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Comment on Launch HN: Sparkswap (YC S18) – Buy Bitcoin Instantly over the Lightning Networkparent

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tg3OP

If you close a Lightning channel (or use a service provider to translate a Lightning payment to an on-chain payment, a common way to "withdraw" from Lightning channels), you will incur a blockchain transaction fee, similar to using regular exchange. You'll have more control over that fee based on your time preference, and importantly, you won't need to incur that fee to make sure that the Bitcoin is actually in your possession. So it will likely end up about neutral cost-wise (maybe slightly cheaper?) but you'll have more control over the whole lifecycle.

You do need to pay to both open and close a channel, so you'll incur two transaction fees in contrast to one with a regular exchange.

tg3OP

Sparkswap opens the channel to the user, so Sparkswap will incur the channel opening and closing fee.

That's nice. So similar to how a regular exchange pays for your withdrawal transaction. (And of course if it's better or worse depends on how much they'll charge).

One advantage is that your funds are already in a lightning channel, so you can immediately use it for payments within the lightning network with very low fees (vs having to pay onchain fees).

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