Bitcoin Forum

Some say that the Lightning Network is centralized, but from my point of view, it's still a decentralized solution to scale Bitcoin as anyone would be able to run a Lightning node at will. The huge advantages that it provides for Bitcoin such as dirt-cheap fees, and instant transactions would be too hard to ignore to implement in the future.

However, if the Lightning Network turns out to become a centralized solution for Bitcoin (like many claims it will), then it would be doomed as only those with a lot of wealth and power would be able to participate in this ecosystem.

What are your thoughts about this? Is Lightning really centralized? Or Decentralized? ???

It's not centralized in any meaningful sense. If a hub in the hub-and-spoke network of LN channels ever becomes known as a problem then everyone can start routing around it. So long as blockchain fees for a single TX are not too high there's not much "locking" anyone into using a problem hub. And a bad actor operating a hub is very limited in what kinds of hijinks they can perpetrate anyway.

I have been reading and studying a lot about this thing. Lightning network implementation sounds a good idea to everyone as it can save high transaction fees. But since the two parties directly transact with each other then i can say that it is a centralized in that way. There are still questions that are popping up in my mind like there are still expected shortcomings that may experience, then how can we resolve that issue?

From my understanding, Lightning Network is a centralized platform that is built as a layer from Bitcoin which is decentralized. If lightning network fails then there can be many other systems that are tried out and the one that works the best will become the norm. If you don't like using a centralized platform you can always stick to the main chain. The fees might make you not want to though.

You do have a point there, mate. The Lightning Network could be decentralized after all, if fees for opening a channel stay at a considerable level. If fees become high on the Bitcoin network, then it would greatly limit the ability for anyone to open a channel and start redirecting Lightning payments. Eventually, if Bitcoin doesn't increase its block size, this will become a huge problem even if Lightning Network's active, as the more channels are opened, the higher the load of transactions, resulting in greater fees over the long term.

Therefore, I believe that while Lightning Network is a good way to scale Bitcoin, it's not a permanent solution towards achieving said purpose. Bitcoin could gradually increase its block size over time, to bring in the full potential of the Lightning Network. Just my thoughts ;D

I think lightning network is centralization, because this lightning network is a software that is not part of blockchain system, but if bitcoin protocol applies lightning network, it can include global financial transaction volume faster, and cheaper cost.

This lightning network is just a part of the software that makes use of decentralized blockchain protocols and serves to minimize transaction size.

that's not necessarily true. if a hub-and-spoke topology emerges, it doesn't follow that LN nodes will magically become distributed if hubs act dishonestly. avoiding those hubs might just make some LN payments more difficult or impossible to route. if bidirectional connectivity across the network is lacking, you can't just "route around" connected hubs. that can mean your payment not getting routed at all.

it's not a huge issue because there is no trust involved---no funds are at risk from counterparties. but i wouldn't overstate how connected nodes on LN are.

I think large hubs appear because people want to connect to nodes that are always online and already have many connections, since it can result in shorter routes and thus cheaper fees. So, if we think about nodes/hubs as some sort of payment processors, there are still a lot of differences between them and traditional payment processors - they can't freeze or steal your coins easily, because Lightning protocol has strong anti-cheating mechanisms. You don't have to use hubs if you don't want to, you can always choose some alternative routing or just connect with someone directly - this is not possible with fiat, since you can't just start your own small bank.

in my opinion the key is in "who can run a lightning node/hub?" as long as it is anybody who wants (which is the case and now there is incentive to run a node) then i don't see any kind of centralization in this. you are still connecting to a peer to peer network and making a transaction on it. just like any other p2p network there may be peers by banks, government, shady people, normal people,... but the good thing that i understand about LN is that the relaying nodes don't know about the origin and destination of the transactions they receive, they just pass it along and know it doesn't belong to them.

firstly
in channel. there is NO community audit/ checks of payments. is just counter-party A vs counter-party B

this leads to a few issues. counterparty-B can (because its open source) edit his own node so that it is the handshakee.. meaning cpA has to offer their hand first(sign first)
if cpB received cpAs signature of lets say tx3, but then cpB was to refuse to sign tx 3. and then cpB went on to DDoS cpA..
cpB can blackmail cpA because

if cpA broadcast tx2(the only fully signed tx cpA has) cpB could the sign tx3 broadcast tx3 and csv revoke funds away from cpA
..
secondly
you say its not like traditional banks.. pfft
there are 1600 nodes right now. and there are some hubs with over 100 channels.. (upto 10% co-signing control of nodes funds)

imagine a town of 160,000 population and there were 10 bank branches. people open accounts(channels) with a bank branch and then every payment they make the customer needs:
1. bank branch authorisation (counter party sig of the customers<->bank(person/hub) channel)
2. wire transfer authorisation (counterparty sig of the 2 banks(routed hubs) channel)
3. remote branch authorisation (counterparty sig of the remote bank<->recipient(hub/person) channel)

if you take away the buzzwords of channel and replace it with account.
if you take away the buzzwords of mutlisig counterparty smart contract and replace it with requires bank authorisation
if you take away the buzzwords of routing and replace it with wire transfer using bank route/sort codes
if you take away the buzzwords of CSVrevoke and replace it with chargeback
if you take away the buzzwords of CLTV and replace it with 3-5 business day settlement
even the letter C in CLTV and CSV is misleading
if you take away Check(its not meaning validate) and replace it with Cashiers Cheque

you will see exactly what business model LN is copying


....
thirdly
with the costs of initial deposit per channel and offsetting some funds for routing/penalties/onchain closing tx fee.. it is not
cheap to set yourself up as a well established 'bank'.. only the few well funded people will (which has already started to become noticable now)

