Bitcoin Forum

Since the big news of Pompliano's suggestion for Kroger to implement Lighting Network in its stores after announcing that it's Smith's Food & Drug stores won't be accepting VISA cards due to the high fees, it's brought up a lot of discussions of what is next. So many other big companies have stopped accepting Visa and therefore it just makes sense, for lightning network to be the future. What do you guys think, will the process actually go through?

ln is already used by some stores. i think if the implementation is user friendly enough, then it is possible ln will be used as an alternative to visa for merchants. it entirely depends on how far the development will go and the demand for such services. if we're being positive here, demand will always be high so it mostly depends on developers to provide the software. i'm quite optimistic there will be more merchant that will use ln if the implementation is secure, fast and friendly enough.

Actually, i've been testing and accepting LN payments on my demo site for quite a while already...
I personally find eclair mobile pretty user friendly. Offcourse, there's still a learning curve that's far bigger if you compare it with visa. Afterall, everybody has seen their grandparents, parents,... using VISA since they were born, so the visa-learning curve started allmost at birth. This offcourse isn't the case with BTC/LN.

Basically, you have to incentivise your clients to:

• 1) Install a decent desktop wallet on their pc
• 2) fund their desktop wallet with a couple hundred bucks worth of BTC
• 3) install a LN client on their mobile phone, create a new address, fund the address with "spending money"
• 4) open a channel between the client and the store's node, fund it

After these 4 steps, a store can generate a lightning invoice (QR) and let the customer scan and pay straight away... Works flawlessly, but still, i don't see my mother performing these steps...
Also, the fact that you'd have to close the current channel if you wish to open a new one (when you have insufficient funds in your current channel for planned expenses) is a drawback.

You can actually skip step 1, and switch step 2 and 3 (create a LN wallet right away, create a deposit addy and fund it straight from the exchange), but i would discourage anybody to keep a lot of funds on a mobile wallet.

The biggest "drawbacks" would probably be to get somebody to visit an exchange or some other seller to exchange FIAT to BTC...

It's actually one of the major challenges that is hindering the adoption of cryptos in general. The technical complexities are not very easy to understand for the old age people who are comfortable with old school banking system. I have seen my late Grandfather using hard cold cash for every purchases because he was not comfortable with card payment. So whenever he needed some cash, he used to go to bank, stand in the queue, sign on a slip and get the cash from the counter. That's how he was comfortable with.

But that's the initial hiccups every new technology faces and bitcoin and LN is no exception. Our upcoming generations are using iphones and tabs flawlessly. The 4 year old  daughter of my cousin sister watches Youtube videos like a pro. When we were 4 years old, we didn't even thought of these technologies. Slowly we have learned and adopted that! Same thing will happen with the current generation as well. They will learn and adopt slowly! It will take some time and support from people like us but that's how we will overcome such technical roadblocks! LN is one more step closer to mainstream adoption!

Having Ln be a part of our daily lives is a great concept and will make things much easier, at least for us because we know how it works and we know its potential, so accepting as a payment method would make sense, but most of the current generation of shops and owners are not yet aware of that, they either accept cash or credit cards and having them start accepting LN as a payment method will take some time, as there is no support for the system by the governments, and the number of people who actually use it today in their businesses who use it in their own incentive is very small, therefor its gonna take some time for it to grow and have a strong foothold in the market.

There's no need to open a channel with the store. As a user, the minimum setup is 1 channel, to any well connected node. The software and the network takes care of the rest.

That doesn't mean you can't do all the configuration yourself, as you describe. But the idea is to simplify the process, what you've written is the most complicated way, and in the case of the channel with the store, unnecessary.

That's true... But in reality, if a store tells their customers to just create 1 channel to 1 node and fund it, they'll have to offer support if a route does not exist... They'll have a customer standing in front of their cash register trying to scan a QR code and getting an error message telling them (and the clerck) nothing at all...  If a store just tells their customers to open a channel directly to their node, it would cut back on support questions immensely.

But, once again, in theory, you are 100% correct and if everything works and grows as expected, my version of the facts might be a tad to complex.

I'm running a LN for many months now, and i've accepted over 70 LN payments (not an impressive number, i know), but all of the payments came from customers that opened a direct channel between their client and my node...

Are you suggesting as such on your site (opening a channel to your node)? That's a pretty good way of making your node well connected and routing alot of payments :D

This demonstrates the lightning model; any regular business can encourage their clientele to open channels direct to them, which makes financial sense for regular clients. You're basically your own mini-payments service, VISA can't compete with that.

Suggesting is a broad concept  ;D But yes, i've published a walktrough, and offcourse the walktrough include steps to make a channel with my node (it does contain a part for longtime LN users telling them that if they already have opened channels, they can try if there's a route before opening a channel to me directly)... It wouldn't make sense to let a customer that's new to the LN make a connection to a different node and then hope there'll be a route between the node they made a channel to and mine... But that's actually my point: in theory, you are 100% correct, and your statements make more sense than mine, but in reality it's easyer to just spoonfeed your customer and let them make a channel with your node directly to cut back on support calls... This also saves on routing fees (eventough they are really small)

As for the remark that my node it well connected:

I don't even knew about the steps required if I hadn't read mocaccino's posts but I'm willing to give it a try once it's been proven that the system is free of bugs and there's enough sellers in my area using LN.

Would be nice to see these payment giants have competition and lower their fees. I've already cut my AmEx, might eventually do the same with Visa.

