Requiem for a Decentralized Bitcoin
summary
Claims that mobile self‑custodial Lightning is now workable cite concrete fixes: LDK async persistence and live backups, Phoenix‑style wallet plumbing, zero‑fee commitments, co‑op close v3, rapid gossip sync, probing plus automated scorers for routing. Despite these engineering wins, adoption stays low: Lightning handles ~10–30% of BTC transactions while custodial products (Wallet of Satoshi, Liquid, Spark) remain cheaper, instant, and legally simpler, so operator scarcity, regulatory risk for LSPs, and weak demand for sustainably censorship‑resistant flows threaten decentralization.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:24Block size wars and Lightning
- 3:07Self-custody and Lightning
- 4:52Custodial Lightning today
- 7:20Self-custodial Lightning challenges
- 9:02Centralization threat to Bitcoin
- 12:34Bleak outlook for decentralized Bitcoin
- 15:44Demand for censorship-resistant transactions
- 17:11Stablecoins and censorship resistance
- 18:36Sustainable censorship-resistant future
- 21:48Closing remarks








