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

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

#51

Post by josephpoon » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 6:05 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #48

josephpoon wrote: post #32

For the HN crowd passing by, here's why this stuff could be interesting to you. It's not possible to do extremely small micropayments on bitcoin directly as people use it today. Bitcoin's made a lot of promises around micropayments, but doing it in an economical way has tradeoffs, especially if you're talking about millions to billions of transactions per second. In fact it's not possible to extremely small micropaym…

The site talks about billions of transactions per second. So presumably multiple tx/sec/person on earth. Can you give me some examples of how this is useful? For instance, why would a CDN want to handle and record a financial transaction for e.g. every HTTP load or something? I'm also suspicious of pay-per-whatever extending to end-users. People hate that kind of billing, even when it's cheaper (I learned this the ha…

No need for username/passwords. The flow would literally be you paid? You're done. No more per-website API tokens.

Pay per website you visit, you visit a lot of different websites.

The notion is that you make each payment to be the smallest atomic component, so you need high-volume for that (since one large purchase gets split into many small purchases).

End-users don't like being scammed. If it's sufficiently low value with sufficiently high service level, you will get adoption. Appstore payments of $0.99 don't even register for a lot of people (with the exception of egregious Pay-to-Win games), if the payment was $0.001 and you only end up spending $0.10 in a day nobody would care. If you're getting billed per-hour on AWS, people prefer that to per-month.

The benefit between companies isn't for persistent relationships. It's the notion that you're reducing information cost (instead of paying a large payment with signon, you don't care who your counteparty is -- if they don't deliver who cares you're only out $0.001). In the longer-term, this is about reframing how you discover business relationships in the first place due to information/transaction costs.

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

#52

Post by josephpoon » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 6:09 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #49

josephpoon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say you're Alice. You have a channel open with Bob. Bob is connected to Carol (OKPay). You update your channel to tell Bob, I will pay you conditional upon a proof that you paid Carol. Bob pays Carol and provides proof. If Bob didn't provide proof after an agreed timeframe, this gets cancelled. There can be an arbitrary number of people between you and Bob (7-degrees of Kevin Bacon, but probably don't go too hi…

Thanks for taking the time. I think I understand it now though I'll spend some more time having a read through the site when I have a bit more time.

Cheers! :D

If you have any questions, do send me an email. I'm working on making the explanation better so feedback is always appreciated.

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

#53

Post by mhluongo » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 6:28 AM UTC

um_ya wrote: post #37

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.

Lightning network is the fix. It essentially makes bitcoin transactions lightning channels rather than recording every transaction that ever existed. Raising the block size won't solve anything, it will only make miners store more data and transfer more data. Lighting network solves all of this, and the concept is actually pretty simple and very secure once you understand it.

Lightning is a fix, not the fix. Even with lightning, we need bigger blocks (and a number of other measures) to scale.

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

#54

Post by stale2002 » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 6:50 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #40

stale2002 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If every company and mining pool decides to do something, isn't that the end of it? How can the devs prevent something? Maybe their official client might not recognize the changes and cause a fork but if it's true that even most mining pools and some major companies are moving, then why would anyone use the core fork?

The problem is that they might be able to get 5-10% of the mining power, or do something crazy like change the proof of work algorithm (They HAVE threatened to do this!).

And if they do that, then there is a chance that there will be two competing forks, instead of one, and each competing fork will dump their coins on the other fork, and basically cause the whole thing to crash.

Core can't "win" by doing this, but they can certainly make the rest of us lose. This threat, along with their constant insistence that improvements are Just Around The Corner, has allowed them to delay efforts to coordinate and make the changes that the community wants.

Eventually people will wizen up to the fact that their improvements are never coming, but until then, they are playing the delaying game to buy themselves as much time as possible until they are able to get their competing, lighting network out of the door.

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

#55

Post by bfstein » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 7:39 AM UTC

josephpoon wrote: post #46

bfstein wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even Paypal, who ostensibly should be doing this, charges $0.30 for payments for goods and services. PayPal is doing this. At least, via their subsidiary Venmo. The first thing I thought of when you said "try sending $.001 to someone once" was "huh, I do that all the time on Venmo. Couldn't be simpler."

I thought their minimum was $0.01 last I checked, I stand corrected! Venmo also explicitly discourages you from sending money to people whom you don't have a social relationship with due to chargeback risks. They're a long ways away from being a general payment platform for goods and services online with people whom you don't have a prior relationship with, and as part of that will likely drop it from their business…

Well you're actually right, the minimum is just $0.01. It's I who stand corrected!