Lighting network is very nice and useful in theory. But in practice we could not see what it would bring to work. Let's see this first, then we'll talk about it.

That's true, it's 100% routable if it's a direct channel



Those steps are only needed if you want more control. By default, lightning wallets will use an autopilot mode that handles the detailed setup

I want to believe as time goes by, this processes and steps to use the lighting network would be further simplified or seamless because if all these steps are not simplified as a result of further developments, the limitations would not only be applicable to parents and grandparents but also people who are young because in the real sense. Its more complicated just looking at it and the conditions attached of loading couple of bucks in other to use is another major turn off which would shift people to a more accommodating alternative.

It becomes a bit more complicated if you are making an offline payment.
If you are buying something online then the transaction time even now is not a really big deal. The other problem is that in the shop you have to pay and go.


That will be hard if your customer is not using BTC. THen you will have to convince him that he need to use it.

LN won't replace visa because visa customers are not using cryptocurrencies and vice versa.

You don't need to "want to believe", it's already much simpler if you stick with wallet default settings.


The simplest, and default way to setup a Lightning wallet is like this:

1. Send some BTC to your wallet
2. Wait till the wallet finishes automatically opening some channels

Good to hear. Bitcoin might be confusing enough for beginners, having additional steps to just use the lightning wallet might confuse them even more.

So far I have no use for a lightning wallet yet but what would you suggest? The top results on Google Play is the one by kumaigorodski and Eclair Mobile.

They could use both, and in some cases, ditch one for another. I don't think LN's goal is to replace Visa per se, but to be a better, or at least a workable alternative. That drives adoption.

If what you are saying is absolutely true, then Bitcoin is basically locked to enthusiasts and all we're doing is playing in a sandbox.

I have c-lightning running on my server and eclair mobile on my phone. I'm pretty satisfied with eclair mobile, you just have to realise it's a mobile wallet intended to PAY for services, it's not intended to receive payments (in the case you want to receive payments, c-lightning or lnd might be needed)

the  argument should not be about merchants accepting bitcoin through lightning network or through VISA. the argument should instead be about whether merchants should use the centralized services such as VISA or use decentralized currency/payment system called bitcoin. then how they use bitcoin is their choice. additionally any shop that implements lightning network to accept payments should also accept on chain transactions too. so again the argument is about bitcoin versus Visa.

the result is that any user who has a bitcoin wallet makes the payments easily and anyone who is more "advanced" and has LN wallets can pay with that instead.

Perhaps lightning network and the future for payments and transactions but people are very much accustomed to the payment systems Visa and MasterCard and need to have passed a lot of time that people began to learn something new.At the moment, the Visa processes transactions very quickly and takes a leading position.

Transaction using VISA is very conventional and out dated, while virtual money such as bitcoin provide more advantages so buyer and seller don't need to spend much time and money for their transactions. The improvement in echnology such as this lightning networks should bring advantages to people and make them leave old way of transferring money.

Getting a VISA card a lot easier.You just have to go to a bank,open a bank account and sign a contract. ;D
Then you have to deposit money to that bank account and wait for your debit card.
I agree that the biggest drawback in buying btc,so only the hardcore crypto fanatics would use LN for retail payments.99% of the women don't understand how crypto/blockchain/LN works.That's the major issue.

VISA is the most popular payment gateway in the world, we can use VISA over the country and i think it will obsolete in the near time, and i think it will obsolete when there are the new payment gateway that have the fastest speed, the low fee, and ofcourse the safest gateway

The Eclair developers will apparently release a new version later this year that lets you receive lightning payments

emphasis:
works flawlessly when already having a channel between client and store node is funded and both online.

however many stores/merchants wont want to have a permanent open direct always online connections with millions of users
(DDos risk, hacking, other funding issues on store/merchants side(EG paying all close channel fee's for millions of users))

so then routing/hubs/hops becomes a concept. which is less than flawless.
recently fold done a 'pizza for LN' and showed only a 10% success rate. (1500 transactions, only 150 successes)[/list]

More and more people eyes are beginning to be open to the fraudulent cash been made by our faulty financial system, and they are now set to dumping it. Lightening network is the answer to bitcoin scalability. This will attract mass adoption, I understand some merchants are already using it.

Even Samson Mow now says that Bitcoin should not be used for payments, and there's questionable utility surrounding LN. Even if it works well, it's YEARS away from this stage. I cannot recommend any merchant to adopt Bitcoin right now, at least not in good faith.

samson mow also said segwit is great. he was even selling hats to promote his controversial method to force segwit into activation..
but once activated, samson mows then company BTCC were not using segwit addresses for their coin rewards. which just goes to show they didnt really trust segwit tx formats for their own income

Thanks for clarifying that. I was kinda hoping I can accept payments on mobile. I asked coz we have a small mom-and-pop store and thinking of adding a BTC payment option if we get more Bitcoin users in our community.