fourthly
imagine average joe only wanted to use $60 in LN as a risk.. setting up 30 channels means only $2 can be spent. and not all of them will route to starbucks. also. the nodes he connects to that might also have done something similar may have already spent their $2 on th available route to star bucks meaning there is nothing in the routes to hop payments through even if a chain of channels could be found

meaning lots of channels then had to close(onchain) to then re open new channels to re-jig the funds around. which is all done on chain.
LN is not as seemless and open and limitless as people think. devs are still just knocking the kinks out of establishing connectivity(account application forms/handshaking). but yet to even consider/think/run scenarios of costs of running/maintaining and how often/how spread out peoples funds get to require closing/opening channels often

fifthly
thinking that if a node is dodgy. then its a split second decision to move on, is wrong. flawed and naive
its like finding out your bank messed you around. you funds dont instantly become cash in hand. they need to be thrown back onchainCLTV(3-5business day settlement). and then you need to open a new channel and fund the new channel via yet another onchain fee

Hate to break it to you,

But Lightening entire design was meant to centralize control of bitcoin by the elite banker that can afford to lock up the majority of bitcoin, by just printing more useless fiat.

Also even Bitcoin itself has been centralized for years to the wealthy elite that can afford warehouse full of ASICS.
Chinese Mining Pools alone had more than 51% control for years.
Centralization of bitcoin happened years ago and no one seemed to care.  :P  

pools cant do much. if they sent out a nasty block.. nodes would reject it in seconds. and then the pools cant spend thir funds because merchants wont see that block.

however. since 2014. CORE have centralised the roadmap in their own direction. and any other team/community member that thinks of an idea that differs from cores roadmap gets treated like an enemy...

so yes centralisation has happened years ago. but no one notices because each time its highlighted, all that occurs is distractions of.. "look at craig wright. he owns no bitcoins, never coded a node, doesnt have any influence but look, look at him until you forget that core control the network"

much like USA is bombing syria.. "but look kardashian is on a 3 day clense"

Are you trying to make up something to spread FUD? Did you bother to take some time to read and understand how LN works?

But please explain. How did you come to the conclusion that "only those with a lot of wealth and power would be able to participate in the Lightning Network". Let's see if you yourself understood what you have posted.

If lightning network is going on centralization of bitcoin then i think this out of the code that created by satoshi if bitcoin goes like that in the future there is now deferent in the government itself that controls people money and only wealthy people can control this.

what's the incentive? how much can you expect to make in fees? i guess it matters how well-connected your node is. you have to weigh that incentive against the risk of keeping your private keys online too.


indeed. i do like the idea of private, off-chain transactions. that's definitely one of the appeals of LN for me.

You do have a point there, mate. Anyone could leave or join a Lightning node at will, in a decentralized fashion. However, there's a thing that might concern LN node operators which involves regulation. I've seen an article over the web which says that Lightning node operators could be classified as Money Transmitters which fits on FINCEN's regulatory presence.

The article can be seen here: https://medium.com/@curt0/lightning-network-will-likely-fail-due-to-several-possible-reasons-336c6c47f049 (https://medium.com/@curt0/lightning-network-will-likely-fail-due-to-several-possible-reasons-336c6c47f049)

If that happens, then only banks and registered institutions as money transmitters within the FINCEN would be able to operate LN nodes. As such, it could make such protocol centralized rather than decentralized. I know that relaying nodes won't be able to know the origin of transactions (which does not abide by KYC or AML regulations) but FINCEN could easily classify LN nodes as money transmitters, the same way the SEC classified ICOs as securities.

Therefore, anything could happen once the Lightning Network becomes used at a wide scale in the mainstream world. Just my thoughts ;D



I'm not trying to spread FUD here but just saying what I believe that it would happen in the future. As more channels are opened simultaneously, fees on the main network could rise up to a point where only wealthy people could open them. As such, Bitcoin would also need to increase its blocksize to prevent fees from rising after many requests for opening channels (as a transaction would be made on the main chain to open a channel).

At least, that's how I see it, although I could be wrong. If fees stay at the minimum on the main chain, then there's no doubt that the anyone would be able to open channels within the Lightning Network at will. :)

for years people have been running bitcoin nodes but some of them have been complaining that there should be an incentive for it. the fees can be that incentive they were looking for. they may not be a lot but it is still viable. the thing is people have never been getting paid before and they were running nodes but now they have that perk.

maybe true. but first they have to consider bitcoin itself as money so that those who are processing its transactions to be "money transmitters". and so far only a handful of countries have considered bitcoin as money. for example US considers bitcoin as commodity so how can they consider its transactions as monetary?

Lightning network not simple how you think,
Yes node working how centralized system, but all players in LN secured from centralized control and i cant say what is centralized.

I believe Adam Back said that increasing the block size is already an absolute for the future of the network. But what Bitcoin Core will not do is to increase the block size to satisfy some group's political agenda.


Everything is ok so far with Lightning Nodes surpassing Bitcoin Cash nodes in number. Hahaha.

The Lightning Network will probably have top-notch privacy features. It will be much more anonymous than ordinary Bitcoin transactions.
Some businesses will run cheap Lightning Nodes to collect and sell data. Lightning users can either use these low-cost lightning nodes,or, use higher-cost, more privacy oriented payment channels.If the network is built by an organisation my take is it will be centralised

All Lightning nodes in the US will be forced to register as banks, thinking that they will be allowed to run a private bank without adhering to the AML ,
shows either a innocence or a stupidity on how things in the US work.

The US already forces compliance from foreign banks , expect the same to happen to any node that allows a US IP to connect.
LN records will be made available to all governments that request it or they will be shut down and their operators in jail.
And the reason only the rich will be able to run LN hubs is they will be the only ones able to afford a banking license.

