). Am I right?
> >
> > Correct.
> > Though note that existing systems like Bisq, to my knowledge, have the same problem, a buyer of Bitcoin has to have a small amount of Bitcoin to offer as stake that can be revoked in case they attempt to defraud the counterparty.
> > Without it, the counterparty takes on increased risk (which translate to larger exchange spread).
>
> Yeah I understand Bisq's model.
> However not all P2P exchanges work like this; e.g. localcryptos, hodlhodl, localbitcoins, localcryptos...
>

At least localbitcoins is custodial, and this scheme is non-custodial (though the escrow must still be trusted to actually judge correctly in case of dispute, so non-custodiality might be a very thin assurance).

>  
>
> > In any case, once you have that initial stake, you can then keep increasing your ability to provide stake so as to relieve your counterparties of risk and have them offer better exchange rates, so it is "only" an issue for initial onboarding.
> > Presumably, in the later stable state, parents will provide children the initial stake needed for them to start transacting over such a system, just as they already provide their children with other "initial stakes" (education, food, shelter, etc.) anyway.
> >
> > >
> > > So are you saying that this is not doable without PTLCs (with simple HTLCs) unless it's done like suggested?
> >
> > Yes, it is yet another reason we want PTLCs quickly.
> >
> > An alternative would be to have dual-hash HTLCs, which would be helpful in other escrow-related cases including escrow-facilitated cross-currency swaps.
>
> Is there any disadvantage about using dual-hash HTLCs?
> Is it supported by the current LN spec?

It is no supported by current LN spec, and PTLCs are overall superior (they are equivalent to having any number of hashes, not just 2 that dual-hash HTLCs can do).
So if we need to change the LN spec anyway, PTLCs are still the better choice, since they enable a lot more, and we probably want to support that in the future anyway, so we might as well do HTLC->PTLC rather than HTLC->2HTLC->PTLC.

Regards,
ZmnSCPxj