Bitcoin Forum

From Lightning Network developer Alex Bosworth: https://twitter.com/alexbosworth/status/1115647838531100673

"In May of last year, there was about $150k+ of funds committed on LN. Almost a year later that figure is up to $5600k+. That's 1% compounding daily growth on the dot. We haven't even started linking up exchanges yet, haven't got chain-wallets off the sidelines. 1% daily growth"

so far it is mostly enthusiasts that are running lightning nodes because it is still hard to do it in my opinion and there aren't that many places that accept LN payments. but the best thing about this kind of growth is that the more users use different LN clients the faster the bugs are found and fixed so that we can get closer to real usages of it in places like exchanges for example.

Yeah since lightening network is a new development and at that it need users to discover the problem and fix it before the full adoption of the Lightening network, I received payment through lightning network some few days back and it took me almost 4 hours before I could send the found to my on-chain wallet as lightening network cones with it own wallet such as eclair and the rest.

most of the balance is from bitrefill and LNBig giving out loads of free inbound balance

https://twitter.com/lnbig_com/status/1105801755265241094

https://twitter.com/lnbig_com/status/1112688601429614593
(~750 of 1000btc is related to LNBig)

No matter how small or big the development, it is still some form of development and advancement which is why I am happy regarding this development related to the LN. I don't host a LN node myself, but I am planning on doing so in the near future in order to help find more bugs and push it towards full scale adoption.

Yeah, it's only a matter of time before this protocol is streamlined and used by exchanges. Lots of progress is being made, but given the complexity of the project, there's still plenty of work to do. The growth of the network is still important to look at.

How does this work exactly? I'm still a complete noob when it comes to lightning network.
Do you have to set up your own node for this or can you also 'invest' in someone else's node?

a year ago i had a node by free google server.after trial time has passed, i didnt continue.can i reactiveate that node again with any server? i asked that before but nobody answered.

In fact, LN really helped Bitcoin to reach a new level. Remember the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018. Transactions in the Bitcoin network were slow and expensive until LN appeared. It is growing so fast precisely because it was very much in demand by the market and solved the most serious problem that faced Bitcoin at that time. I hope that in the future, solutions from LN will significantly increase the speed of transactions as well as reduce the transaction fee. In any case, Bitcoin continues to grow like the whole blockchain industry as a whole.

Setting up own node is best. You can go various lazy routes, but they either put someone else in charge of your money or your privacy (so exactly the same as regular on-chain Bitcoin)



Wrong.

Transactions on the Bitcoin network are either slow _or_ expensive, not both.

You can choose:

• cheap and slow
• fast and expensive

There is no "slow and expensive" option

Thanks for sharing this up.This shows exactly on where those balance came from.

He do directly tagged them both. Slow in means of confirmation and expensive when it comes to fees on that time.

Here is a Lightning Network visualization: https://1ml.com/visual/network

Notably, Sparkswap (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/sparkswap-worlds-first-lightning-atomic-swap-exchange-now-in-beta/), a decentralized exchange based on the Lightning Network that will facilitate atomic swaps, is now in beta. It has reportedly secured $3.5 million in funding.

I think this is another step for cryptocurrency, one of the best feature cryptocurrency has is it's convenience to users and lightning network was created to solve bitcoin's scalability problem. I know that it is too early and it is still under development and users are still looking and experiencing some bugs. However, this is a good step which can bring bitcoin network to another level.

The Lightning network has promised us a lot from the very beginning. But these promises have always been carried out behind secret doors. Even today after a year later, we don't know the lightning network exactly what it is, in what state, what is going on.

For what it's worth, we don't normally give out free LN capacity. We actually have a paid service for this:
https://www.bitrefill.com/thor-turbo-channels/ (https://www.bitrefill.com/thor-turbo-channels/)
https://www.bitrefill.com/thor-lightning-network-channels/ (https://www.bitrefill.com/thor-lightning-network-channels/)

for what its worth you recently changed ur prices, but vn at your now higher prices its not like a person pays500ksat and get 500ksat channel, they get 1mill sat channel
for what its worth, by opening a channel before even having a blockchain locked and confirmed tx peg is a risk
for what its worth, for LN to even allow channels to open without a pegged tx is a risk (opening a msat balance but collateral being coinbase.com data) as this shows its possible in code/technically to open channels without needing a blockchain tether AKA fractional reserving

The number of Lighting Channels has stalled. Channels cost money and most choose to "Hodl" BTC instead of funding channels with no intend to use them.
https://i.ibb.co/qgB82gG/Untitled.png (https://ibb.co/M1nHJ1T)

We need the Lightning Network for faster and more efficient payments. I think credit and debit card transactions will finally be realized once the Lightning Network matures. I can't wait to see lightning fast payments with whats already in my wallet.

