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Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

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

#81

Post by bachback »

nullc wrote: post #61
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.

> The vast majority of the bitcoin community has been trying to do just that. Thats a common claim made on easily sockpuppeted forums, but when put to cryptographic votes, we find pretty much the opposite response: http://bitcoinocracy.com/arguments/if-non-core-hard-fork-win... Similarly, I've found in person meetings to also yield similar results. > But a few devs Really, almost the _entire_ technical community; wit…

why can't you face up to the fact that Blockstream is the de-facto governance body for Bitcoin? It claims it is, and you spend countless hours on the Internet trying to show the opposite. "Cryptographic votes" - duh, that's what the Bitcoin consensus should be for. I can't fathom that somehow so deeply engaged in the project doesn't understand this most obvious fact.

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

#82

Post by onetallnerd »

bedeho wrote: post #73
josephpoon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presumption would be the underwriting risk is batched and pushed to one point (the exchange point). It's economically feasible to underwrite a single transaction for hundreds of dollars to buy Bitcoin (exchanges doing AML/KYC). It's much more uneconomical to underwrite a $0.001 payment -- as a result building a real marketplace for this becomes difficult even if there would be a lot of users.

I don´t get this answer. Linden needs not underwrite any micropayment inside it´s silo? The only utility in LN is hopefully retaining decentralized properties of bitcoin. PokerStars, Linden & WoW have supported micropayments for a long time? Im not sure why any of these services could not grow 10x and still function internally? They are already servicing tens of millions.

I think you're missing the point. You can't scale Linden's micropayment worldwide without there being counterparty risk. It's much more useful to build these on top of decentralized systems with a strong bedrock without fearing the company being targeted by hackers or governments. Can you use Linden in China?

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

#83

Post by onetallnerd »

bachback wrote: post #79
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…

Bitcoin works based on incentives. There is no reason to go off-chain if you're not getting paid. And OKPay is not an end-node in any system. What you "really" want is to be able to send all assets in the system integrating banks. So the supernodes will be banks, i.e. large liquidity providers with a legal framework. LN is technically interesting, but there is no plausible scenario to make it work IMO. And if, you'd…

Miners can run LN nodes too and profit off it as can anyone with bitcoin. The point is avoid the need or having to rely on "supernodes." You have other altcoins going other routes trying to fit as many of these small transactions on the blockchain... Good luck verify all that or keeping that decentralized.

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

#84

Post by onetallnerd »

bfstein wrote: post #55
josephpoon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Venmo is really nice, I just wouldn't trust it with anyone I don't have a social connection with. In that regard it's superior to bitcoin.. Although, I'm digging circle recently.. People can set it as USD, and when they send me money I get it in bitcoin, and vice versa. :-) Doesn't matter if they're outside the U.S. or someone I don't know.

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

#85

Post by onetallnerd »

sanswork wrote: post #50
MichaelGG wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Can you give me some examples of how this is useful? Marketing.

Machine to Machine payments. Payable endpoints 402 payments? They're tech guys not marketing. I'm not sure if the LN guys even have marketing people?

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

#86

Post by onetallnerd »

CookieMon wrote: post #67
um_ya wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's an awesome feature, but it's not a fix - Lightning requires a 24/7 online connection, which will also combine with several other pressures to strongly favor central hubs, putting easily regulated payment processors back in change of who can spend money (a bad thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944011 ). Plus it won't work (in the sense of saving blockchain space) for people who have few peers and tend…

No. You don't. It can be set to having to be on at least once a week, or trustlessly outsourcing the requirement.

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

#87

Post by CookieMon »

onetallnerd wrote: post #86
CookieMon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an awesome feature, but it's not a fix - Lightning requires a 24/7 online connection, which will also combine with several other pressures to strongly favor central hubs, putting easily regulated payment processors back in change of who can spend money (a bad thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944011 ). Plus it won't work (in the sense of saving blockchain space) for people who have few peers and tend…

No. You don't. It can be set to having to be on at least once a week, or trustlessly outsourcing the requirement.

Bitcoin doesn't require weekly check-ins, but Good to know (thanks) - that's a less extreme requirement for Lightning. However, being online wasn't a main pressure for the potential problem of central hubs.

(e.g. the large parked capital requirements acting as a barrier to entry, fees - if bitcoin is to be a low-volume settlement layer - plus people wanting to keep spending money consolidated (i.e. opening as few channels as possible) while still getting the benefit of complete payment connectivity)

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

#88

Post by tomtomtom777 »

onetallnerd wrote: post #86
CookieMon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an awesome feature, but it's not a fix - Lightning requires a 24/7 online connection, which will also combine with several other pressures to strongly favor central hubs, putting easily regulated payment processors back in change of who can spend money (a bad thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11944011 ). Plus it won't work (in the sense of saving blockchain space) for people who have few peers and tend…

No. You don't. It can be set to having to be on at least once a week, or trustlessly outsourcing the requirement.

> trustlessly outsourcing the requirement

Unless I missed something, outsourcing watching the blockchain cannot be called trustless; they need to know what to watch. If your watcher collaborates with your LN-hub, you are doomed.

Here is my get-rich-quick-scheme:

* Setup a big LN hub.

* Setup a LN-watching service

Then for each peer connected to both, I filter those that:

* have a balance with * have an earlier balance with >90% on my side

* haven't been seen for a week.

For those, I submit the tx of the earlier balance. Sometimes I'll lose a bit but mostly I will gain more.

Profit.

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

#89

Post by hashmp »

At it's most basic, the Lightning network is just a way of implementing pre payment cards for Bitcoin.

Its over engineered and over complex. Which is demonstrated by the comments here trying to explain how it works.

No one has yet been able to explain how they will prevent one central hub from developing which by economies of scale will offer the lowest cost path through the network as it will have channels setup with everyone.

Ask yourself who will operate this hub and you'll understand why people want to implement this.

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

#90

Post by bachback »

onetallnerd wrote: post #83
bachback wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin works based on incentives. There is no reason to go off-chain if you're not getting paid. And OKPay is not an end-node in any system. What you "really" want is to be able to send all assets in the system integrating banks. So the supernodes will be banks, i.e. large liquidity providers with a legal framework. LN is technically interesting, but there is no plausible scenario to make it work IMO. And if, you'd…

Miners can run LN nodes too and profit off it as can anyone with bitcoin. The point is avoid the need or having to rely on "supernodes." You have other altcoins going other routes trying to fit as many of these small transactions on the blockchain... Good luck verify all that or keeping that decentralized.

LN is a theory, not a production system. I much doubt it will reach full production stage ever. Bitcoin wasn't at all designed for anything remotely like it. My bet would be on a new system & coin.
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