Time to grow up people, the Bankers are taking over Bitcoin/LN and you can't run it out of your Mom's basement anymore.
You want decentralization & freedom of a coin not controlled by a banking cartel, you better start looking into alts.


 

yeah i get that. i'm just wondering if the fee incentive to run LN nodes is substantial enough to encourage a widely distributed network (as opposed to hub-and-spoke).

this question is sort of analogous to that of base layer node centralization. except i've always felt that trustlessly validating payments was incentive enough to run a bitcoin full node.

here, the question is more about whether people will bother becoming highly interconnected vs. just opening a channel with major nodes like exchanges or bitpay.



that seems doubtful. routing transactions doesn't equate to being a party to them. LN pre-images are just bitcoin transactions that aren't published to the blockchain. you realize that bitcoin nodes propagate many thousands of transactions across the network every day, right? if bitcoin nodes aren't financial institutions, how are LN nodes?

It is true that concentration is very dangerous and I think it is not centralized but decentralized, and it will be better for the future.

People that run Bitcoin Nodes are routing transactions , they are not creating their own separate note for the transactions.

However people that run LN Hubs
are holding/locking bitcoins and using their own hub created LN Notes to make transactions.

In the old days
Banks
hold your gold (now worthless fiat) , and use their own created Bank notes (Checks) to make transactions.

Both hold something of value and then make their own notes to make transactions.

LN Hub is by definition a bank as it was designed to be.  

Banks & LN
Create their own notes for transactions
Both Charge Fees & Penalties
Both can seize control over the held asset under certain conditions
Both can refuse payment to 3rd parties if they so choose.

Bitcoin Full Nodes
Do not create their own notes
Can Not Charge Fees or Penalties
Can Not seize control over any assets
Can Not refuse payment to 3rd parties for any reason.

See the Difference.  :D
 
** Bank Checks/Notes are nothing more than a promise by a bank that ownership of the underlying asset (Fiat) will be granted to the payee upon request.  **
** LN Hub transactions are nothing more than a promise by the hub that ownership of the underlying asset (BTC) will be granted to the payee upon request.**
LN=Banks

no, that's inaccurate. intermediaries on LN are not creating new transactions. they are not issuing "notes" or "checks" or anything like that. they are only routing transactions, like bitcoin nodes. the only difference is they are routing transactions via their established channels rather than propagating them to any and all connected nodes.


as pointed out, there are no "bank notes" in LN. there is no trust involved.

miners charge fees on the bitcoin network too. so what? the only "penalties" are if you're dishonest and try to broadcast a stale channel state to the blockchain. if someone can prove that you just tried to steal their coins, yes you can be penalized.

no one can seize control over the collateral unless:

• your private keys get compromised (same as bitcoin)
• you don't monitor channel states and thus permit others to steal your coins
• you broadcast a stale channel state attempting to steal others coins

how will LN intermediaries know which transactions to censor? and you know bitcoin miners can censor transactions too, right?


no. all LN collateral is cryptographically secured. a channel participant can close the channel and broadcast the last state to the blockchain. as long as bitcoin miners will confirm the resulting transaction, the funds will be released. if you are saying bitcoin miners won't confirm the transaction, your gripe is with bitcoin, not LN.

Now you're just being foolish, when a person requests a channel to be closed, that is equal to the underlying asset (BTC) will be granted to the payee upon request .

You can say no , all you want the fact is the US Gov has LN hubs by the banking license balls whenever they feel like it.
Ignore this at your own risk of jail time.

Tell you what ,
you start an LN Hub and post your IP , I will forward that info on to https://www2.occ.gov/ (Comptroller of the Currency US Treasury Department)
Then we can all see if you get away with it or get sent to jail for it.  :)

You could maybe argue that some decentralisation may have been sacrificed in order to scale but I think it still maintains enough decentralisation to remain relevant and survive. As a second layer solution I think it is the best we can come up with at the moment and I can see a future where you will need as little as a smart phone to run a lightning node, in a few years of course so over time it will become allot more decentralised. Like any protocol I suppose

actually zin-zang is kinda accurate

for instance
a paypal dollar is not the exact same as a bank account dollar.
you cant pay anyone thats not a paypal accepting merchant with a paypal dollar

much like you cannot pay someone not using LN with an LN time locked multisig

it has to be authorised and broadcast into the normal 'community'(national banking) system and fully settled before a customer can then pay a merchant outside of paypal.

same as a american express dollar is not the same as a dollar bank note..
many amrican express usrs have to find an ATM get their paymnt authorised to get bank notes to then pay a bill with a merchant that does not accept american express

so if we were to say bitcoin was a decentralised "be your own bank" then LN is a centralised paypal2.0 network
.. but thats just going an extra layer deep into the anaology of analogies

so to keep it simple without multitudes of analogies inside of analogies

in my view
LN is a banking network like swift(US) or 'fasterpayment(UK)
a hub(hundred to thousands of channels) is a bank branch..
a user(node with just 1-3 accounts) only using it to spend is a bank customer
though it appars like a traditional bitcoin transaction. the locks and new features of 2014+
means that while inside the LN network. a tx cannot be handled by the blockchain (the locks)

anyway

the other parts about withholding funds (CLTV)
reversing/punishing users with chargebacks(revocation keys/CSV)
fee's for service
requiring authorisation
are all things that banks do. which is not what traditional bitcoin does

LN is the banking network for a currency that used to be 100% decentralised

---

the problem with trying to compare crypto to fiat in analogies of banking is that the fiat banking is a farse/scam.

take credit unions vs banks
credit unions do not create credit out of no where. they actually do use other account holders funds to give to others for loans
banks do not actually use other account holders funds to give others loans. they actually do create credit out of nowhere

which is where the banks have been for decades been lying to people about how FIAT and banking works, which is part of why satoshi dsigned bitcoin. to get away from banks/places that people have to store funds and require second partys authorisation.

yet LN it bringing it full circle back to being like the farse of banking(reality of credit union)

Unfortunately, the Core team is what has kept Bitcoin back from scaling into a full-fledged cryptocurrency. Even if the Lightning Network aims to solve scalability issues, it's not the permanent solution. A block size increase would be mandatory to realize the full potential of the Lightning Network. As such, the bigger the block size, the greater the Lightning Network would perform, but too much block size would further centralize the cryptocurrency.

