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Lightning Network: Scalable, Instant Bitcoin/Blockchain Transactions

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

#91

Post by ptokb3 »

nullc wrote: post #60
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…

Thanks for answering Greg.

This isn't a throw-away account. I've lurked for years without needing to become involved. The larger public needs to know that:

> We founded the company.

Obviously you're the CTO but not all of the other 'employees' paid by your company founded it with you.

> You know that Bitcoin is a decentralized system that no one controls; right?

Actually you've locked down the codebase. Any one developer can make a common sense change contentious and prevent it from being merged. That's kinda centralized don't you think? Getting a few people to disagree is a pretty low barrier if a government was bent on destroying Bitcoin. We need decentralized development to match Bitcoin's decentralized nature.

> Bitcoin, and it's working pretty darn well at the moment.

Does that include transactions that don't go through even with correct fees? What do you say to the new user that did nothing wrong and has to wait 3 days for his coins to reappear in his wallet because he tried to send a transaction during a high-volume time? Does that also include overly expensive fees approaching 50cents and could reach several dollars within the year?

Limiting transaction velocity and making transactions artificially expensive is a bad idea at this point in Bitcoin's existence.

You need to stop ignoring that network operations are failing.

> Via our magical mind control rays, I suppose..

No, by calling alternate code bases altcoins - even though they operate on the same blockchain - you have setup an environment where they are not allowed to be honestly discussed at length on /r/bitcoin. Further, even though positive posts are banned, negative posts about other Bitcoin wallet/mining software are allowed. Any outside person can clearly see that is censorship. Moderators point to CoreDevelopers as the reason for that censorship. I also know you know Theymos so you can't say you're not buddies with him. I'm sure if you wanted you could ask for it and have posts removed/deleted.

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

#92

Post by ptokb3 »

nullc wrote: post #63
josephpoon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

No problem! Understood. It's a bit tough with so much crap being flung to stay clear of it. :)

nullc,

I'll take your word for it that Blockstream will never run a Lightning network hub.

We understand how the Lightning network works and you also have to admit that it has the potential to centralize into a few large hubs -- even if they aren't by Blockstream -- that will be able to provide the lowest transaction costs in order to keep track of user transaction data.

The problem with Lightning is that it's really far off, and it might not even work.

Meanwhile the network is breaking at the edges while we wait for this pie-in-the-sky solution. Increasing the blocksize is the best approach and it's safe to do as a hard-fork. The delay and push back from CoreDevs is what makes people not trust you. We've had enough "my transaction didn't confirm" posts.

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

#93

Post by ptokb3 »

nullc wrote: post #59
ptokb3 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

Hey nullc,

I'm a software consultant for my own developing firm. I don't have a conflict of interest. As I've said before, this is a new account and my only account here. I've read HN for some 5-7 years now as a morning news source and have not gotten involved in the conversation until this point.

To the issue:

MIT would probably be happy to support more Core developers and that would definitely lessen the current conflict of interest.

Is it hard to see that one company paying most of the top developers in the accepted codebase is something that makes people uneasy? It does and the considerable pushback from modest on-chain scaling (which needs to happen eventually anyway) has people worried that you're (Blockstream) is trying to control or limit Bitcoin due to your funding from AXA.

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

#94

Post by statoshi »

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…

You're on the right track: machine-to-machine payments. Check out https://21.co/ for more info.

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

#95

Post by TheBlight »

mhluongo wrote: post #53
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.

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

LN doesn't even exist. There's no design for how it will function at scale as dishonestly advertised.

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

#96

Post by [deleted] »

nullc wrote: post #74
7373737373 wrote: post #72

Similar work is going on in the Ethereum space, both with microtransactions and more generalized state channels for arbitrary computation and data distribution (see Raiden/Truebit/Swarm). But the problem remains the same: finding protocols that have the right (or even adjustable) centralisation/efficiency/privacy/risk/cost tradeoff. Another question is whether these systems will become purely financially incentivised…

Whats the challenge for ethereum? If the smart contracts don't work out like you hoped, you just get the people running it to adjust the ledger for you. (Or do they only do that when they personally lose out?)

[deleted]

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

#97

Post by nullc »

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.

> which is known for shady practices

What are you referring to?

