I'm not sure, probably I shouldn't mix this subject in these thread! If needed, I delete the post!
I don't think it's wrong; since we don't yet have a Lightning / L2 board, it's often easier to slightly touch on a subject in here instead of creating a new thread for that in the general Bitcoin Discussion board.
I have a question. Anyone here uses or ever used this Robosats app to purchase sats, over LN in a P2P kind of model exchange? This app seems to allow P2P purchases of sats over LN. Seems interesting this concept.
No, not yet; but I've heard about that application. I'll have a look. To me, Lightning can be used as a 'light' form of mixing, so it matches well with P2P on-/off-ramping, since your funds would kind of be 'auto-pre-mixed'.
Also, I want to let people know about a cool app I've been using (actually, in my case, I'm waiting for a bug fix, but works well for most) to listen podcasts and earn sats as we listen, called Fountain app.
Interesting! I did the opposite on
Breez in the past, donating some sats by the minute for listening to a podcast.
Lately, I've missed a lot of the early enthusiasm that existed for 'pay per minute' type of ideas that sprung up when Lightning was in its infancy. There were ideas and even Testnet projects for paying for written articles not only individually, but even while scrolling down. Or for paying movies by the minute; we called that 'streaming sats', parallel to the content that was 'streamed' in the opposite direction.
I would much prefer an internet that is not filled with ads and trackers and where you rather pay the creators of the content you see directly; instead of indirectly through your personal data and huge advertising networks that take a large cut. Lightning was seen as the technology that can accomplish this, but a lot of this enthusiasm has sadly dropped off. But I'm totally digressing from your actual question...
These seems to be what I think I can call L3 use cases for the LN. Good apps focused on LN and which allows us to learn and earn sats!
No, these are L2 applications, just like a webshop that accepts on-chain payments is not a layer 2 application.
The third layer is when for instance, virtual channels are built on top of L2 channels or sidechains.
Edit: I've had a look at Robosats. It looks like it could come in handy especially for lower amounts, and it's indeed P2P and KYC-less. However, it's not non-custodial (there is a fully trusted escrow) and even though it's on Tor, it is also centralized. Not that those are total deal breakers, just want to make it clear here.
Actually, I don't know if it's even possible to build something that's at the same time:
- P2P
- trustless
- non-custodial / no trusted parties
- KYC-less
Even Bisq gives a non insignificant amount of power to the mediators, but at least in the 'normal mode of operation', you don't hand custody of your crypto funds over to an escrow, but rather put it in a multisig transaction. So in normal operation, where nobody tries to cheat, there is no interaction from anyone outside both trading partners. This is a little bit different here. You also can't shut down Bisq, since it's decentralized and runs on people's own machines, whereas Robosats runs on a central server that could be shut down at any time.
But again, the smaller, easier to route amounts, that are presented here (e.g. $50 gift cards as fiat payment) sound reasonable to transfer in such an escrow setting without too much worry.