Seems like Carlton Banks already answered this topic ;)


As for now, i run a bitcoin core node, c-lightning on top of core and lightning-charge on top of c-lightning... It's actually pretty easy to setup, and it runs without hiccups for weeks on end... So, if you're serious about accepting lightning payments, and you want a "from-scratch" sollution, i'd probably go for something like this:

- Add a second, empty, 512 Gb SSD disk to a fast computer with sufficient RAM and BW, running linux. mount the device under ~/.bitcoin
- Install bitcoin core, run it, let it sync
- turn off the pc, remove the SSD, setup an rPi 3b+, plug in the SSD, mount it under ~/.bitcoin (create a seperate user)
- install bitcoin core on the rPi, run it, make sure it runs smoothly before the next step... It should sync pretty fast, since the bulk of the work was already done on a fast pc
- follow the installation steps of c-lightning: https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning
- follow the installation steps of lightning-charge https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning-charge
- at this point you can setup a LAMP stack on your rPi and write a very simple php script calling lightning-charge's rest api, create qr codes, display them, check for payed invoices,...

All in all, a rather extensive walktrough, but if you're reasonably technical, it's far from impossible :)
Total cost (not including the fast pc... I assume most people have access to a fast desktop machine somewhere, either at home or with friends or family):
1 512 Gb SSD => $90
1 rPi 3b+ + case => $80
S&H => $20

So for less than $200, you should be up and running accepting LN payments in your store..

If you don't mind using a payment processor, bitpay already accepts LN payments :) I've used them for my latest bitgild purchase and it went flawless...

If people are not familiar with cryptocurrencies they won't use it. Why should they buy Bitcoin for fiat currency and then buy whatever they need for it when they can just buy what they need for fiat without messing up with anything else?
LN supposed to be a great thing for offline payments but the only existence of such technology won't make anyone to use cryptocurrencies.

wait... so for 4 years people been screaming that bitcoin is broke and cant scale because its too complicated and expensive to run 1 program on a pc

but now there is a solution involving running 3 programs.. but funnily one of which is the one that was supposedly too big to run.
and it just costs $200

OMG shocking.

he also clearly emphasised the cost of a a full node..

the whole size weight significant increase is the bull crap myth.
no one is saying gigabytes by midnight.

the main proposals was 2mb which would have been at most 104gb a year meaning 3 years of using the raspbi before needing to upgrade the hard drive,

$200 for 3 years(200gb for 10 years historic, and 300gb for ATLEAST 3 years future) is cheaper than many computers and game console systems which people upgrade in the same time frame. which means the excuse of price is like saying
"online gaming cant work"
"dont do online gaming" because internet speeds and console costs


but with that said the point being is LN requires MORE than bitcoin
but LN offers LESS security
but LN offers LESS payment success guarantee
but LN offers LESS convenience

too many people that advocate for LN dont use it.
those that do, get too optimistic and only explain the most perfect usecase and call it 'flawless' but too afraid to admit the flaws. which when funds ar involved. people actually want to know the flaws/risks too

do you know the real funny part though.
the devs that suggsted not to scale bitcoin ntwork but concentrate on a separate network for multicoins. are the guys happy with fee's being 'higher than 3rd/developing countries can afford'.

meaning even if 3rd/developing countries decided to go for lite wallets. as full nodes are not essential, its still expensive to use bitcoin.

but lets also think about LN
imagine it this way.
$1 fee, channel lock length 2 weeks = $2 a fortnight
=$52 a year JUST TO open/close a channel periodically
=$156 for 3 years

and thats just 1 channel. average experience is 5 channels to have reliable service. so yea expect more costs just to set up reliable channel routes even via just a phone app

and if wondering why i say $1 onchain fee.. well those loving LN and think that onchain fee's will replace rewards and blockchain needs to stay where it is to cause a fee war to pay pools. doing the math of 12.5*$3500+= >$40k
that $40k is for ~2000 TX meaning each tx in the future may need to be $20.. so i was bing very "conservative" by just using $1 with 1 channel as oppose to $20x5 channel
but even with low "conservative" numbers below the expectactions of the group that love the "conservative" buzzword, still adds up to a significant amount that doesnt help 3rd/developing countries.

oh and by the way. a 1TB hard is cheaper then you think

I think Kroger's rejection of Visa signals that these payment processors have abused their position similar to monopolies. This bodes well for the Lightning Network and competing technologies. The key for the Lightning Network will be ease of use and stability. Additionally, fiat ramps will be needed for quick conversion for customers and merchants. I am expecting this will be a big year for it to properly scale.

sure its conventional and that what makes visa more acceptable than crypto or lightning network  . visa isnt also out dated if its outdated then why we still see it everywhere ?


when using bitcoin people spend fees and they also wait for the transaction to be mined  while using a visa/credit card are instant  . no fees , no waiting time .


thats impossible  . some will stick on the old way of paying because crypto is too complex for them  . though this lightning network is a good implementation to speed up the crypto processing time  .

I think from both of them is a very good network, only having problems in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, I'm sure every store has its own considerations.

Indeed.  With the way Visa are raising their fees, that $200 is going to start looking quite tempting to a large number of merchants.  It puts them in the drivers seat and could save them a small fortune over the years if their customers start paying with LN instead of a card.  I believe the current Visa fee is $0.10 plus 1.51% of the cost of the transaction.  I can't seem to find any reference on what it's increasing to in April yet. 

