Bitcoin Forum

Lightening Network is a Trap?


Just finished reading about Lightening Network on the Internet, to be frank, am not comfortable with what I just saw.
Am beginning to think that Lightening Network is a Government tool or idea to have total control of all Bitcoin.


My questions:
1. Seems like only Signed Contract will be passing through Lightening Network and not the Bitcoin itself, right?

2. Will government be able to cease people's Bitcoin after implementation of lightening Network if they wish to?

3. Is Lightning Network implementation mandatory or just optional?


Here are what am sure will happen if Lightening Network is mandatory:   

* Government will be able to Monitor all Bitcoin transaction.

* Every single Bitcoin company will be forced to obtain license before using the Network

* Finally,  Government can able to stop all Bitcoin transaction any time & as long as they want.

You don't have to use Lightning Network if you don't feel comfortable with it.

There are a few other projects similar to Lightning Network in the making, and you don't have to use those also.

Yeah. But if LN and others will be used heavily and blocksize stays as is (SW /1MB) then tx fees will explode to the sky and you will be forced by fee (fbf) to use it unless you are not a big whale.

Just use some other altcoin for small transactions.

you always have a choice.

Both bigger blocksize and lightning networks increase centralization, but bigger blocksize increases centralization in an horrible way, anyone that isn't an idiot can see this fact, so lightning network is the best option we have if we want to see poor people using bitcoin too.

PS: I dont know the details of LN because im not an expert engineer in the field, but it's easy to assume that anything that isn't an onchain transaction decreases decentralization to a certain degree, but onchain with huge blocks is even a bigger mess since govs can shut down the network anyway.

It might be. Good thing we can just ignore it.

Its a double edge I think. Implementing Lightning network will lead Bitcoin to be approved on ETF which eventually will help the price to rise up which is what we all want but at the same time can be a serious threat when it comes to tax and centralization.

Don't be daft.

Not needed if you free the on chain scaling. I also cannot find your limit minded advice in Satoshis white paper. i guess you post in wrong forum section...

LN coin, RSK, MU2coin,... are all not real bitcoin. Discussed so manny times now again and again. Any 2nd layer stuff is not same in manny aspects as Satoshis bitcoin (security!!!)

You also should better go post in altcoin section. Not here.

Let us for a few seconds assume that governments are behind lightening network, do you think Bitcoin is the only available digital currency in the world? when people see their coins are not under their own control then it is no longer called a decentralized currency.there is also the ability to fork whenever you'd like to. after they take control then what will be the next move to take control of LTC and other alts as well? they will need years and trillions to do that.

"bigger blocks" do not cause massive centralisation

node consensus agree's to what is an acceptable blocksize. so the blocksize WILL NOT!!! explode into 'gigabytes by midnight' it will grow at a NATURAL rate that nodes majority can accept.

if only the BScartel fanboys realised that!!!

however with lightning, its about moving funds into contracts where there is a counterparty having dual control of your funds.
ALSO
when people put funds into an LN they are no longer bothered about the blockchain as their utility and daily use is then not on the blockchain. so most users of LN will just turn off their bitcoin full node and just use their LN SPV node.

this will cause more dilution of the bitcoin node count.
along with features like -no witness, pruned which those still running the full bitcoin node, if they trigger the no witness/pruned. no longer become full network nodes (analogy: torrent seeds) because they no longer hold the full validation data to allow others to get/sync.

..
in short
bigger blocks are not the threat because there will not be "GB by midnight" threat. but node dilution via people no longer running full nodes due to LN/no witness/pruning is a threat

..
as for worries of government control.
dont throw all your funds into LN contracts that are BScartel hub controlled. just put pocket money amounts in for daily/weekly spends and keep your main funds away from LN

Well that isn't a credible solution  and only goes to encourage  people  to turn to altcoins. Must say that Bitcoin's early bird advantage ought not be taken for granted, change is the only thing that stays permanent here on earth and opportunity lost is much harder to recover. If we really want to see what we are or would be missing in Bitcoin, we only have to look at Litecoin, which is now pioneering innovations in the industry.

