Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

My 1st post here as a newbie needs to learn from technical standpoints.

I learn that LN is about to bundle the small transactions into bigger ones and put onto the blockchain.
I get impressed that the concept is similar to the real world currency where when we need to pay small amount of money we would not need such the record into the bank's database. The bank's transactions would be for the bigger amount etc. So I would say there would be 2 "priorities" requiring different securities and records.

Just have got the pop-up idea about the difficulty. Lightweight cryptocurrency would be designed to have more blocks in a period of time than BTC, right? That would simply increase the speed of transactions. So I interpret it as making lower difficulty --> shorten the block generating time --> speed increase. Please feel free if this logic is flaw or any point I overlook.

Then, combine both ideas about "priorities" and "difficulty", this make me think of why isn't there what I call it "adaptive difficulty". Low priority transaction (requires less security) would be bundled into a low difficulty block, mined etc., and put into the blockchain. High priority transaction (requires higher security) would be bundled into a high difficulty block, mined etc. and put into the blockchain. I guess that that would be simply having more and high speed low priority blocks added into the blockchain.

Or do I overlook any point ??? Isn't difficulty irrelevant to the security ??? Just for the block confirmation time only ???

Or this would not be the new idea maybe criticized somewhere. But I have just not known what term it would be used to search for learning.

Opinions are welcome.

Utterly appreciate.

OK I think I know why.
If there would be the different difficulty, there will be no chance for the slow block (high difficulty) to be tied into the blockchain. The hash of the last block will keep changing while the slow mined block is on the way.

Simply failed.

Thank you for the space to ask.

:D

No problem there with the constantly changing hash of the latest block. You are mistaking difficulty for the time needed to mine a block. They are related but not equal. It is better to think of difficulty as a chance to mine a block in any given second. The higher the difficulty, the less chance one has. There is nothing in the core of cryptocurrency that does not allow coexistance of blocks with different difficulty. If you deside to mine a harder block, you will have it mined less frequently. As soon as a new easier block is added you just start mining a new hard block with updated hash of the previous one.

The problem here would be all the complications with making fare rules of awarding those who mine harder blocks. There must be rules for calculating which block is harder, how to adjust difficulty with higher mining power etc. This will lead to a lot of exploits like 51% attacks with cheap blocks and splitting or joining transactions for manipulative purposes.

2 problems with your post:
1) Lightning Network has the same security as the blockchain because it requires settlement on the blockchain thereby inheriting its security; transactions in a lightning network ARE still bitcoin transactions, and if the blockchain is safe then they are safe.

2) lightning transactions do not have "faster blocks" than the blockchain.
You should really read on how it works.

P.S difficulty is relevant to security as well as block time.
Theoretically the bitcoin blockchain can work with an extremely low hashrate but that will make it easier for an attacker to attain enough hashpower to disrupt the network.

Thank you ArsenyP and Xynerise.