BITCOIN
means you can just get a keypair and display it on paper.

you dont NEED a full node.(advantageous but not essential) but even if you did, its only a few hundred dollars.
the issue is devs are pushing for BITCOIN to be FEE priced more than visa for transaction fee's to attempt to get people to use another network that is not community audited, doesnt solve byzantine generals. has no guarentee of settlement, requires people to have co-signers and require co signers to be online, funded and linked to possible destinations for it to work
basically LN is not the open borderless sovereign system that made bitcoin popular a decade ago

LN is not even a feature unique and solely functional to give bitcoin an advantage.

but hey the promotional material is supposedly all for a current convenience of low fee. which as we all have seen wont stay low
think about all the 'min dust relay' stuff implemented in bitcoin so that nodes dont get hit by loads of transactions.

the foolishness is to raise the BITCOIN FEE by saying there is a option of LN for those who dont like the fee war instigated by the devs. but then LN is doing/pretending to do things some users dont want thus causing a loss in the whole ethos of what originally made bitcoin popular.

remember if you only have $60 in a channel your not gonna want 60 users routing through you to buy a $1 product or 20 people buying a $3 coffee routing through you as you will get your funds raided before you can spend it yourself.

even the LN devs have been saying they have noticed LN nodes already upping their fee's to prevent this stuff.
even companies offering services/goods via LN are admitting LN payments are having a 10% success rate

but hey those thinking visa $0.10 bad or paypal $0.20 bad.. but bitcoin $1 fee good. are obviously either sniffing glue or dont want people using true bitcoin

The success of the lightening network to be use in stores all depends on how user friendly it becomes at the end and with a flexible and low fees in carrying out transaction by stores then I think digital currency will be the future of all online and cashless transactions in stores and market palaces.

Learn to read, moron.  That's $0.10 plus 1.51% of the transaction cost.

I work in a large call centre.  On an average day at work, eight hour shift, I can easily clear between £4000 and £6000 worth of transactions.  Sometimes more.  Not all of them are card payments, some use direct debits, so let's say £3000 to £5000 on cards.  In case you're as much of an idiot as I think you are, let's show you what 1.51% actually means in practice.  That works out between £45 and £75 in fees.  Per day.  And that's just the transactions I process, not counting the other 200+ people that work there.  

Yeah, companies are just going to be weeping in sorrow at having to pay a few hundred to become their own payment processor.   ::)

Fucking imbecile.

Is an interesting topic because bitcoin can't supplant Visa because the TPS (Transactions per second) in bitcoin is too low, but now with LN this is possible. And the LN fees are even lower than bitcoin transaction fees, so, we are talking about the future of the payments.

doomad
take your insults and go play around on some social drama forum

point being
10p and small % a certain group says is bad per tx

yet think $1-$20 per bitcoin tx is good
many are saying leave bitcoin at the 1mb base = ~2000tx a block
meaning requiring $20 to match a $40k blockreward in a scenario of there not being a block reward

if the only point you can knit pick is my not mentioning a small % number of visa... then your missing the point

so here is another point.. without being 'conservative' like i was before to just simplify things
would you use the Pound if it cost you £1-£20 per payment
would you use a paypal pound if it cost you £10-£200 a fortnight to set-up 5 accounts to make it effective to use.

if you want to be one of the guys that think making bitcoin $1+ per tx is a good thing then maybe you should aim your insults at yourself

for large transactions, credit cards are horrible. i've processed cards on behalf of nonprofits and such. hundreds of dollars evaporating from a single $10k or $15k transaction---that's insane.

clearly bitcoin's design shits on visa when it comes to high value transactions.

as for low value transactions? we're getting there. why are you talking about "$1-$20 per bitcoin tx" in the context of lightning? even if you include commitment and settlement tx, you know the average transaction costs using lightning will be much lower than that.

It's not a nitpick, it's annihilating your earlier balk at merchants paying $200 to become their own payment processor.  You said:


And I rightly pointed out that there are a significant number of companies that could easily recoup that setup cost in a very short space of time if people use LN payments instead.  You simply don't understand how much these credit card middlemen are profiteering.  1.51% might not sound like much, but it's absolutely huge for some businesses.  The resulting savings would easily cover any costs from "running 3 programs" and still leave money to spare in the company coffers for other things. 

actually mr domad flip flopper
the point was that certain group over the last few years were/are saying BITCOIN is bad, bitcoin is broke because the hardware costs are so high that bitcoin needs to turn into 'server' only system just to be a node
so yea, i mentioned oh look only $200 to be a node.(guess i was being too subtle)

many people from a certain group love to over promote bitcoin as bad and LN as great, by wanting to keep the myth alive that node costs are now and will be massive.

again nope.. just $200 does the job..

the certain group yammer on that if the bitcoin networks blocks are only moved up incrementally over time because 8mb is bad and such
(dont even bother with the gigabyte by midnight rhetoric, thats so fake news 2015)
that no one can be a full node.
i then pointed out that terrabyt hard drives are cheap and the guy who said $200 initially was running more than just bitcoin node on his raspbi, thus again no big deal...

