pull down to refresh
If a user can run their own lightning node, manage liquidity and the liveness requirements then they should. Ark isn't going to replace that, however for people who don't want to then ark can be quite compelling.
Yes the server can refuse to sign any payments you try to make but that's why storing your VTXOs locally is so important because it allows you to unilaterally exit without anybody's permission. Bark clients store this by default for this very reason. You do still have to contend with the reality that it might not always be economical to exit however that's much less of a problem for the average bitcoiner imo due to refreshes resetting how many transactions are required to exit.
reply
Would have responded sooner but I was driving my kids home. I appreciate your viewpoint here and it is helpful. Also, I use Noah and really like it!
here is one of the things I'm struggling to understand about the trade-offs with Ark:
With lightning I can open a channel to anyone who will have me, whereas with Ark my choice is limited to which Ark I want to join. Once in an Ark, paying others in the same Ark works great, but I'm less convinced about paying out of the Ark via lightning.
It is my understanding of the way gateways in Ark work that an Ark user cannot force a gateway to make a payment. So if the gateways in my particular Ark refuse to let me send out, my recourse is go back to the chain. That's fine, but it seems to me to be a step down from the "trustlessness" of Lightning.
I'm happy to make such tradeoffs because I can't stand managing liquidity and dealing with liveness, but when users want to know whether something is custodial or not, this moves the needle a little bit for me.
What do you think?