But it’s NOT the same. No one signed, and issued a worthless piece of paper in Lightning, trusting the counterparty’s ability to pay. In Lightning, you literally need an onchain transaction to open/fund a channel, so you are not sending anything worthless to the counterparty.
you mention words like trust and signed.
there are LN walets out their that create channels before a bitcoin transaction is confirmed and locked
there are probably wallets that are using elthree where the channels 'collateral' are not bitcoin transactions
but just purely a balance authorised by a factory where users have to request that balance to be converted to a bitcoin if they ever want to truly exit LN
friends in my neighbourhood know i have lots of funds and am good for it to give them money.
but i can sign anything and show them a bank statement that proves im worth it.
but what im signing is not actually the bank account.
there is still the trust that LATER i will pay what thy are OWED
a contract of whats owed is not the same as a confirmed settled onchain transaction
signing something measured in millisats is not signing a bitcoin transaction
you really do not know all the flaws do you.
devs can make LN wallets that can agree on any silly thing or ignore any silly thing they like. as LN is not a network wide audited payment system.. its just an agreement within the 2 individuals. where those and only those 2 individuals agree on their own terms
i could have channels of(im B)
C D
| /
A--B--E
| \
G F
where BA uses one protocol. where our agreements are measured in millisats
where BC uses another protocol where our IOU are measured in sats
where BD uses another protocol where our IOU are measured in bits
where BE uses another protocol where our IOU are measured in L-btc
where BF uses another protocol where our IOU are measured in furballs
where BG uses another protocol where out IOU are measured in memes
where by when its time to settle/exit LN then we convert the HTLC into a bitcoin transaction
much like HTLC converts millisats to sats
please learn about HTLC's it might really help you out
also each channel can do as many silly or trusted things between us as we can imagine.
as long as we agree on it.
heck it doesnt even matter if the 12 decimals are called millisats or kitten furballs..
it doesnt even have to be 12 decimals. we could use 24 if we wanted.
we dont even have to sign a htlc. we can instead decide to agree on using cat emoji's
the LN network of 32k peers is not auditing our payments within the channel
heck we could be using units of measure of kittyfluff if we want to.
secondly you obsess about the blockchain locks but you dont wish to understand the stuff happening inside LN
the in channel HTLC is not a bitcoin transaction. the denominations the format just dont fit into bitcoins onchain rules. try to understand that then all previous posts might make sense to you
HTLC do not and cannot be broadcast to the bitcoin network
please for the hundredth time.. learn this stuff
the other thing is take any historic IOU. 1890's bank notes dont need countersigning. but were an iou of gold
a cheque doesnt need countersigning. but until its cleared its not settled and thus an iou
even a unconfirmed bitcoin transaction is an IOU(spoiler dont accept zero confirms)
heck i have a raw TX here with gmaxwells address on it..
i signed my transaction..
but its not actually in any mempool or blockchain. soo the question "does it really exist and will gmax ever actually get it" (spoiler:no)
i know he might like to argue that on this forum i have just announced he is owed something.
but .. ofcourse.. not on blockchain=not real
lastly HTLC's get renegged all the time. thats the point. people renegotiate how much each other owes them without actually settling
im surprised it takes you years to even understand these basic concepts of trade, negotiations, contracts.. as its pretty common life stuff