A safe bet would be to increase the block size 2x every 4-5 years to maintain the coin as decentralized as possible. Since Moore's law states that storage costs would increase over time and prices would reduce by then, it shouldn’t be an issue if Bitcoin's block size becomes greater in the future.

Nevertheless, we'll see what happens once the Lightning Network becomes active and widely used in the mainstream world.



That's certainly true, mate. Bitcoin Cash will become extremely centralized as it increases its block size to 32mb on May 15th. This will allow less nodes to become available on the network, as storage and bandwidth costs will increase. The blockchain will increase up to 32x than Bitcoin Core. Therefore, people would prefer to run Lightning nodes and Core nodes as costs will be cheaper in the long run.

Before we know it, nobody would want to run a Bitcoin Cash node as it'll be very expensive to do so. On the other hand, Bitcoin Core and Lightning nodes will be highly accessible allowing anyone to join the network without spending a lot of money. In the end, Bitcoin with its Lightning Network scalability solution, would prevail over most cryptocurrencies we know and love today. :)

There seems to be some confusion about their block size increase.
They are increasing the Potential of a block to be 32mb, not that every block will always be 32 MB.
In Fact, they have only rarely used the 8mb blocks since they began, only when someone tried to spam transaction them , and they wipe it out in 1 block.

https://cash.coin.dance/blocks

As you can see the Bitcoin Core Blockchain is ~33GB bigger now than the Bitcoin Cash Blockchain.
Bitcoin Cash just raised the upper limit possible so they have no fear of transactions congestion for years to come.
Bitcoin Core was congested for many months with insanely high fees, Bitcoin Cash will not have to worry about it.

As you can see here :
https://www.blocktrail.com/BCC
Bitcoin Cash is using on average less than 100kb per block, so the fact it is taking less resources to run than Bitcoin Core.

So the worry that Bitcoin Cash will be more expensive to run is a pure Myth at the present time.

Considering a Bitcoin Cash node only has to run a full node to help the network , and that a Bitcoin Core Node and a LN Hub would be required for a stable LN network, it may turn out core full node and LN hub data & definitely bandwidth requirements would exceed anything needed by just running a simple Bitcoin Cash Node.  ;)
But Time will tell on that speculation.
* The Bandwidth requirements will be much greater for Bitcoin Core's LN Hubs, the reason is if you ddos LN hubs at the time channels are scheduled to be closed,
it opens the possibility of one of the parties stealing the others coins, this attack vector is not possible on Bitcoin Cash Full Nodes so they will need less ddos protections.*



Taking the lowest average upload speed of 22.79 Mbps / 8 = 2.85 MB per second
So a 32MB file would be Relayed / Transferred in less than 12 seconds
0   Block Generated -1 Node
12 seconds -  2 Nodes
24 seconds -  4 Nodes
36 seconds -  8 Nodes
48 seconds - 16 Nodes
60 seconds - 32 Nodes
72 seconds - 64 Nodes
84 seconds - 128 Nodes
96 seconds - 256 Nodes
108 seconds - 512 Nodes
120 seconds - 1024 Nodes
132 seconds - 2048 Nodes
144 seconds - 4096 Nodes
156 seconds - 8192 Nodes
168 seconds - 16384 Nodes
180 seconds - 32768 Nodes
* All of this happens within 3 minutes, the fact is some will be running 1 gigabit or higher bandwidth nodes and they will increase the propagation at a much faster rate than above. *
* Essentially the 32MB blocks are no big deal even at today's average internet speeds.*

Quite interesting observation, mate. I've always thought that increasing the block size would make the chain bigger than ever as blocks will get automatically filled to 32mb. But, now I understand that even if block size is increased, blocks won't necessarily fill up to 32mb. Considering your research, it seems that a 32mb block size is still safe to use within a cryptocurrency. It will all depend on how technology improves overtime, and prices become reduced to a level where people could afford new technologies to maintain their full nodes.

With Moore's law, this will surely happen so it shouldn't be much of an issue increasing a block size to a greater amount in the future. I believe that it’s best to implement a dynamic block size system to Bitcoin Cash instead of a fixed size block size like 32mb. That way, the network could adapt to a specific block size depending on the load of transactions, among other factors. Bitcoin Unlimited had such feature, so it could be easily implemented into Bitcoin Cash in the future. Just my opinion :)

Some businesses will run cheap Lightning Nodes to collect and sell data. A block size increase would be mandatory to realize the full potential of the Lightning Network.

Perhaps the best answer is to be distributed rather than pushing it all on to one project.

Have btc as the unit/storage of wealth

Several "good " alts with wide distribution - ltc, doge, etc, as spreading the tx load.

LN has it's place but it is moving in the opposite direction to the decentralised trustless end to end arena most wanted at the start.

when you boil all other alts down and take into account the years btc has been here it seems the limitations of btc are simply part of being so decentralised and so trustless. You want higher tps you have to give in the other 2 areas or open yourself to other issues.

There have been no solid improvements over btc design yet by other alts. LN is another work around but again you are losing a lot of what btc provided.

No it isn't and it will never be because of its design. Lightning Network is basically a P2P system which doesn't even need miners to confirm a transaction. They are needed later if you want to close the channel. Many people don't know how Lightning Network works or they might haven't even heard of it. People are only waiting for Bitcoin to increase in price and they are not interested on what is going on behind the scene.

