First Lightning mainnet release

Post by Ajedi32 » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

SnowProblem wrote: post #111

Ajedi32 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is: why do people still store full copies of the chain? If there are no downsides to this, why didn't we purge that 150 GB of useless data from the network a long time ago? And if people still _do_ need the full chain, then obviously that solution isn't sufficient to eliminate the problem I outlined in my previous comments.

Because right now you can't distribute the UXTO set in a trustless way. Core developers blocked it two years ago for nonsensical reasons [1], one of the many reasons the community doesn't trust them. Work has picked up on this in BCH [2]. [1] https://bitcoincore.org/en/meetings/2016/03/10/#initial-bloc... [2] https://github.com/bitcoincashorg/workgroups/blob/master/wg-...

Post by DennisP » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

nosuchthing wrote: post #61

brendanw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It exists. It is called nano: no fees and instant transactions through the block lattice. https://nano.org/en/whitepaper I am surprised more folks on HN are not familiar with nano considering it is one of the few teams in crypto with endorsements from familiar faces: Zack Shapiro on the core team (ex-Product Hunt), Garry Tan (YC, angel investor in Coinbase), and Charlie Lee (former director of engineering @ Coinbase)…

Nano / Raiblocks is a scam in the sense it is created for free, and old users need new users to dump their nano at a profit to new bag holders. The initial distribution of XRB was performed through "manual mining" limited via a captcha. The distribution rate was 17 XRB (Raiblocks) per hour per ip4. This method was easy to automate, and easy to bypass with the plethora of VPNs and users who own hundreds of IP4/IP6 add…

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 8:43 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #92

Ajedi32 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally I just don't like the approach of trying to solve the problem by throwing more disk space at it. It feels... inelegant, and probably unsustainable long term. Imagine for a minute a future where Bitcoin goes mainstream and needs to process ~2k transactions per second. (A reasonable estimate of the world's current credit card transaction rate, and 3 orders of magnitu…

Based on the exponential growth of disk size, I don't see this as a problem. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire chain, even at visa levels, could be stored on an average phone in 10 years.

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 8:46 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #84

foepys wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what happens if a watchdog has an outage? I need multiple backup watchdogs then, and no watchdog will work for free. So I'm now paying multiple entities to securely transact money to other people that themselves also need watchdogs to watch their channels. This sounds not like it will result in low fees. Transaction fees, maybe, but overall fees including middlemen will be quite a bit higher.

>But what happens if a watchdog has an outage? Locktimes are currently on the order of days (roughly 3 days IIRC), which means you have days to react to a fraudulent transaction. A dedicated watchdog service being out for days at a time is pretty shitty uptime. Not to mention that this isn't the ONLY way you can watch out for this. Your laptop, phone, or any other internet connected device can also watch for these tr…

Post by nosuchthing » Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 8:51 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #123

nosuchthing wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nano / Raiblocks is a scam in the sense it is created for free, and old users need new users to dump their nano at a profit to new bag holders. The initial distribution of XRB was performed through "manual mining" limited via a captcha. The distribution rate was 17 XRB (Raiblocks) per hour per ip4. This method was easy to automate, and easy to bypass with the plethora of VPNs and users who own hundreds of IP4/IP6 add…

To a close approximation, the first couple million bitcoins were created for free as well.

  Satoshi Nakamoto
  Thu Jan 8 14:27:40 EST 2009
  I made the proof-of-work difficulty ridiculously easy to 
  start with, so for a little while in the beginning a 
  typical PC will be able to generate coins in just a few 
  hours. It'll get a lot harder when competition makes the 
  automatic adjustment drive up the difficulty.


  first 4 years: 10,500,000 coins
  next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins
  next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins
  next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins