Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions • Hacker News Board

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#21

Post by forgotpwtomain » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:05 AM UTC

ptokb3 wrote: post #14

RustyRussell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment seems like a cheap poke at Blockstream, who have nothing to do with the lightning paper authors. (I work for Blockstream, and I am also trying to implement and standardize lightning. But we certainly didn't invent it, and this isn't our page)

You are implementing Lightning, paid by Blockstream but Blockstream has nothing to do with it? Maybe you're just really funny and they are paying you for your incredible sense of humor.

Supposing this is really Rusty Russell [0], I would encourage some hesitation before you imply that they are involved in advocating for less than savory things.

Rusty Russell has done a lot of great work on Linux (the TCP stack in particular) and you've probably used some of his work. For all I know, Russell might be deluded and Blockstream might be an evil brain-washing machine, but if Russell was in it for the money he could or would just as easily have done that 10 years ago rather than today.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusty_Russell

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#22

Post by ptokb3 » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:06 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #15

ptokb3 wrote: post #12

-Blockstream Playbook- Step 1: Buy off all of the top developers of open-source project. Check. Step 2: Refuse to support/fix basic network operations so that transactions stop confirming just as the network needs to grow. Check. Step 3: Create a 2nd-layer solution for growth that allows the company to siphon Billions of dollars over many years. Check. Step 4: Censor any forum where people alert others about secret g…

How does Step 3 work? How is Blockstream able to siphon Billions from Lightning?

Well, they say that "anyone can use" a 2nd layer lightning network but realistically nobody is going to trust any basement-dweller to intermediate their off-chain transaction. This will centralize off-chain scaling to large players like Blockstream.

Blockstream will run a Lightning hub and make money off of facilitating transactions before settling them on-chain. Since blockspace is limited they will make (or have made) agreements with miners like BTCC in China - that way they will always be able to settle, but on-chain transactions might get kicked off and be forced to use their centralized system. It's really rather insidious.

Lightning is also not the peer-to-peer solution that the Bitcoin Whitepaper promotes in its abstract. The first few sentences describing the reason for Bitcoin to exist in the first place make peer-to-peer the number one priority.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#23

Post by josephpoon » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:07 AM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #5

This is from the same company that has seized control of the development of the main Bitcoin codebase and has been making changes to cause problems that their Lightning Network claims to solve.

What are you talking about? I don't control the Bitcoin codebase at all. I don't have commit access to Bitcoin's repo.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#24

Post by josephpoon » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:09 AM UTC

ptokb3 wrote: post #22

sanswork wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Step 3 work? How is Blockstream able to siphon Billions from Lightning?

Well, they say that "anyone can use" a 2nd layer lightning network but realistically nobody is going to trust any basement-dweller to intermediate their off-chain transaction. This will centralize off-chain scaling to large players like Blockstream. Blockstream will run a Lightning hub and make money off of facilitating transactions before settling them on-chain. Since blockspace is limited they will make (or have ma…

Our implementation will not be biased towards Blockstream's hub if they ever make one. In fact, it's designed to work in a scale-free network topology.

You can find it at https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#25

Post by josephpoon » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:11 AM UTC

jswny wrote: post #11

I'm still not sure how I feel about implementing a layer over the Bitcoin network like this instead of just fixing the inherent flaws with the protocol. Especially when said network is being pushed by the company Blockstream which is known for shady practices.

The Lightning Network is blocksize agnostic. I haven't been arguing on either side of the blocksize debate.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#26

Post by josephpoon » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:12 AM UTC

toomim wrote: post #3

Is there any news here?

Not sure why it's posted again, but we might have some announcements soon :D

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#27

Post by ptokb3 » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:12 AM UTC

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #21

ptokb3 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are implementing Lightning, paid by Blockstream but Blockstream has nothing to do with it? Maybe you're just really funny and they are paying you for your incredible sense of humor.

Supposing this is really Rusty Russell [0], I would encourage some hesitation before you imply that they are involved in advocating for less than savory things. Rusty Russell has done a lot of great work on Linux (the TCP stack in particular) and you've probably used some of his work. For all I know, Russell might be deluded and Blockstream might be an evil brain-washing machine, but if Russell was in it for the mone…

I was pointing out the obvious logical flaw in what he said, that's all.

I'm sure he is a nice guy and maybe he's even funny.

Blockstream does need to recoup the 70 million in funding they've received though and it's a fact that they have most of BitcoinCore's top contributing developers on their payroll, with exception to Wladimir.

Clearly I'm not the only one concerned about a conflict of interest and I'm sure it's hard to see conflicts of interest if you're the one at the center of it.

One last edit, aside from a grammar correction: authority deserves scrutiny.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#28

Post by stale2002 » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:13 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #18

stale2002 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can submit a proposal yourself if you want to fix it" Not really. The vast majority of the bitcoin community has been trying to do just that. But a few devs have unilaterally been able to block the changes. The Devs have a lot of "soft power" to do stuff like that.

How do you know the vast majority has been trying to do it?

As measured by the fact that every major bitcoin company and mining pool has explicitly said that they want these changes to take place?

They want these changes to happen, they just want the Core Development team to say that they are going to stay out of the way, and not attempt to burn the whole thing down if they don't get their way.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#29

Post by ywecur » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:17 AM UTC

paavokoya wrote: post #13

jswny wrote: post #11

I'm still not sure how I feel about implementing a layer over the Bitcoin network like this instead of just fixing the inherent flaws with the protocol. Especially when said network is being pushed by the company Blockstream which is known for shady practices.

>instead of just fixing the inherent flaws with the protocol What are the "inherent flaws"? Seems like the bitcoin blockchain has done its job better than any other blockchain for longer. Also, it's open source.. You can submit a proposal yourself if you want to fix it..

It's not nearly that straight forward. Many "fixes" would create incompatible blockchains between the different versions. In practise you need to get consensus before your fork can even be used.

Re: Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

#30

Post by sanswork » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 5:17 AM UTC

ptokb3 wrote: post #22

sanswork wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Step 3 work? How is Blockstream able to siphon Billions from Lightning?

Well, they say that "anyone can use" a 2nd layer lightning network but realistically nobody is going to trust any basement-dweller to intermediate their off-chain transaction. This will centralize off-chain scaling to large players like Blockstream. Blockstream will run a Lightning hub and make money off of facilitating transactions before settling them on-chain. Since blockspace is limited they will make (or have ma…

Why do you think Blockstream would capture a large part of that market? They are only known by people who care specifically about the implementation of bitcoin. If you did a survey of just users I doubt more than 50% would know them. Their are much more well known entities in the space that are far more likely to win a battle to be primary hubs.

Bitcoin can't scale in a peer to peer way to handle any real kind of volume. It's kind of the downside of distributed systems is that they suck at scaling and throughput.

I'm guessing you want them to increase the block size to 2mb but what does that get you? 6tps? So we go to 20mb and you're up to 60tps? You can't scale it on chain and get anywhere near the tps needed for it to be globally successful.

So your options are offchain scaling or limiting its uses with fees.