I just realized.
ecash/cashu basically what Ark is doing, but without needing the Ark protocol and their silly expiration thing.
(haven't looked much into Ark, but... don't see a need for it so far?)
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I don't see much overlap with Ark. And yeah the expiration thing sucks.
Ark has unilateral exit under certain conditions, while ecash does not.
Liveness is necessary because they supposedly work with expiring presigned transactions.
Ark server operators create a secondary "VTXO" system which eliminate the need for the bidirectional channel setup that LN has.
LN suffers from liquidity lockup: bitcoin sits on channels mostly inefficiently until a payment is initiated.
If your VTXO expires, you cannot unilaterally exit anymore so users are incentivized to move the money from time to time, avoiding inefficiencies of dormant liquidity.
I may be wrong but that's my curent understanding.
The great thing about Ark is that you always have the option to pay the tx fee and broadcast your VTXO, thereby turning it into a UTXO
CASHU JASHU DASHU MORSHU WOLPU
That 'expiry' part brings up a huge red flag for me... perhaps it's me not fully understanding it