And if you all beleive in the game theoretical fundaments of keeping bitcoin safe and allined then the flexibility of the blocksize is a small pice in this genius construct of Satoshi.

If you try to fix this artificially than you dont belive in bitcoins manifest and show your paranoidity or flawed interests (power?).

We must band together and boycott Core/Segwit/Lightning as it turns out to be an elaborate and hostile attack.

You are funny.

Just that the node consensus will then be in the hands of the majority, AKA Bitmain, because they will be the only ones left mining...and they have the resources for gigabyte blocks.

 ::)

you are even funnier
it doesnt matter if a block was solved with 50,000,000,000 hash attempts or just 50 hash attempts.. the mining side is useless without the symbiotic relationship of the usernodes.

if the entire network rejects a block because its bigger than the nodes like. then that block is rejected.

evenBU learned that lesson in about 3 seconds after trying it by accident.

yep they made a block bigger than what the nodes prefered so within 3 seconds of seeing the block.. it was gone... drama over.
no argument of hash, no argument ovr brand. just simply, it didnt fit the general rules of consensus, so wasnt accepted.

it appears people simply do not understand consensus but will stupidly follow the reddit scripted fud

You are fake news. How much are you getting paid?

You could call it that way - at least there are not "blockchain movements", if that is the essence of "Bitcoin" for you.
No. How do you think that could happen?
Optional. There is not even a need to choose between "Lightning" or "On-chain". There are also pegged sidechains as a technology candidate. There is already a pretty well working decentralized pegged sidechain almost nobody knows about - BitBTC of the Bitshares universe. But two-way-pegged chains like Drivechains will even provide a better peg.
Everybody can already do that even today - not only government(s).
That's independent from Lightning. If you live in a country/state with heavy Bitcoin regulation, then it may be the case even today.
Nope. At least Lightning does not provide any tool for that. If a government shuts down all hubs in your country, you can always use hubs outside of your "governments" jurisdiction.

Segwit will mess everything up because the ability to do a 51% attack will be able to reverse all previous transactions. As it stands now if someone did a 51% attack they would only be able to only reverse 2 or 3 or 4 of the last blocks.

Segwit will make it so everything ever done can be reversed and mess it all up. Don't do it.

If LN gets you in trouble leave it and just play it safe with altcoin.
Maybe someday the government will take a step but not that heavy.
There are many roads out there so you can take and strengthen your stance.

You are referring to Craig Wright's recent article, right?

I don't think this is a very likely scenario. A reversal of old Segwit transactions (reverting to the old protocol) would have destructive consequences for the Bitcoin ecosystem. The Bitcoin price would plummet instantly to near-zero and so would the stolen Bitcoins (and the mining rewards, too). It would be equivalent to a miner cartel trying to increase the block reward. After both events, only a hard fork could "save" Bitcoin - and most likely, this hard fork would not only reverse the "reversed transactions", but also include a PoW change - and the miners shot themselves in their leg because they never would be able again to make profits from Bitcoin mining.

Remember: It's only game theory that forces miners to play fair - they could do nearly everything with the blockchain if they colluded, but as they need mining profits, they won't do that.

They would steal coins and sell them even at a 90% discount on the way out.  Well worth it as the honeypot gets huge. 

Segwit is a bad idea for this and other reasons.

1. A bitcoin transaction is a signed message, ownership of value is transferred. In the case of on chain transaction, the signed message is broadcasted publicly and it is picked by nodes and validated. In the case of LN, a transaction or a signed message is processed off-chain through hubs using multi-sig, so kind of a double-signed message. Once this transaction is broadcasted to the network it is as valid as an on-chain transaction.