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

#98

Post by nullc »

ptokb3 wrote: post #91
nullc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Thanks for answering Greg. This isn't a throw-away account. I've lurked for years without needing to become involved. The larger public needs to know that: > We founded the company. Obviously you're the CTO but not all of the other 'employees' paid by your company founded it with you. > You know that Bitcoin is a decentralized system that no one controls; right? Actually you've locked down the codebase. Any one devel…

> but not all of the other 'employees' paid by your company founded it with you

The "top developers of Bitcoin" you were referring to did.

> Actually you've locked down the codebase.

So, there is a concrete claim of an action. But you're not specific. Locked down how? What are you referring to? Please provide hyperlinks for clarity.

> We need decentralized development

Every developer has their own codebase, the community tends to cooperate because its efficient and makes sense. But participating at all requires making your own fork, and anyone can at any time promote their fork for public use. Some have, but the ones created to rewrite Bitcoin's rules with a hardfork so far have not been supported by engineers and languish largely stillborn.

> Does that include transactions that don't go through even with correct fees?

I'm not aware of any issues like that, can you point me to a trouble ticket?

> Limiting transaction velocity

How have we done that? The design of Bitcoin and physical reality create limits and select trade-offs.

> No, by calling alternate code bases altcoins

We have?

> even though they operate on the same blockchain

The people who are calling things like the deceptively named Bitcoin "classic" altcoins do so specifically because when they activate they will not operate on the same blockchain.

> you have setup an environment where they are not allowed to be honestly discussed at length on /r/bitcoin. [...] I'm sure if you wanted you could ask for it

I, nor anyone at my company, have any control over /r/bitcoin's policies, and-- in fact-- I argued vigorously against them (before I saw what the unmoderated feed looked like-- a non-stop stream of brand new sockpuppet accounts promoting rule rewrites, often with dishonest claims, outnumbering all other posts 20:1)...

> I also know you know Theymos

What does that mean? I've had a few conversations with him, yes-- and in the ones where I tried to convince him to not use a fairly restrictive moderation policy in /r/bitcoin I failed.

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

#99

Post by nullc »

ptokb3 wrote: post #93
nullc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

Hey nullc, I'm a software consultant for my own developing firm. I don't have a conflict of interest. As I've said before, this is a new account and my only account here. I've read HN for some 5-7 years now as a morning news source and have not gotten involved in the conversation until this point. To the issue: MIT would probably be happy to support more Core developers and that would definitely lessen the current co…

> MIT would probably be happy to support more

MIT doesn't support _any_ developers. MIT DCI pays MIT and is funded by undisclosed parties, but you never even care to ask about that. (And not that MIT is magically benevolent, in any case...)

We've tried for _years_ to get sustainable funding for development; but the Bitcoin 'industry' is just not interested.

> paying most of the top developers

Why do you keep repeating this misinformation? As I pointed out, e.g. three of the top ten by commit activity work for blockstream (and all of us were founders of the company). This is not most.

> has people worried

Has pseudonomyous sock accounts on the Internet who appear to own not much (to zero) Bitcoins; worried, at least.

> modest on-chain scaling (which needs to happen eventually anyway)

I think all the engineers at blockstream that work on Bitcoin supported segwit which roughly doubles block transaction capacity. (in a backwards compatible while improving scalability, to keep the operating costs low).

> due to your funding from AXA

Pretty perplexing, AXA isn't even to be broken out in the reports I have (we have many investors). I've never even had a conversation with anyone from AXA myself.

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

#100

Post by stale2002 »

sanswork wrote: post #56
stale2002 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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?"

Are you actually for real?

This is the current mining pool distribution: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools

Antpool, which represents 17% is in favor of 2MB, and has threatened to NOT include any Core changes until it happens.

Proof: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4l564f/bitcoin_cor...

f2Pool, which is 23%, supports 2mb.

Proof: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=700411.msg13571787#m...

BTCC, which is 13%, supports 2MB

Proof: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/40az4o/bobby_lee_b...

BW, which is 12%, supports 8MB! Huobi, (HaoBTC), is 7%, and also supports 8MB.

Proof for both: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3a5qj5/draft_signe...

KNCMiner, which is 2%, supports bitcoin classic (2MB hardfork)

Half of slush pool (5% total, so 2.5%) supports classic.

The only major miner that hasn't explicitly supported some sort of block size increase, is I believe Bitfury, which is ~10%.

Now, please add up all of these numbers, and see if it adds up to a majority.

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