Firstly I would like to give my opinion on the lightning network and Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a peer to peer decentralized network and the lightning network is a peer to peer network as well but whether it is decentralized or centralized is still to be known. I would consider it to be a decentralized network because its a person who opens up a channel and the other decides whether to join that channel and transact over it or not. So it depends upon us whether to join any channel or not. The fees won't be an issue because it will be much cheaper than the fees on the main chain and if at all it is costlier than the main chain(which I dont think will happen) , we will still have the option to do the transaction on the main chain rather than the channel.
So if there are options then I would consider it to be a decentralized network.

LN is:
not peer to peer
its 'managd accounts where funds are locked onchain and then you gt to play around in a 'account'(channel) whereby all paymnts need a authoriser counterpart. if you want to pay a third person you need not only your counterpart to authorise your paymnt but to also authorise them spending their separate account with that third person on your behalf. if thier is a need to pay a 4th person. then you need the third persons authorisation with your counterpart, and th 3rd persons authorisation with the 4th person.  its lik playing a game of hot potato.. the funds you carry do not leave the channel. its a case of giving it to the counter part... and then the counter part uses their ow separate funds to then pay the third party. and the third party uses their own separate funds to pay the 4th party..   
it only works if everyone along the route is well funded, online and willing to use their funds for others.

not a feature of bitcoin
its not something only btc will have privelidge of as a feature that makes btc unique. other currencies will use it too

not a bitcoin solution to make bitcoin better
its its own network without the requirement of peer review. infact unless you are reading the raw transaction data of every 'payment' you have no clue what your agreeing to and what opcodes the counterpart had put inplace into the tx. its so much of a separate network that its designed to allow other cryptocurrencies to work on LN and as such some counterparts will be incentivised to screw you out of your bitcoins via many different techniques (even the LN devs are saying becareful you can lose funds on it)
and at best to avoid costs of broadcasting expensive onchain fee's leave you only able to exit via crapcoins
LN is not dsigned to fix bitcoin issues. its used to lock peoples 'store of value' and eventually hand control of that value to someone else whereby the channel only closes when one side has nothing left. (there are many punishments that can be added unless you eagerly read every raw tx. so many ways to lose funds) and by the time its in a block. its too late

Lightning Network will be centralized.
Whether or not that dooms it has yet to be seem , but it will be no different than a Centralized Banking System.

As far a LN fees being cheap, it has not even begun to be used, so the promise of cheap fees may be exaggerated and proved to be false as usage increases.
LN is also a variable fee structure as such as it use increases so too will their fees.  :P

Bitcoin core transaction fees were cheap , but they increased in time , odds are so will LN's fees.

first of all if you don't use the space then creating it is pointless. it is like buying an airplane to go to your job which is 1 block away from your house!
secondly when you open up space (32MB) you are making spam attacks easy. it doesn't  cost anything to fill these 32 MB blocks and cause havoc.
thirdly you are not just a leach, as a contributing node you want to connect to different nodes and send/receive blocks and transactions. this means downloading and uploading. your monthly traffic is going to be ridiculously huge. check out Shorena's node status here (http://188.68.53.44/), you will see very interesting stats. he is already spending 1-2 TB traffic per month.
finally it has never been just about the size. the problem is Zin-Zang doesn't understand anything about bitcoin. you are not  downloading a file. you are downloading a block. which means you download the blocks, verify each transaction and then add it to your blockchain. that verification is the bottleneck.

pooya87 is the one with limited intellect,
otherwise he would realize that a larger block means than IT COSTS MORE TO TRY AND FILL IT WITH SPAM TRANSACTIONS.
* How many times has someone tried to spam bitcoin cash since it moved to 8 MB,  *
* It happen once and One 8MB block wiped out the whole spam attack at great expense to the attacker and the next block was again using less than 1 mb.*
* Bitcoin Cash Developers have ran tests verifying their network can support 32 MB blocks when needed (It may be 15 years or more before they fill it on a regular basis) , whether pooya87 can accept that is his problem. *


According to the idiots pooya87 follows such as Blockstream , 8 MB blocks was impossible and Bitcoin Cash proved blockstream all to be fools.
Problem is Blockstream had an agenda to get LN activated, as that is what the bankers paid them to do.
People like pooya87 that see bitcoin as a religion instead of a technology are stupid enough to believe the nonsense , blockstream puts out.

MIT researcher Thaddeus Driya, co-author of Lightning Network whitepaper and former technical Director of Lightning Labs, believes that the network will avoid corporate centralization in General because of its design, which does not require expensive and does not require specialized equipment  ???

Co-Author of Lightning Network, kind of a conflict of interest , don't you think for an impartial opinion.

LN Hubs will be required at the least to report as a money transmitter at worst as a banking institution.
The expenses for these will make it so very few actually run a hub once enforcement of the AML/KYC regulations begin.

The LN hubs fees are also variable , it is funny no one thinks that their fees price can't also skyrocket.  ;)

LN Hubs require constant internet access to avoid funds being stolen, a simple ddos attack at the right time could allow LN funds to be stolen.
There is talk of a WatchTower system to help prevent that, but it is also going to charge additional fees if it ever gets working well.



  

You haven't proved anything until you can fill an 8mb block and sustain that throughput.  BCH only twice managed to exceed a paltry 200 KB worth of transactions in a single block within the last 48 hours.  

You.  Are.  Not.  Producing.  8.  MB.  Blocks.

And you definitely aren't producing 32 MB blocks, which I understand is the new cap.

You're producing an average of ~50 or 60 KB blocks with a maximum threshold you've not come close to reaching.

