The potential of bitcoin is really enormous. And that potential is only increasing through the lightning network, this is a kind of layer around the blockchain, which means that even more and cheaper transactions can be done.
Send decent messages
The lightning network is also suitable for building apps. Joost Jager from Lighting Labs is developing a messaging service called Whatsat, a play on Whatsapp and Satoshi. A message service that is completely decentralized? Then you have our interest. View a demo below.
Does instant messaging about Lightning have killer application potential? The world needs censorship-resistant chatting and with Lightning, the network for message relay comes naturally.https: //t.co/TnLI4yjM16 pic.twitter.com/GseuU4KyZo
– Joost Jager (@joostjgr) November 2, 2019
We spoke with Joost Jager about Whatsat and asked him the shirt.
How did you come up with the idea to develop a messaging service?
Recently I came in contact with an old friend from high school. At that time we sometimes programmed together on hobby projects. We wanted to make an appointment, but the question was how we would communicate. He did not like Whatsapp and such centralized services, but what is left nowadays? The choice fell on IRC, but in terms of user experience it is quite a shock when you start using it again in 2019. This made me think and then the idea of chat-over-Lightning came up.
Why did you choose a messaging service on the Lightning Network?
It is not that I wanted to build a messaging service and that the Lightning Network was the best for this. In reality it was the reverse. In my daily work I develop Lightning and I was curious to what extent that could function as a messaging service. I am currently exploring that question. There are certainly a number of benefits to LN. There is no central server that can be switched off, the messages are sent via onion routing (similar to tor) which is good for privacy and there is a payment mechanism available to reward the network for the services provided.
This second layer is still under development, is that an advantage, or a disadvantage if you develop apps for LN?
Good question. It is a disadvantage and an advantage. A disadvantage is that the network is not yet functioning optimally and sending messages about Lightning might also be bothered by this. An example is finding reliable routes. However, the advantage is that there are still possibilities to make adjustments to the protocol. Such as that you ideally do not want to make a payment to the recipient of the message. You only want to compensate the intermediate nodes. That means that a payment of 0 satoshi is actually made to the recipient of the message. This is something that is currently not possible in Lightning.
Every transaction, including textual messages, entails costs. How do you see that and how do you keep the costs manageable?
This is something that still needs to crystallize. We have to wait and see what the actual transaction costs will be once the network has matured. The costs are also strongly related to the structure of the network and to which points in the network a user is connected. Perhaps a kind of “social hubs” are created to which users who chat a lot with each other are connected to keep costs down.
And how do you prevent spam?
You prevent spam because every message costs money. That is the advantage of paid messages, even if the costs are very low. A spammer typically sends a lot of messages, so then it goes on. You could also demand that new contacts send a relatively high amount with the first message. If the recipient does not find the message spam and replies, then that amount will be returned in the reply.
Are the nodes on the LN ready for this? How can they contribute to apps, and in particular Whatsat? Does it require an extra handling of nodes?
Routing nodes are ready and do not need to do anything. Small adjustments are still needed for the node software of the end points (the people who chat). These changes are underway for LND and C-lightning has also started implementing them.
Do you want to follow the development of Whatsat? That is possible via GitHub.
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