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Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#71

Post by candiodari »

jbaczuk wrote: post #18
caconym_ wrote: post #14

I'm sick of hearing about what crypto "could" do. I used BTC to pay for a few lunches back when transaction fees were in the cents rather than hundreds (?) of dollars or worse, and it was pretty neat, but it's clear today that the crypto ecosystem has largely become a paradise for grifters, scammers, fraudsters, and straight-up criminals, and (more generally) just another way for the rich and sophisticated to get ric…

paradise for people who don't like regulation. Criminals, and people with a criminal government/monopolies.

Really? Do you think the US "unbanked" don't fall into this category, for example? Hell, these days US women who want abortions could fall into this category.

There are a LOT of people excluded, or effectively excluded from the banking system either through outright exclusion, their location, or the fees. All of them would benefit.

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#72

Post by CrazyPyroLinux »

jbaczuk wrote: post #18
caconym_ wrote: post #14

I'm sick of hearing about what crypto "could" do. I used BTC to pay for a few lunches back when transaction fees were in the cents rather than hundreds (?) of dollars or worse, and it was pretty neat, but it's clear today that the crypto ecosystem has largely become a paradise for grifters, scammers, fraudsters, and straight-up criminals, and (more generally) just another way for the rich and sophisticated to get ric…

paradise for people who don't like regulation. Criminals, and people with a criminal government/monopolies.

> and people with a criminal government/monopolies

So...everyone?

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#73

Post by jitl »

caconym_ wrote: post #14

I'm sick of hearing about what crypto "could" do. I used BTC to pay for a few lunches back when transaction fees were in the cents rather than hundreds (?) of dollars or worse, and it was pretty neat, but it's clear today that the crypto ecosystem has largely become a paradise for grifters, scammers, fraudsters, and straight-up criminals, and (more generally) just another way for the rich and sophisticated to get ric…

The lightning network described in this post explicitly solves both the speed and cost problems with Bitcoin transactions. This still leaves the scam/grifter problem in the ecosystem, but your dismissal is ignorant of the major content of the article. I encourage you to read it and then update your comment. I’m not a crypto enthusiast, just someone who prefers higher quality discussion on HN.

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#74

Post by acdha »

caconym_ wrote: post #14

I'm sick of hearing about what crypto "could" do. I used BTC to pay for a few lunches back when transaction fees were in the cents rather than hundreds (?) of dollars or worse, and it was pretty neat, but it's clear today that the crypto ecosystem has largely become a paradise for grifters, scammers, fraudsters, and straight-up criminals, and (more generally) just another way for the rich and sophisticated to get ric…

The other key point the sales people tend to leave out is pricing. The average person and especially business won’t care about cryptocurrency unless it’s a better deal. Historically the pitch has been “pay higher fees, wait longer, take on all of the fraud risks yourself”. Lightning addresses transaction speed, and might partially address cost but conversion into real money is still a big factor, especially given Bitcoin’s volatility, and it doesn’t help with fraud much at all.

It’s unclear when that starts to look like a good deal to anyone who isn’t a speculator trying to drum up demand for their random numbers. If I’m a small business owner, my rent, wages, supplies, taxes, etc. all need local currency and there are statistically no potential customers who don’t buy from me now but will if I accept Bitcoin. The prospect of avoiding credit card fees is appealing but only if it’s actually cheaper – Square Cash exists and is way more widespread but that’s a marginal incremental improvement, not something transformative, and if someone did start seriously chipping away the most likely outcome is that Visa would take a point off of their rate and nothing else would change.

Now, companies like Western Union and PayPal are certainly exploitative so I’d like to see them face a serious threat but again it seems like the most likely outcome is that they lower rates slightly if a cryptocurrency alternative starts taking any real fraction of their business. Maybe they’re staid dinosaurs and can’t react in time - good riddance! - but knocking a couple points off of the cost of a service most people don’t use isn’t going to transform the global economy or even support the current costs of the Bitcoin network.