....
as for your then flip flop meander into the recouping the cost using LN.
just a couple days ago you were flopping in another topic that LN is not about getting fee's from being in LN
yet this topic today your now saying people using LN can get good income

it was actually me in that topic that was showing how average joe wont get much chance to recoup much as it would require 100,000 transactions to make 4cents at the current 1millisat fee(12th decimal). and most average joe wont have $300k to cover 100k of $3 coffee. i said that because a certain group was over promoting that LN is great for getting an income from it and people were wondering about getting income. you then flip flopped that no one is asking about LN income.. in the very topic where the op himself was mentioning about LN income


i was the one that said LN is designed for the big corporations to set up the factories, watchtowrs and hubs to maximise their income(return on investment) via LN and they already have strategies to maximise fee income without it appearing as high fee per hop. by them owning multiple hops around a service to multiply their income without having to increase price per hop
(something only the big corps can manage)

so please mr social drama flip flop. do your research think of a narrative you want to stick to and decide to stick to it.
as you seem very happy to not see coffee purchases on the bitcoin network and would find $1 a tx acceptable and only allowing 600k tx a day bitcoin network utility a good thing.

yes people like you seem very happy with a bitcoin fee war to push up bitcoin fee's
yet you rant about some small 1.5%+10p fee for fiat as being huge..

again realise the point of the post i made which was that $200 is not "bitcoin needs servers" cost just to be a node. im guessing i didnt write subtle sarcasm in a neon sign and explain the point as if you were a 5yo

again i find it soo overwhelmingly strange that you keep saying fee wars and small blocks that help push bitcoin fee's ar great and how LN, with its less secure non sovereign model is the solution to a problem caused by devs who want the commercial LN populated. rather than trying to care about the bitcoin network utility and sovereign model populated
again you want bitcoins network de-burdened of utility via high fee, low utility and the pretense of high hardware cost.
which shows you seem to not care about bitcoin at all. but seem very very very excited about a commercial non sovereign network designed purely for commercial gain

Typical franky1 manipulative distortions.  I said savings you disingenuous faecal blemish.  Not Income.  You are the lying sack of excrement who says everyone supposedly wants to get rich from earning fees from LN transactions.  You've even accused me of wanting to get rich from earning LN fees in the past, because you were either too stupid to understand how it works, or too much of a liar to be honest about the fact that LN will not be a source of income (obviously you've changed your tune now that you realise how utterly wrong you were).  Everyone other than you is sticking with the truth, which is that Lightning allow users to spend less in on-chain fees and will allow merchants to find massive savings in paying less to Visa/Mastercard.  SAVINGS, NOT INCOME.  Find a braincell and use it if you can't figure out the difference between those two words.



And as always you took things to extremes and talked about "getting rich", when absolutely no one else was talking about that.  You can't help but be a some sort of fanatical zealot.  You're the crypto equivalent of a hate-preaching religious crackpot.  Some people had the mistaken impression that it might mean a couple of bucks a month, when what they should have been thinking is a couple of pennies a month.  An honest mistake, easily corrected.  But there you were in a heartbeat attempting to blow things out of all proportion and make grandiose claims about "getting rich" that have absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.  

Try being reasonable and balanced just for once.  You only claim people think it's "utopia" because you are only capable of seeing things in absolute extremes.  Just because someone might say something vaguely optimistic about LN, doesn't mean they're some sort of die-hard fanatic.  They do realise LN has limitations.  They recognise it's not perfect.  They understand there are some benefits with on-chain transactions that Lightning is unable to offer.  

Ultimately, Lightning is a compromise.  You know, a thing that people who aren't extremists are capable of doing.  Making concessions for the greater good.  Maybe consider giving it a try?  Your current tactics clearly aren't having the desired effect.



We get it, Francis.  You want bigger blocks.  But you don't believe in it strongly enough to actually go ahead and do it, because you know you'd end up on a network by yourself as your ideas have hardly any support.  You can't find enough nodes on this chain who agree with you.  So you sit there sniping from the sidelines in a feeble attempt to make people think that SegWit and LN are bad, hoping in vain that it will bring people around to your way of thinking.  How's that working out for you?  After a few years now of trolling the boards and derailing topics left, right and centre, how many people have you rallied to your sad little cause?  

That "certain group" not saying Bitcoin is "bad".  This is another one of your extremist exaggerations.  They are saying there are realistic and legitimate concerns over scaling that need to be addressed, which is a sensible stance to adopt.  And the users here tend to agree with them for the most part.  If you don't like what that "certain group" are doing, there are several courses of action you can take:

• Not running their client.
• Not using SegWit.
• Not using Lightning.

But since you're doing all of that already and it still doesn't seem to be enough for you, I'll add the following to the list:

• Cry harder.
• Accept that consensus doesn't give you the power of veto, you are wholly impotent and there is literally nothing you can do to stop anyone working on LN
• Consider what it is you actually want and weigh up the benefits of finding another chain where you might actually agree with what the other nodes on the network are running and save the need for all your incessant whiny complaining, just because you can't get what you want here.

You are welcome to be a part of this network, but you need to acknowledge that the majority of those securing the chain do not share your views.  If you hate the BTC chain's chosen direction that much, why subject yourself to it freely?  What motivates you to stick around and follow a chain you fundamentally disagree with?  Users on this chain are currently stating irrefutably, 24/7 that this is what they want because these are the rules they are currently enforcing.  It would behoove you to respect consensus and stop being such a petulant child about it.  

bitcoin was the system of offering savings. but the devs took out them mechanisms. and are now trying all strategies they can to make bitcoin sound bad as a payment method just to promote another network.
and yes that included THEM advertising LN as a way to make income. THEY even talked about how mining pools can supplement their income by being LN nodes.(hint all THEIR words... not mine)

but hey your more interested in social drama insults of a username 'franky1' then you are of actually researching bitcoin things just check out all your posts with insults. vs posts talking about bitcoin.

once you realise you are insulting a username that has no birth certificate, you will maybe realise your insults are empty. and that you are wasting your time getting so emotional. then i hope you spend more time researching bitcoin, understanding bitcoin and maybe eventually caring about bitcoin

....
actually i was the one telling people that they would need to do 100k transactions to get 4cents.