You're another one that can't believe the Bitcoin Cash Developers actually test code before releasing it.
Again your problem not theirs.

https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-cash-8mb-block-479469-clears-over-37000-transactions/

They only produce blocks large enough to hold the transactions , they don't produce the maximum size blocks every single block.

That was the single attempt by some bitcoin core/segwit supporters to spam the Bitcoin Cash Network and they had an EPIC FAIL.
Wiped out their pitiful spam attack in 1 block.

@DooMAD , put your money where your mouth is,
if you believe you can spam fill the bitcoin cash network blocks and crash it , GO AHEAD!  
But I think you're just full of hot air.  ;)  

FYI:
Almost every ALTCOIN can exceed the ONCHAIN transaction Capacity of Bitcoin Core right now.
The Fact is Blockstream Lied and many non-thinking people believed them, that offchain was required to scale.
Crypto coins are nowhere near the point where Offchain scaling was the only option left.

i still laugh at the above.
but nice wordplay windfury. it seems your indocrination into that group has taught you how to twist words.

adam back paid his devs to PREVENT increasing the legacy blocksize to satisfy HIS groups political agenda

only problem is you slipped up. how can bitcoin core not increase the blocksize if increasing it is some groups aganda..
remember you pretense that bitcoin core doesnt control anything. so how can they prevent it

this is where windfury has to admit core (adam backs paid devs) do have control.
just check out bitcoin.org/en/download   oh look core and only core is mentioned.
(notice hypocrisy yet)

so your worry about spam is empty

how can you argu about spam. then argue there is no spam because blocks are empty.
whats next worry that cars can b overcrowded because you sen a comedy clip of 30 clowns walking out of a mini car.. but then argue that cars should only have a drivers seat because most of the time thers only one person per car.

hint: an near empty block of 0.2mb does not lock off 32mb of hard drive space. it just uses 0.2mb of hard drive space. but allows the rules of allowing mor transactions in without 2 years of debate.

its better to have 32mb limit and not need it. than to have 1mb limit and argue for 2 years how to expand it
its better to 4 seat car and not need it. than to have 1seat car and argue for 2 years how to upgrade the car

take you pc. if you only intend to store 1 jpeg image on the PC world you specifically ask a PC retailer for a pc with a hard drive that only stores the operating system+1jpeg. or woul you want a hard drive that has the capacity for alot more knowing you may needd more in the future, and dont want 2 years of hassle arguing about upgrading your pc.

funny part is any coin, even btc can prevent spam. simply by having a fee priority formulae re-established. that makes it harder/more expensive to spend fresh utxo that have not matured for long(low coinage/confirm count=expensive), that alone will solve people trying to churn through transactions by spending them as son as they are confirmed.

but anyway. btc has stagnated onchain. and all devs care about is LN so that they can grab peoples BTC using punishments and exsivvive onchain fee's to tempt them not to leave LN until thir channel is empty. or get kicked to a crap coin so the hubs can get all the btc.
typical banker mindset

Yes, I speak with a lot of bankers about Bitcoin and LN. They always identify LN as most interesting to enter this market since it is typical their business. Get prepared that if it is a thing, small and medium entities will not long exist.

Regulation is a thing here as well, so think of what bigger entities will pull to get smaller ones out of markets.

yep and segwit addresses BC1q were not designed as a sole btc feature.
LN was not designed as a sole btc feature

the bc1q addresses were designed to identify btc tx's when the bankers add their hyper ledger system to LN so that they can tell the difference between a btc address and their atomically swappable fiat coins.

bankers running the hubs 'for convenience of users' is already in the works.

even the layout of hubs is the same network layout as bank branches. the co-signing requirement is the same as bankers authorised payments.

You might be missing the point just a little bit.  Sure, the network will readily cope with the occasional large block, mostly because all the others are so proportionately tiny.  But if they were to produce the maximum size block every single block, that's where you might find some issues creeping in.  That's when some of the people trying to run full nodes will suddenly decide that's no longer an option.  That's when the claims that BCH is centralised start to gain a bit of credibility.  For the record, I don't think BCH is centralised, just that it has a greater potential to move in that direction.



So why have the 32MB limit?  Why not remove it altogether?  It seems largely symbolic at this stage, doesn't it?

The "centralization" that most people talk about is really about limiting who can effectively (and profitably) participate. Lightning Network channels will naturally tend to form along the paths of economic activity. If you assume (as I do) that most economic activity in Bitcoin today is from individuals to large Bitcoin businesses (mostly exchanges), then you should further assume that most channels will be between users and those very same large businesses.

You can call the centralization if you wish---but it is not a centralization of Lightning's making; it is a centralization that already exists for Bitcoin users.

The hope would be that, as adoption increases, real-world use cases would become more prevalent on Lightning.  Retailers providing tangible goods and services would ideally start to see as much traffic as exchanges.  But obviously we'll have to wait and see how that pans out.

I'd say it's not that uncommon for most of our daily financial transactions to be with businesses rather than other individuals, so it's only natural that most of the money will flow in a similar fashion in Bitcoin as it becomes more mainstream.

even before the 1mb that satoshi put in during 2010. satoshi had a 32mb limit. this was called the "message size limit"
the reason for 32mb was due to technical stuff outside of blockchain stuff. and more about the internet technical issues

ill leave you to google the technicals but in short its easier to send data in clumps of under 32mb due to increased risk of packet/data loss which can cause propogation delays because so many packets would need to be checked and re sent the bigger the file gets

again this was not a bitcoin/blockchain limitation. it was a internet data transmission procaution to reduce delay, double transmission and other issues.
this is why you see so many image upload services, microsoft word upload, email attachments that have 32mb limits (if they want superfast service withleast chances of data retransmission)

but as i said ill leave you to google the technicals
bigger files are possible but then it requires extra code to double check stuff and need more code to rebuild lost packets etc. so it was simpler to just avoid going that high, to kep the system efficient.

