Zebedee has launched a suite of open source products for Bitcoin's Lightning. The initiative is part of a project called NBD, which stands for no big deal.
NBD primarily focuses on developing products that facilitate the use of Lightning in Bitcoin. All of the tools released in this package, which includes a wallet called the Open Bitcoin Wallet (OBW), focus on using channels hosted on the Lightning network.
It is not necessary to deposit BTC in a smart contract
Hosted channels essentially eliminate the need for a user to schedule a channel and inject liquidity to operate on the Lightning network. In other words, it allows you to create a type of payment channel in Lightning where a trusted third party ensures the liquidity of the channels, so that a user doesn't have to leave funds in payment channels they wouldn't use all the time.
This isn't ideal from a Bitcoin ideology standpoint (trust no one, be sovereign and all), but it is, in our opinion, one of the best solutions available so far for scaling onboarding and access. to Bitcoin. Because, ultimately, if we want people to use a solution, it has to be both useful (and Lighting has already proven to be) and usable (which Lightning isn't necessarily right now, unless you're technical enough. , you already have enough bitcoin or are using an escrow service like Zebedee). - Zebedee.
This means that with this solution there is no need for two users to deposit BTC in a smart contract, which is how a payment guarantee is originally created to use the Lightning Network through the payment channels they would use themselves.
As for the OBW wallet, it can be said that it connects to Electrum's servers and supports the RBF, that is, the paid replacement of transactions. It can also connect to a Tor network, which ensures greater privacy when browsing the Internet.
This wallet can be used with standard Lightning benefits, without using hosted channels. In addition, it supports the creation of LNURL transactions, a feature that allows you to create payment invoices in the form of QR without an Internet connection.
Other open source tools for Lightning from NBD
In addition to the open source portfolio, the NBD team has designed other tools. Among them is Poncho. This is an add-on for anyone who manages Lightning nodes with CoreLightning software. Basically it allows you to create hosted channels that work through portfolios such as OBW.
Cliché is another tool released in this package. It is a software to manage Lightning, on the style of LND or CoreLightning, which already incorporates the possibility of creating hosted channels.
Since it is open source software, like all the ones contained in this package, the NBD team jokes: "Yes, you can fork and sell it for a profit, but good luck."
Finally, NBD provides the developer community with a library of programming solutions that allows you to add Lightning networking capabilities to portfolios without them. The interesting aspect here is that these functions can be incorporated with the plug and play option.
From the standpoint of the ideology that founded Bitcoin, open source projects like NBD offer the developer community ways to collaborate for a common goal. In this case, the growth of an effective e-money network that does not depend on states or banks to function.
