It is quite difficult to compare the obfuscation features of lightning network with that of "conventional" systems like cryptonote-style ring signatures. Consid

It is quite difficult to compare the obfuscation features of lightning network with that of "conventional" systems like cryptonote-style ring signatures. Consider two different situations: A) A user picks the economically best peer to open channels with, or chooses peers randomly. Neither of these are sybil proof, which basically means you are transmitting your requests publicly. B) A user only opens channels privately within a cohort of peers that privately agree not to keep logs, have special means of transmitting requests privately, etc. I would assume that most users follow some of A's heuristic and some of B's. To the extent that situation B offers privacy, it prevents you from transacting with other users globally in a more general sense. In other words, it is useful as a privacy mechanism only if you trust your peers not to keep logs, but don't trust them not to double-spend, and also you are not worried about guilt-by-association of owning a channel with these peers. If you were running some sort of dark net market or something, it would be easier to implement some sort of (cryptocurrency-backed?) chaumian cash, as you already implicitly trust the marketplace's sysadmin to some extent (as they can simply MITM your relationships unless you establish them by keypairs out-of-band (this is another sybil problem), which is probably more dangerous than double-spending).