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#75

Post by brokenkebab2 »

Analemma_ wrote: post #39
this_user wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every proposed crypto use case, there already exists a better solution that does not use crypto currency technology.

Well, except the illegal ones.

"Illegal" is not equivalent to "bad thing", though. There are more people living under oppressive regimes than not.

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#76

Post by tradertef »

jmoak3 wrote: post #10

Lightning Network is just a centralized company acting as a middleman, occasionally (if ever) committing changes to the blockchain right? If that is the case, then theoretically Visa and Paypal are already lightning networks, just without the periodic bitcoin commits. If so, wouldn't that mean that if Visa and Paypal are banned from letting country X citizens send funds to someone in country Y, wouldn't the gov of X…

Yes, but you are good as long as you stay in the Bitcoin and use lighting for day to day transactions. One you withdraw your Bitcoin from LN, it can not be banned.

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#77

Post by donclark »

This may be relevant:

Cake Pay from Cake Wallet is live, enabling users to privately buy gift cards with cryptocurrencies like Monero!

THIS new service let us use cryptocurrency for an entire day!

https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=gFIg2ycs5-s

Check out Cake Pay: cakepay.com/

Cake Wallet: cakewallet.com/

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#78

Post by jitl »

Analemma_ wrote: post #60
cannaceo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If crypto was the default we would all be amazed at this improved system of having fraud insurance, rewards for spending, customer service, and fast transactions.

And not using more electricity than an average household consumes in a month for a single transaction.

Lightning, the technology discussed in the article, solves this problem.

> As with most layer-2 solutions, Lightning seeks to increase transaction throughput and lower costs while retaining sufficient decentralization by moving activity to a second network. Once BTC is on the Lightning network, it can be transacted instantly typically at fractions of a penny.

> Rather than expensively sending each transaction over the Bitcoin blockchain, users deposit BTC into the Lightning Network and then transact inexpensively through payment channels. As with most networks, the more people and companies that join, the more useful it becomes.

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#79

Post by alchemist1e9 »

jmoak3 wrote: post #67
nope96 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a p2p mesh network. Lots of people open channels to lots of other people, payments are routed over the network.

Hmm so I have a channel with Target, Target has a channel with my neighbor, and my neighbor has a channel with my cousin. You're saying I could send money to my cousin and Target and my neighbor would take some sort of cut if they agree to process the transaction? How do they prevent double spend? What if I have that network, and also a channel with Walmart, and I send all my money to Walmart at the same time I send…

Why you are posting so much about something you really don’t understand at all?

Re: Bitcoin Lightning network could disrupt $150B year payment/remittance industry

#80

Post by CrazyPyroLinux »

babypuncher wrote: post #58
jmoak3 wrote: post #10

Lightning Network is just a centralized company acting as a middleman, occasionally (if ever) committing changes to the blockchain right? If that is the case, then theoretically Visa and Paypal are already lightning networks, just without the periodic bitcoin commits. If so, wouldn't that mean that if Visa and Paypal are banned from letting country X citizens send funds to someone in country Y, wouldn't the gov of X…

Every time someone comes in and tries to solve these problems cryptocurrencies have they end up recreating standard banks and payment processors, only without all the federally mandated consumer protections built into actual banks and financial institutions. People are just hell-bent on re-learning 200 years of banking history firsthand.

> People are just hell-bent on re-learning 200 years of banking history firsthand.

Maybe just the last 109 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Act

Or just the last 79 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act

Or just the last 51 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock

Or just the last 15 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#United_Sta...

Or just the last 2 years https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

Or just the last 1 year https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/19/democrats-s...

Or just the last 6 months https://www.businessinsider.com/trudeau-canada-freeze-bank-a... https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...

Or just the last week https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2022/08/11/irs-to-ad...

Maybe BTC isn't the answer, but there are some real downsides to "standard banks and payment processors."

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