LN up-take has been stagnant since mid March.

1. We actually lowered prices on the capacity-only Thor channels (non-Turbo), we never raised them afaik. I'm not sure what you mean.

2. You misunderstand how Turbo channels work. The risk is Bitrefill's because we are fronting the BTC in that channel

3. There is no concept of what LN "allows". Channel rules are established between the two parties that enter them, it is voluntary. That means you can agree to any rules you want. If you use rules that are different than other LN wallets or the rest of the network, you will be limited to a subnetwork of people using the same rules. Turbo channel opening requires a custom channel, but there is nothing fractional about it. It still requires unencumbered BTC to allocate the balance. It's just that Bitrefill choose to "give" our BTC instantly to you with Turbo because you have already made a separate payment to us of sufficient amount. This same concept can be used to create larger channels than the common protocol too. If we wanted, we could open a channel right now with 10BTC in it, it would just require updating the software we use to be compatible with each other. 

Don't confuse Lightning protocol with Bitcoin protocol, Lightning is real peer-to-peer interacting and channels can have any rules on top of BTC as an anchor. Nothing fractional, and nothing custodial about a Turbo channel.

fractional:
"There is no concept of what LN "allows". Channel rules are established between the two parties that enter them, it is voluntary. That means you can agree to any rules you want."
which is my point. 2 parties can agree to a LN balance even without proof of btc collateral

custodial:
"The risk is Bitrefill's because we are fronting the BTC in that channel "

turbo:
no confirm = no locked collateral when the channels is "fronted"

yea you can try to explain how your non turbo fee's havnt changed, but thats just a meander off topic. thats not admitting the truth, thats explaining a left hand when everyone is interested in the right hand (totally irrelevant)

the safe way a system like turbo works would be that turbo is factory based. where turbo just hands out HTLC's of balance in msats that CANNOT b broadcast to bitcoin. but instead the other party has to hand to the factory for the factory to settle

Sorry, but it seems you are predetermined to paint LN, and Bitrefill's use of it, negatively and incorrectly. Calling any of what we do with Lightning fractional or custodial is literally false. The coins in the turbo channel are owned by the recipient the moment they are pushed, they have control and can close the channel to claim them or route a payment to spend them. No one can print new Bitcoin in LN, and no one can double-encumber any coins in LN.

And that's franky1 in a nutshell, heh.  He still thinks that by lying about off-chain transactions and taking potshots at Core devs, he'll magically get what he wants.  It seems real life is just going to be one big disappointment after another for him, because he's living in cloud-cuckoo-land.  And if you dare to point out how reality actually is, he calls you a "utopian" because you won't acknowledge the many shortcomings that only exist in his very special imagination.  He's a renowned troll, so don't worry about it.

I can understand your points clearly and would imagine all the other sane people here will be able to do the same.  Thank you for dispelling some myths. 

I've been hearing Lightening Network for sometime now but don't really know what it is. Can someone just help enlighten a novice like me what Lightening Network is all about? Is it a form of blockchain, crypto currency or what exactly. Just a hint.

It is not a new coin/blockchain. It is software that allows to broadcast a multisig bitcoin transaction (creating a channel) with another peer, and then the bitcoin locked there can move as in a pipe, back and forth with very low or null fees, and by smart contract you can close the channel unilaterally by broadcasting another transaction that will redeem onchain your latest balance in the channel. What is interesting is that you can hop/multihop on peers, so it's a network which utility grows exponentially with the numbers of participants. Like an Internet of money.

Post a simple FAQ on how Thor Turbo works, and how it goes around the 6 confirmations requirement to fund the channel in this topic please, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4792622.0

Because there are fudsters everywhere, help us educate the newbies.

bit refill go into detail about msats vs sats.. i dare you
by this i also mean the detail of cltv vs htlc.. i dare you

dont blanket over the details. actually explain how LN functions in the process of
locking funds onchain.
how LN as a separate network decides what/when/if a locked funds tx is valid
then explain how the LN part of 'pushing' payment occurs. including what denomination/tokn is used and if that denomination/token is broadcastable.

dont try skimming and hiding and ignoring the difference between htlc and cltv. dont try to make it sound like only cltv are ever handled.
actually explain it fully.
remember to explain how if there is magic that only permits 6confirm locks to be collateral. how your system breaks the magic to allow 0 confirm collateral, or where users can buy in using coinbase balance/altcoins.
or you can admit there is no magic and that users can agree to whatever they like.