I've long been toying with the idea of an L2 for unenforceable ("trivial") amounts. The only mechanism here is that if the coordinator misbehaves, a user can prove it and send *all* the funds to a fallback. The default fallback is half-burn, half-fees*, but it could also be some custodian of last resort.
This is strictly weaker than, say, lightning, but I think it's the best you can do for tiny amounts: ensure that there's no profit in cheating.
The problem is that I don't think you can prove all the different ways the coordinator can screw you. It can fail to respond at all. It can claim to be unable to make any lightning payment you ask for. You can probably prove misbehaviour for any transfer to/from other internal users of the same system, but that's not very useful if you can't get funds out!
So I'm posting here in case it forms a useful component for building something. Good luck!
* Christian Decker nominated this a "Nero protocol", which I like.
Rusty Russell
npub179…elz4s
2025-04-13 22:28:12
Author Public Key
npub179e9tp4yqtqx4myp35283fz64gxuzmr6n3yxnktux5pnd5t03eps0elz4sPublished at
2025-04-13 22:28:12Event JSON
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"content": "I've long been toying with the idea of an L2 for unenforceable (\"trivial\") amounts. The only mechanism here is that if the coordinator misbehaves, a user can prove it and send *all* the funds to a fallback. The default fallback is half-burn, half-fees*, but it could also be some custodian of last resort.\n\nThis is strictly weaker than, say, lightning, but I think it's the best you can do for tiny amounts: ensure that there's no profit in cheating. \n\nThe problem is that I don't think you can prove all the different ways the coordinator can screw you. It can fail to respond at all. It can claim to be unable to make any lightning payment you ask for. You can probably prove misbehaviour for any transfer to/from other internal users of the same system, but that's not very useful if you can't get funds out!\n\nSo I'm posting here in case it forms a useful component for building something. Good luck!\n\n* Christian Decker nominated this a \"Nero protocol\", which I like.",
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}