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

#56

Post by sanswork » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 8:03 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #54

MichaelGG wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every company and mining pool decides to do something, isn't that the end of it? How can the devs prevent something? Maybe their official client might not recognize the changes and cause a fork but if it's true that even most mining pools and some major companies are moving, then why would anyone use the core fork?

The problem is that they might be able to get 5-10% of the mining power, or do something crazy like change the proof of work algorithm (They HAVE threatened to do this!). And if they do that, then there is a chance that there will be two competing forks, instead of one, and each competing fork will dump their coins on the other fork, and basically cause the whole thing to crash. Core can't "win" by doing this, but th…

Why do you think 5-10% of the mining power matter? Why would changing the proof of work algorithm on their branch matter if everyone is using the other branch? All that would do is force the 5-10% of miners above to switch to the other branch to stop their equipment from becoming worthless.

If there is one fork with 5-10% of the hashing power why do you think anyone would care about it?

What do you mean by dump their coins on the other fork? You mean like try to sell them on an exchange? But the majority of users would be on the new fork right so they would have the majority of coins so why does it matter if the core developers dump their coins? Do you believe it to really be so fragile that a dozen users could crash the whole thing just by selling their coins?

Have you considered that the real reason there hasn't been a change is that because the people that want it aren't actually in the majority?

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

#57

Post by nullc » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 8:15 AM UTC

josephpoon wrote: post #24

ptokb3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What the heck Joseph, when you first started talking about lightning I spent considerable effort trying to convince you that "hub" was a bad model for thinking about or describing these things.

Blockstream has no intention of ever monetizing lightning on Bitcoin in any way (nor do I have any idea how we could do so); our interests for it in the case of Bitcoin are only to promote and expand the use of Bitcoin. (We also hope to use it to enable other kinds of asset systems).

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

#58

Post by josephpoon » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 8:22 AM UTC

nullc wrote: post #57

josephpoon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What the heck Joseph, when you first started talking about lightning I spent considerable effort trying to convince you that "hub" was a bad model for thinking about or describing these things. Blockstream has no intention of ever monetizing lightning on Bitcoin in any way (nor do I have any idea how we could do so); our interests for it in the case of Bitcoin are only to promote and expand the use of Bitcoin. (We al…

Sorry Greg! I didn't mean it in the sense that Blockstream is planning for a hub at all! I was being sarcastic, but perhaps that wasn't conveyed properly in text. I thought the "if they ever make one" was sufficient, but it didn't properly convey the cultural apprehension towards those types of systems and could be seen as deeply disrespectful. We were definitely in agreement from the start that decentralization in the protocol layer was immensely important.

I thought it was obvious that the parent poster was being ridiculous, but should've ended the post with :^)

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

#59

Post by nullc » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 8:26 AM UTC

ptokb3 wrote: post #27

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hi, ptokb3, you seem to have created this account to make these posts but you see fit to go on about scrutiny. Seems odd to me.

Blockstream does support Bitcoin infrastructure development-- something much of the Bitcoin industry has failed to do, perhaps a company you work for and are concealing through your anonymous posts?-- but that is a far cry from a "majority" by any definition. E.g. in the last 3 months 58 people have made contributions to Bitcoin Core, 7 work for Blockstream. Sorted by commits in the last year, among the top ten, 3 work for blockstream (all founders of the company). -- just as we've done for the last 5+ years (the same group has been in the top 10 contributors pretty much the whole time).

Whats your actual allegation beyond pointing out that we spend some resources supporting the public infrastructure we all depend on?

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

#60

Post by nullc » Thu, Jul 14, 2016, 8:33 AM UTC

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…

> Step 1: Buy off

We founded the company.

> all of the top developers

A couple people out of a community of around 50-200 depending on the phase of the moon.

> Step 2: Refuse to support/fix basic network operations

Uh. You know that Bitcoin is a decenteralized system that no one controls; right? We do a lot of fixes, but we're not your personal code monkies. There is a LOT going on in Bitcoin, and it's working pretty darn well at the moment.

> Step 4: Censor any forum

Via our magical mind control rays, I suppose? Blockstream doesn't control or influence any forums.

Wheres your playbook? Which step does "Create throwaway accounts on hacker news to slander people" fit? Is it before "profit" or "suppression of inconvenient technology"?