2. I do not get the logic behind this. Almost all major exchanges or wallets are centralized. Take for example, Coinbase, one of the most popular and it is heavily regulated by the government, but still they have a huge user base because people are comfortable using it. There is no complete centralization, more precisely bitcoin users do have a choice, to choose between market-based centralization and decentralization. If someone don't want to use Coinbase, they don't have to, they have options, same thing with LN. Merchants or users who prefer low fee, instant, micro transactions would use it even if LN turns out to be operating on the same level as Coinbase.

3. LN is neither a soft nor hard fork, an additional layer so it is optional.

4. This again seems a bit absurd, the government still can monitor your transactions if they want to.

5. LN is open source, anyone can run a node. I do not know what it specifically has to do with obtaining license.

6. For security, LN is completely dependent on the bitcoin network, it does not have its own Blockchain so basically you are in full control of your funds while using payment channels, even in the event of hack or a hub going offline, your funds are still in Blockchain.

As far as centralization is concerned, there is a possible scenario that big bitcoin businesses, mostly exchanges, like Coinbase would be having a large network of hubs. Is it true centralization? No way, like right now, some people use Coinbase, other Kraken, Poloniex, this centralization already exists. LN is open source so as new businesses start offering bitcoin services this so called centralization would become non-existent.

LN would not make bitcoin more centralized than the current mining scenario.

Based on your statements, it seems that lightening network is a just a strap but i think even though the government is having that tool, it is still alright for me because if the government can do those things they can easily track down the illegal person who are using bitcoin in their illegal activities and they can stop illegal transactions which is still fine for me.

Is that the best response you got? How about you doing your due diligence of all proposals and think for yourself.

Well, I can't ever see myself finding a use for it in the form it's currently being presented to me. Transactions are limited to 0.042 and a player like me never spends that little.

I'm dead keen to see what it does look like when it arrives. As ever all of the predictions here are worthless bilge not deserving of the slightest attention. Let it roll out and then judge it.

I still fail to see a significant difference between this scenario and a scenario where the miners simply collude to increase their block reward - and in this case, the honeypot is potentially "infinitely" high.

In both cases, people would notice the malicious changes in minutes - and economic actors like exchanges would instantly take measures, e.g. blacklisting the colluding miners and not accepting their blocks nor their coins, so they would have to sell their stolen coins on shady darknet marketplaces. The scenario could play out like in the TheDAO fiasco - with a likely PoW-changing hardfork that would throw the miners out of the game and they would lose a lot of income.

dont use reddit.
instead, google it

000000000000000000cf208f521de0424677f7a87f2f278a1042f38d159565f5

gone in 3 seconds

---

as for the topic, for the other people that want to learn

LN is a side service, like coinbase/xapo where you have to hand funds into an address that is no longer 100% in your control
(research multisig / smart contracts)

then put some logic/psychology into some scenario's.
EG if your no longer using the blockchain many MANY wont care about protecting the blockchain because they will prefer to just run an LN SPV node for their daily use.

EG those using coinbase/xapo as their daily use wallet.. do they bother using a full node aswell(answer: majority no).. i guarantee you the numbers of using side services as the daily wallet and running a full node is not high

---

LN is not the end solution to scaling nor is it the side service that can be trusted with your entire hoard.
just think of it as a daily spend side service which you only trust with just a small pocket money amount and you will / should be ok

You could be right --i'd have to think about that one more.  Theoretically, anyone can fork at anytime with any rules they want.  I plan to read Dr Craig's article more thoroughly and understand the game theory a bit more.

you should take a look at Peter R's talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8gWv5lqG9A&feature=youtu.be&t=1500

Pretty interesting stuff.

Most interesting is at the end how he's saying if miner steal segwit coins, you wouldn't even be able to prove; conveniently the signatures would be missing.

look into schnorr too
it hides how many people are involved in a multisig and hides which signers signed. thus you may find what you thought was a 2-of-2 ends up being a 2-of-3 where the counter party has 2 keys and you only have 1

Sorry, but all I can think about when reading this title is the Star Wars meme... "It's a trap!" xD hehehe

Sh..t. If SW runs I would miss much more...