> for the first time, you can have fast, convenient trading without custodial trust. Really? From your description it sounds like I would have to trust Sparkswap and some other unknown bank with my fiat. > In just the first half of 2019, almost $500M^3 was stolen from custodial exchanges. And why would you be immune to this? > product that solves a real problem What problem? To buy LN coins instead of Bitcoins?
> Really? From your description it sounds like I would have to trust Sparkswap and some other unknown bank with my fiat.
Fiat transactions have extremely high reversibility often for months after the fact, and law enforcement is actually responsive around fiat theft in a way they haven't been around cryptocurrency theft. As a result, at least so-far, exchange thefts have not centered around the fiat side of the operations, and in the rare cases fiat has been lost it seems to have always, AFAIK, been cases where the exchange self-traded in order to cover up a cryptocurrency loss. But perhaps as the cryptocurrency side gets derisked we'll see more fiat shenanigans.
>> In just the first half of 2019, almost $500M^3 was stolen from custodial exchanges.
> And why would you be immune to this?
They'd be immune because those thefts targeted huge standing balances of highly liquid, irreversible cryptocurrencies, that users left on exchanges for convenience in trade. It sounds like their intent is to eliminate all large standing cryptocurrency balances. I have no idea if they will be successful, but if they are it should be a substantial derisking.
> What problem? To buy LN coins instead of Bitcoins?
There is no such thing as "LN coins", lightning is a bitcoin smart contract that allows effectively instantaneous transfers of Bitcoin between users. It works by telling the bitcoin network that some collection of your coins will be governed by a programmatic contract between you and another user, then you can trade your coins back and forth as fast as you want at no cost, and you only need to go back to the network if there is a dispute between parties (where the network then forces correct handling) or you want to remove the coins from the agreement.
This is conceptually similar to how you enjoy the protection of the law and the courts while virtually never going to court yourself-- except more powerful because taking your dispute to the network is completely automated, radically cheaper than a court, and not so subject to making a wrong decision. :)
(The network part of the name comes in because the lighting contracts allow transitive trade, e.g. if Alice and Mallory have funds subject to lightning contract, and Mallory and Bob have funds subject to lighting contract-- then Alice can pay Bob, transitively via Mallory without posting transactions in public. This is possible because the protocol is constructed so that multiple trades can be made cryptographically atomic-- where either all succeed or all fail.)
Part of the reason that you're being downvoted is because misinformation claiming that lightning issues some kind of additional or alternative cryptocurrency is a dog whistle of some well known cryptocurrency scammers, such as Craig Wright and his staff.
Downvoters may have been assuming that you were employed by one of these scammers, but it's just as possible that you simply picked up some of their terminology in ignorance.
Cheers.