As fragmented as open source efforts usually are, there's usually some network effect that lowers the risk for someone else to try it. Linux, LibreOffice, Lightttpd etc. With crypto it's winner-take-all.

It’s strictly a generalization of a block chain, since the chain is a tree. Also, instead of remaining anonymous and trying to scam pension funds, its creator named it after himself.

It’s also at least a million times more energy efficient, and has better support for federation (i.e., forks).

I really enjoy Podverse and real time transcripts and live shows and chapters, etc…

There are a lot of different reasons people can be fundamentally against crypto, and those reasons have been talked about in great depth over the last few years. Even if you don't agree with them, the various "anti" positions aren't that difficult to understand.

Lightning is nice but it's an unrelated project. Bitcoin itself is still fundamentally flawed and Lightning is basically syntactic sugar on the same decaying infrastructure. It "solves" the same problems Bitcoin did with a loosely agnostic framework around ... the exact same blockchain. It's the equivalent of getting a second-try on a test you failed just to write the same answer down.

And Lighting is one of the good ones. Other L2 chains range from "marginally exploitative" to "broken" to "outright literal scam" depending on the developer.

It "solves" that it is a predatory minefield of grifters, jangling keys of hope in front of people with little to lose?

Since when?

https://soundcloud.com/user-773474262-525813292/the-history-...