your the one happy to make bitcoin become unusable and have LN as the gateway away from the stifled bitcoin
your the one that only thinks 1mb or 1 gigabyte. for years i have said there are many ways to scale bitcoin, that DO NOT involve gigabytes by midnight.
your the one that thinks and promotes bitcoin as eventually leading to server required blockchain management. yet i was the one saying actually its only $200 to be a node and stats show that incremental growth is not a problem...

you seem to flip flop soo much your forgetting which narrative you have personally promoted..

oh and as for me not mentioning the 1.5% in addition to $0.10.. because on a coffee/microtransaction. 1.5% is negligable and UNIMPORTANT
but its you that seem to go to extremes of talking up the 1.5% to extreme numbers.
your words "hundreds of dollars" when you explained how you view 1.5%
seems you dont understand the purpose of LN was for microtransaction meaning the expectations of bitcoin 2009-2015 were sub 10cents. and the expectations of LN are meant to be sub 10cents.. so i have no clue why your getting emotional in regards to small 1.5% of insignificant amount thus not even worth mentioning

oh and i must add.. if you did actually work for a call centre which each employee does thousands of £ a day.. then your working either in a fak company you made up, or for a company that has no clue about its own costs. if it has not negociated its transaction fee's down to 2p+0.7% then the company you supposedly work for deserves staff like you working for it.
but thats beside the point..

point being 10pense/cent fee per transaction or less is the average expectation. and so people like you saying visa charging over 10pence/cent is bad.. but charging for bitcoiners $1 is good is YOUR FLAW and your flip flop

 
oh and as for me wanting bitcoin scaling.. there are again many ways of achieving it. im emphasising and repeating it. because its you that jumps to the "big blocker" mantra of exaggeration

now go play your social flip flops elsewhere. or atleast remember your flip flops and stick with one narrative
because you dug yourself a hole mis understanding my subtle point about $200 to run a node.. and now ur just digging yourself a bigger hole with your insults and flip flops.

VISA requires you to enter the banking system, you must not be in a black list over debt, for example. VISA needs you to manually sign receipts, and they used to charge 5% (it went up recently, don't know how much).

With Bitcoin, even without LN the fee could be about 3~10 cents (rarely above 1000 Satoshis). Using a payment processor it might be something under 1%.

What is the point of having an ultra fast network that charges outrageous fees and forces you to be in the banking system? Ie. open a Bank account, demonstrate you have good credit, and be hold back arbitrarily not to what money you actually have but what they decide you could be able to buy?

Actually a credit card is a poor payment system, designed in the 50ies. Most people don't need credit, what they need is electronic paymen, which is why debit cards are far more convenient. But still...

Debit cards need you to be in the banking system. Opening bank accounts is not easy or trivial, and depending on country it is a bureaucratic nightmare. Service bill? Identification papers? But i don't even live in this country... No account for you, no debit/credit card either, Etc.

All that banking nonsense goes away with Bitcoin. Visa doesn't hold a candle against the freedom Bitcoin gives.

LN is the icing on the cake, nearly zero instant fees.

great

Things will change with time. Adoption is not so easy and it does take a lot of time. This is what we have to know about the LN being adopted ahead of VISA. At first we might not see many people use it because of the early difficulty that comes with things like that but gradually people will learn it and get used to it.

i would go for LN no doubt as i myself doesn't use a credit card anymore. because i already learned my lesson long time ago using credit card that incurred me to a hefty debt. i know it's my fault but yeah, they charge a freaking unreasonable penalties.

but on a different note, i like the convo of DooMAD and franky. it is so entertaining i just learned many things from them.  :P

I think that is a good idea, especially today. Lightning Netwok can make transactions easier, faster and safer. LTC began operating the Lightning network transaction last year. The visa has limited functions and lightning networks are not limited to technology.

It's hard to predict how the Lightning Network will play out in terms of adoption, but clearly more development is needed to make it commercially useful. We need lean LN clients. Given how greedy Visa is with fees, I can see at a bare minimum LN gaining a significant market share over time.

FTFY.. remember the 2009-2013 ethos of bitcoin 'virtually free tx' then suddenly devs decided certain groups needed fee's so they started messing with code to push a fe war.. dont expect LN to be 'virtually free' forever
also if you add it all up to have a reliable chance of successful payment you need to split your value over more than one channel = more than one set of open/close session costs. which under th assumption of a conservative $1 btc tx fee onchain.. for the 'buy coffee' scenario of LN if you add it all up and think about just 1 coffee a day for a fortnight. (14 coffees) and you needing say 5 channels for reliable routing ($10 open close(5x$1 open, 5x$1 close)) thats not mathematically lower than 10cent costs all in.
even if btc onchain fee's were 10 cents.. its still ends up after a fortnight all costs(many channels) added all in is much higher than 10cents
(and no, dont automatically think you only need 1 channel connected to starbucks.. coz starbucks wont want millions of users direct conncted to starbucks (DDoS risk) so they will set up layers of hubs and hops (much like websites use cloudflare) so expect to need to be a few hops away, meaning more chance each of those hops gtting de-funded/going offline, thus needing more than one channel to have a different route to starbucks should one route go down)