After studying a bit on google about lightning Network, it appears centralized to me.

imaginiing channels
users who may budget they only want to spend $50 a week ($200 a month) will NOT want to put their $200 into 4 channels incase one of the route to a peer goes offline. because that $50 gets locked or cost them on unchain fee to get it out again.

users will end u choosing a hub (bank branch) to connect to and just throw the whole $200 in knowing its just 1 onchain fee they will need to worry about if they need to exit. and decide a hub is less likely to go off line than random users.

again users will not want to set up multiple channels. so the hop model of multiple routes wont work.
(its worth people running scenarios, it helps)
 and the HUB (bank branch) model begins to shine.

take youe own bank account. would you prefer your wages going into one account and then using that account to pay all your bills. or have 8 bank accounts and when you get paid you then have to pay a wire transfer(onchain fe) to then redistribute ur salary into 8 accounts dedicated to each paying a bill.and then knowing if something goes wrong with bing unable to pay a bill it then costs you another onchain fee to move funds again.. most people end up for convenience just throwing it all into one well connected reourse and letting them sign have joint control of your funds
.. this is how banks formed in the first place
even now looking at the LN network overview you can already se many users with 1-2 channels. not 4-8 channels.. and those 1-2 channls are betwen hubs in most cases.. and the hubs that have way way more than 8 connections. are what will bcome the new bank branches.

alot of LN fans will say "LN is not centralised. its like the SWIFT wire transfer network where its not just one bank office/hq. but multiple banks and account holders.."

but they forget users have to link to others and lock funds in with others. where that other party has to agree on users payments (just like how banks work)
and after studying and running scenarios of usability. hubs(bank branches) start to form as oppose to a user having 4-8 independant channels with each channel going to each service.

and so just like everyone knows all the banks are in it togthr to scrw customers over.. these hubs are all in it to hold all the reserves between them and scalp the users linked to them.

its simple 'degre's of separation' theory
just try doing the math of

4 to the power of 4 = 256 (not even enough for a school yearbook of people) 4 channels per person 4 hops end to end

8 to the power of 8 = 16,777,216 (small island/city population) meaning if all users had 8 channels. it take upto 8 'hops' to get end to end

9 to the power of 9 = 387,420,489 (about the populations of america) 9 channels per person 9 hops end to end

10 to the power of 10  = 10,000,000,000 (world population) 10 channels per person 10 hops end to end

but f you think of a bank HQ that works in 2000 regions. and those regions have 2000 bank branches each and each of those bank branches served 2000 users... thats 8billion users that can reach each othr in 3 hops and the users only need 1 channel to their bank branch

would you prerfer to split your $200 spend across 10 channels. where instantly $2 of your $20 per channel is reserved for closing channel. and it then costing you upto 10millisats(10x1milisat route fee) to get end to end
or
knowing you can fully spend $200 in one go. and the risk of random users going off line is less due to uyou using reliable hubs(bank branches)
would you prerfer to keep your $200 spend in 1 channel. where instantly $2 of your $200 is reserved for closing channel. and it then costing you upto 3millisats(2x1milisat route fee) to get end to end

spam is all about incentive. without it, the spam won't happen but that doesn't mean it is not a concern for others as well. take 51% attack for example. there are shitcoins out there with such as low hashrate that you can attack then with a tiny altcoin mining rig and wipe out their blocks. but the price of these shticoins is so low that it doesn't give you the incentive to do it. you'll get less than 1 satoshi per coin for many of them!!! this doesn't mean these coins are protected against 51% attack it just means nobody cares enough to attack them.

same goes with spam, nobody gains anything by spamming a shitcoin with empty blocks. but many will benefit from spamming bitcoin even if the blocks were empty. from miners who earn a shitload of money to altcoins who pump their shitcoin because bitcoin fees go up. you seem to have forgotten that in 2017 when Dash was starting to pump with the motto "Dash will replace bitcoin" they were raising money on their forum to spam attack bitcoin with it. nobody ever says "Dash will replace bitcoin cash"!

It looks like you are going to just have to live with the fact the developers writing Bitcoin Cash Code are smarter than you about what their network can or can't handle.

Like I said earlier , feel free to spam their network and try and prove them wrong.  :D

---

You really need to read up on other coins.
Many other coins do not allow variable transaction fees.  (That is the crux of the problem.)
Your Bitcoin Core coin variable fees and limited onchain block space is what allowed the months of spamming that raised transaction fees up to ~$40 last year.

Many Peercoin based Proof of Stake coins delete all transaction fees, completely removing spamming as an incentive.
Also any coin that has a fixed transaction fee negates any reason to spam for the profit of increasing the fee structure.
Proof of Stake coins with these features are totally resistant to pathetic spam attacks.

Aside from the above, Bitcoin Cash solution was to have a large enough capacity that spam attack just wasted an attacker's funds, which works as only once was a spam attack even attempted. By having plenty of onchain capacity , they negated any reason for someone to try a spam attack.

Feel Free to run your own spam attack on any proof of stake coin or bitcoin cash, their design will enlighten you as you EPIC FAIL in the attempt.  :D


FYI:
LN will allow Variable Fees , it will be interesting to see if someone figures out a way to use DDOS attacks or something else as a way to jack up their variable fee structure. :P

To have enough excess capacity for next few years.

And right, the max BS might be gone soon.

What "LN hubs"? We have Bitcoin wallet services like blockchain.info that do not require their users to verify their identities. Plus what if I run a Lightning node and many users happen to connect to me? "I will not enforce AML/KYC" will be my LN node name. Hahaha.


It is very scalable at present, and as the developers improve transaction throughput more, the fees will be the last thing to worry about.


