[poontang1]

You fundamentally misunderstand how Lightning works.

In lightning you literally have a signed bitcoin transaction that allows you to receive the funds on-chain at any time. You don't submit it because you can continue to cooperatively sign new transactions that change respective balances between you and other channel participants.

This is nothing like an IOU, because you have the ability to settle any time you want (just broadcast a signed transactions you already have), there is just no reason to.

Based on your replies I am going to assume you are actually trying to misinform people.

[bduerst]

That's precisely the same as an uncashed check - an IOU. Just because you can cash it at any time does not make it different from an IOU. Until settled, it's just a "hey I will pay you some Bitcoin in the future".

It's a commitment to a payment that untrusted parties are going to settle immediately for reasons discussed above.

[yownie]

Based on your replies I am going to assume you are actually trying to misinform people.