..
anyway the way i start to view the open/close costs is more like a membership fee to buy a channel. and many people have started using that mantra too of the cost to buy yourself into LN before actually getting to use it. they are especially using it in context of buying a channel via factories
let alone once in... some value is then locked off from being spendable by yourself so that further hits how much you can buy when you decide you want to put $60 towards LN. you WONT get to come out the other side after buying a $3 coffee with $56.90 nor can you just put in $3.10 and think you can get a $3 coffee pay the LN fe and get out all clear
...

lightning network has got limitations
did you know that LN dosnt want channels to be filled with thousands of dollars. they actually have code that limit value per channel. much like ATMS limit your spend per day.
the requirement of multiple channels because of issues that just running a singl channel has limitations
as for technology limitations. there are many. its why the 'hop' model has issues. and why hub and factories and other models are then developed. but even they dont allow unlimited use

Except that, unlike bank ATMs, options are currently being developed for future versions of Lightning to give users the ability to opt out of those channel limits, providing both participants in the channel agree.  I encourage people to look this up and discern the facts for themselves. 

and people can avoid the VISA ATM limit by walking into a bank branch and making a personal agreement with their attached bank direct to be able to handle more than the limit of an ATM..

but hey the dev's do love to pull strings especially with all the limitations they are putting into bolts
the wholepoint of bolts is a set of rules that the main nodes obide by to avoid fluctuations of disagreement.
yes bolts right now is just seen as a concept/policy. but if LN becomes popular nodes end up being more strictly following it or find out they get 'punished' because by not following it ends up in the predicament devs are seeing now where payment success rates are low due to route imbalances
so as for doomad saying options for future to allow opt out.. there are also options for future to make bolts more of a law than just a flimsy policy(the opposite of easy opt-out)

quite the opposite. hard forking to remove the block size limit would be more appropriately termed "messing with the code". the fee market emerged as a result of the block size limit added by satoshi---and thank goodness he added it. the total bitcoin supply is nearly fully mined now and if fees don't start picking up the slack, the system will never be sustainable.

why don't you explain how lightning is going to become expensive to use? unlike bitcoin, it has no real mechanism to drive fees up. the transactions savings achieved by lightning are only limited by the amount you're willing to commit to payment channels. it's plain to see there is potentially very significant savings compared to bitcoin, especially when you consider that a single onchain payment to a merchant can open a lightning channel with that merchant for future payments.

Even when visa cards came into market it was a revolutionary solution and people were rather sceptical about it but today everyone is using it.

I thing the same will be for lightning network. It is cheaper and faster, and it's just a matter of time till mass adoption.

seems you been reading too much reddit
fees dont need to rise onchain especially not this decade...
thats why the supply demand of the coin which causes the coins value to increase can keep things going for decades. EG if price of bitcoin 4 years ago is now 2x as high means that it still equals the same income even with a reward halving

reality is price vs 4 years ago is more then 2x so the value available for mining is more than the last halving.
thus no need to supplement the reward with fees as the reward is still high enough, the market:mining deflation can take care of itself and will do so for decades

th only reason for th whole 'fee' drama this decade is to pus an agenda that the bitcoin network aint any good. and the only reason its pushed as being not very good, is because devs have limited bitcoins utility/desire

de burdening the bitcoin network and pushing the bitcoin network fee up wont help miners either... think about it
.....
there are many mechanisms and limitations in LN that will push the LN fee's up.
just think about the whole economics of LN,
imagine it a route(hop) only has $60 in its channel and its going to cost that route(hop) $2 to close and reopen a new channel when the funds are depleted. why would they only charge $0.0000004 to allow someone elses $3 coffee to go through a router.
to the router. that $60 he has is like 20 payments of coffee they can allow. so knowing it will cost $2 to re-session the channel they will want to break even. so it ends up costing the initial guy 10cents just to cover the costs of channel re-sessions for 1 coffee

ask yourself, honestly would you allow routing using your value if it means you cant use your funds yourself, AND it cost you extra to allow it.

what will happen is a 'open market' where the route value available gets calculated so that it covers costs for the router

math formulae will come forth like such as:
if $60 in channel... $2 resession cost /60 = fee per $ routed =10cent LN fee per $1 required to be sent
if $600 in channel... $2 resession cost /600 = fee per $ routed =1cent LN fee per $1 required to be sent

so this is where hubs with large reserves between other hubs end up with the cheapest route fee's
but unless th initial guy wanting coffee has many channels to have the potential of having a multiple choice of routes, then it will find itself not paying super low prices of $0.0000004 per hop.
the only way to pay $0.0000004 per hop is if each router on the route had $X00k reserves to cover.. which wont be the case

..
in short. do some research, run some scenarios and you will see that paying 0.000000000001 (12th decimal(millisat)) per hop wont be a normal thing

So you can't explain how Lightning is going to become expensive to use?  That's what we thought.



Pretty sure no one was saying it would be a normal thing, but okay.  Thank you for once again pointing out the extremes that obviously won't apply in real life.  If nothing else, you're good for that.

mr Doo alot of flip flop Mad

just go run some scenario's. actually use LN. play around do tests. DOO something
if all you can Doo is get MAD then thats your issue.
but try not to make your social issues become the topic

1. Doo some research
2. Doo some Scenarios
3. stop getting MAD about social stuff in your head
4. learn about bitcoin/lightning
5. oh and $1 onchain and 10cent offchain for coffee is not 'exaggerations'/extremes
6. if your still going to refuse to learn about bitcoin and lightning, still going to not even run scenario's. then take your boredom to some social drama website about eastenders or coronation street, as that would suit you more to fill the gap in your life

meanwhile others will concentrate on bitcoin and related things, after all this is a bitcoin forum

If you did some research, you'd know that closing and reopening channels is not the only available option in Lightning.  The difference between us is that I don't exclusively run the worst case scenario (and literally nothing else) like you do.  This means I can factor in things like circular payments and the use of negative fees in order to assist in rebalancing a channel, rather than just allowing the channel to become exhausted like your scenario above.  A node may only need to charge enough in fees to cover the cost of making a circular payment to balance the channel, or cover the negative fees to incentivise routing transactions in the other direction.  This is a strategy each user will have to decide for themselves, but it's not as simplistic (or as dire) as you like to portray. 

