Author: Kostas Karasavvas 2023-04-19 09:05:10
Published on: 2023-04-19T09:05:10+00:00
In an email thread on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, Michael Folkson asked about the proposed default policy changes for Lightning and whether tighter coupling between the full node and Lightning node could eventually make sense. Kostas Karasavvas replied that separation of concerns always makes sense to manage complexity, and one would need strong incentives to counter the complexity argument. He questioned the actual benefit of integrating them, besides not having to install Lightning separately and maybe a more intuitive UX. Having two separate P2P networks and protocols wouldn't make much sense in this scenario, but he suggested focusing on Knots style consensus compatible forks of Core with limited additional functionality.Folkson also mentioned his long-term idea of a new bare bones Knots style Bitcoin implementation integrated with Core Lightning, given the dysfunction on the Bitcoin Core project and the ultra conservatism that is needed when treating (potential) consensus code. The libbitcoinkernel project was an attempt to extract the consensus engine out of Core, but consensus is too slippery a concept and Knots style consensus compatible codebase forks of Bitcoin Core still seem to be the model. There's also the question of whether it makes sense to mix C and C++ code that people have different views on. Overall, Folkson floated the idea to hear from people who are much more familiar with the entirety of the Bitcoin Core and Core Lightning codebases. He acknowledged that it would be an ambitious long-term project, but it would be nice to focus on some ambitious project(s) for a while given the lull in soft fork activation chaos.
Updated on: 2023-06-03T11:34:38.888354+00:00