I’ve been following the discussions about Bitcoin integration on ICP and I’m curious about something that seems like it could be huge for the ecosystem. I’m not a developer, but I’ve been thinking about whether it’s possible to run Bitcoin Lightning Network nodes directly on ICP canisters using the WebSocket infrastructure.
From what I understand, ICP has native Bitcoin integration and threshold Schnorr signatures, plus the WebSocket gateway enables persistent connections between canisters and external services. Since Lightning nodes need P2P networking and always-on connectivity, this seems like ICP could potentially solve some of Lightning’s biggest problems like nodes going offline, backup and watchtower services, and capital efficiency issues.
I’d love to know if this is technically possible with current ICP capabilities. If it is possible, what kind of Lightning Network use cases could we actually see built on ICP? If it’s not possible right now, what are the main technical roadblocks preventing it from happening?
I saw some earlier discussions about Lightning integration from @timo and others, but I’m wondering if the WebSocket infrastructure changes what’s possible now. Even though I can’t build it myself, I’m fascinated by the potential implications this could have for both the Lightning Network and the ICP ecosystem.
Thanks for any insights you can share!