As always, I'm not portraying it as "utopia".  Circular payments and negative fees do have their limitations.  They won't always be viable options.  There will be times where it won't be possible to rebalance a channel and you'll have to open a new one.  But the fact that you won't even acknowledge the existence of these options makes me believe you are not capable of being reasonable and can only talk about the negatives.  I can discuss both the pros and the cons quite happily.  Why is it literally just 100% negatives with you?  Please keep pretending it's just me stirring up "drama" and "social stuff" when I draw attention to what appears to be questionable behaviour on your part. 



No, but when you say things like:
that implies you believe our default position is somehow that 0.000000000001 would be a normal fee and that clearly that isn't our position at all.  That's something an extremist would say.

Clearly a 0.000000000001 fee will not be a "normal thing".  Why would you say something so blatantly obvious, unless in your head you honestly believe people do somehow think LN fees will normally be that low?  You would also be correct to point out that the sky is normally blue.  But most people would take that as something that doesn't really need to be pointed out.  What point were you trying to make by saying that fees would not normally be 0.000000000001?  I don't see anyone in this topic saying it would be a normal fee.  So why even say it?  But let's sit back and watch while you respond with "social drama" one more time and move on to the next distortion, manipulation or outright lie.

doo mad go flip flop on some social drama site

one day you say im exaggerating the next your saying i go too small
you even had one emotional day where you wanted to go on some emotional abuse rant that i did not include 1.5% number.
yet in the grand context of the topic the 1.5% is meaningless.
did you know visa can have deals of as little as 2pence+0.9%, thus on a microtransaction network of expecting to buy coffee-pizza £2-£10 the fee's would be under 12p no "hundreds of pounds"(based on your social work life experince which is not ven the same niche market LN would be used for)

how about just take things in the context of bitcoin and user expectation. and stop with your 'knitpick franky coz its franky'

you have had days where you have totally forgot what points you are trying to even make and contradict your own flip flops just to 'poke at franky'

you are not concerned one bit about bitcoin, you seem to prefer the social drama distractions.
so atleast take a step back before hitting the reply button and think before you write.

ask yourself are you about to write something about bitcoin or are you about to write something because it was posted by a certain user. if your initial reaction is certain user. take a step back away from the keyboard. and atleast do some research about the topic and atleast make it sound like your addressing the topic.

as for your circular fee's thought. if you actually run scenarios you would find out they aint easy and as straight forward as you think. because if another user routing through you finds he only needs 5 hops to get from him to destination but would need to route 7 hops to go through you the opposite direction. its not just your fee discount they are concerned with, its the other users in the route too(extra 2 hops).

oh and if you run scenarios like i told YOU about in regards to circular routing some users can abuse that so that they
make money out of you. i mentioned this months ago
i also mentioned to you many times to go research factories so dont go pretending i only talk about one vector of worse case scenerio. because what youll find is i actually talk about th realistic use scenario. and how theres flaws.

if i was to go full anal and display worse possible scenarios, even you would gasp
so ya it aint me saying users expect 0.000000000001.. i am the one saying users should not expect 12th decimal amounts, as a counter to other people who keep suggesting 12th decimal fee amounts and how they say there is no mechanism to push fee's up in ln, when actually there is.
its a real shame that some fools dont do research dont run scenarios and dont even appear to use LN yet are happy to try to promote a polished fully working concept, even when the devs themselves are shouting its flawed and risky and people lose funds and certain ln examples have only had 10% payment success rates

so please go actually do some research and run some scenarios

as for recent examples of some trying to promote cheap 12th decimal ln fee's in a positive manner

funny part
if you put in $60 to cover 20 coffee's at $3 each.. why oh why would you want others to:
a.route through you taking funds away from you meaning you cant yourself drink as many coffee's
b.use you as a route and incentivise them to use you. if its going to cost you to hav others using your funds
c. as for your post below... even in first link from muun... can you see the glaring flaw.
     c
a<   >b
     f
in the usual a-c-b scenario. fine
but to get C-b refilled using circular.. C has to get A F B permission to mess with their values
maybe A-F want to stay as they are. maybe F-B are happy as they are.. maybe B doesnt want to give anything back to C
its not straight forward as doomad suggests

For anyone who would like to enhance their understanding about rebalancing channels, feel free to have a look at the following links to understand both the upsides and downsides:

https://blog.muun.com/rebalancing-strategies-overview/
https://medium.com/coinmonks/redistribute-lightning-channels-balances-9ba3265584ee
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/84786/is-it-possible-to-rebalance-channels-by-sending-to-yourself-from-a-channel-to-a/84787

It's ultimately up to each and every one of you how you choose to transact, both on and off chain.  The most important thing is that you arm yourself with all the appropriate knowledge.