.@Lightning Loop handles liquidity state in a channel after it’s been established (“I’ve spent all my coins on LN services, let me top my existing channel rather than restart everything in a new channel”)
*Pool enables new channels to be created, to new entities, fanning out*
Loop is about ensuring everyone is happy with their liquidity situation
Pool is about ensuring anyone and everyone who wants to be using the LN is properly connected and directing the graph in their interest, + channel-liquidity providers earning yield is a great union.
Prior to Pool, the LN graph is a bit ad hoc and haphazard. As an ecosystem, we love this because it means everyone is participating in an open network. From a QoS perspective it’s not ideal because we don’t want users to have to think about their channel<->graph strategy.
Pool is a market place for parties to buy and sell the cutting edge channel allocation in the Lightning Network’s graph
“I’m an exchange, I want a new user to be able to buy bitcoin, take custody, and then spend it themselves on the LN. I use Pool to create a channel to customer
“I’m a routing node, I notice the routing fees being paid to route payments has a hop that’s charging fees higher than a what a provider is asking for channel-lease fees in Pool’s ask book. I arbitrage the high-fee router by using Pool to build a channel, that routes around them”
The post-Pool channel paradigm creates positive feedback loops of
* great user experience
* more profitable and performant business
* price signals
* efficient channel allocation
* L1-chain efficient channel batching
* ameliorating graph, channel-pairing computational strains
If you're a @lightning Pool novice or pro, @lightning would love to hear how Pool can serve the community and businesses better.