Learn to walk before you run. The Lightning Network is growing and improving. It also has more nodes than Bitcoin Cash. 8)


You and your conspiracy theories again. Not increasing the block size is a design decision to keep node requirements minimal to maintain decentralization. But go ahead and enjoy your 32mb block size that nobody uses. Dogecoin has more transactions than Bitcoin Cash. Hahaha.

Plus I hope those blocks become full just to see how centralizing Bitcoin Cash is. It will come to a point that very few people can run a Bitcoin Cash node because not all people are willing to upgrade their hardware.

LOL,
You don't read much about the US Laws , do you?

Be sure to post what prison, they send you too and I will mail you a cake with a file in it.   :D

And no it won't matter if you are not a US Citizen, if the US Gov can force the Swiss banks to comply, your resistance will be meager at best.
Good Luck with that LN hub.  ;)

FYI:
When you ask your Cell Mate's Name and he says Ben Over, that is not his name!   :-*

LN is a trojan horse for the BTC community
my opinion is that will became centralized, like nowdays classic banks

You sound like a flat-earther or anti-vaxxer.  Tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist type.  Repeating the same unfounded, delusional, reductive reasoning because you have no substantiative arguments.  You can say it as many times as you like, but it's no more likely to occur than KYC/AML for on-chain nodes.  You're still enabling payments to be processed by validating them if you run a full node.  In which case, BCH will come to an end before LN, because LN has more nodes than BCH and will be more difficult to pursue.  Clearly every single person running a Lightning node right now thinks you're talking nonsense, otherwise they wouldn't be running one.

Reports suggest that something like 20% of all internet activity is related to piracy and no regulators have managed to stop that yet.  They'll have the same or less success with Lightning, since I get the impression that torrenting is easier to monitor than the act of signing transactions is.  If you torrent without a proxy or VPN, there are websites that can tell you how many files you've downloaded, but there's no way of recording how many Lightning transactions you've sent or received, because that information isn't public.  I wish the regulators the best of luck, they're going to need it.



And in the equally unlikely scenario they criminalise being an absolute imbecile on the internet, we won't even do that for you.

That's certainly true, mate. LN can increase in fees if usage increases over time. It'll be the same way as before, with the block size limitation. However, in terms of centralization, then it is up to question, since such solution (Lightning Network) is a layer-two solution which doesn't affect Bitcoin's main chain. Even if LN were to fail, Bitcoin's main chain will still work accordingly, in a decentralized fashion.

Therefore, I would consider the Lightning Network a semi-decentralized solution, since it doesn't affect Bitcoin's decentralization (as its separate from the main chain), but it has some level of centralization in the way channels are opened and closed, mostly by wealthy individuals. There could be some point where banks, and big exchanges will be capable of opening/closing channels, making the Lightning Network a system of trust. This might change though, if people choose other channels and/or LN nodes that are operated by individuals instead of big corporations, or financial institutions. Despite this, it will also be possible to transact on Bitcoin's main chain, for further security.

One big question that I have, is how would the Lightning Network be as secure as Bitcoin's main chain, considering it's an off-chain solution? I think that it could be easy for a hacker to easily perform double-spending on LN, right? This has brought up a lot of confusion to me, and I'm still trying to figure it out when reading the whitepaper.



Yeah. Having a huge block size is very bad for any cryptocurrency nowadays. It increases the level of spam attacks on the network and increases centralization as storage and bandwidth costs increase over time. As such, less nodes would be able to maintain the network, as most people won't be able to cover such high costs. The real deal, as you said earlier, is the verification process. Since the blockchain requires every single node available on the network, to process every transaction, it adds a lot of data, making it impractical to scale, especially with a huge block size like 32mb.

While Bitcoin Cash's 32mb blocks hasn't been filled yet, they could in the future, making this cryptocurrency extremely centralized in contrast to the original Bitcoin. Therefore, even if Bitcoin's block size is extremely limited, it's a good thing since it makes spam attacks expensive and allows Bitcoin to stay as decentralized as possible. Just my opinion :)

Were you born that stupid or do you have to work at it?   :D

https://coinidol.com/bitcoin-exchanges-must-comply-with-us-laws/

https://kyc360.com/article/compliance-kyc-link-exchanges-banks-mass-adoption-bitcoin/



** If your hub processes a transaction where you send LN funds overseas and at the end ,
when those LN funds are redeem for bitcoin and those bitcoins are exchanged to fiat or physical items,
then you just became a money launder according to US Law. **
Do I agree with this insane authority the world governments have given themselves , hell no,
but I do recognize it will get someone throw in jail for ignoring them, answer is yes.

Next you say, you hide your IP address, with tor.
Tor has been compromised for years, the US Navy was the original designers and only released it after realizing all of the ways to bypass it.
But good luck trying.  :)
You should start looking for a lawyer now and start a payment plan for when they bust up in your living room.
  

FYI:
That other LN hub might be the FBI recording your transactions for their appending arrest warrant.
They do shit like that all of the time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/us/more-federal-agencies-are-using-undercover-operations.html

There are 7,000 Lightning nodes. I want you to report all of them because they are not KYC/AML compliant and yet they are routing payments across the globe. If you want to go deeper, you can also report Bitcoin's full validating nodes. Haha.

Has it gone live yet and actually transferring funds, because last I heard it was unsafe to use and the devs were saying no one should use it.
Those 7000 nodes aren't transferring much of anything yet are they?
Threshold is usually around $10000 US  before they start going after people.

I'll shoot you a PM , after the arrests on LN Hub operators start showing up in the news.  :)

FYI: In The Meantime:
https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/las-vegas-resident-accused-of-bitcoin-money-laundering/
https://www.coindesk.com/michigan-man-charged-unlawful-bitcoin-exchange/


 

It is live and there are users doing small - medium transactions to buy stickers, shirts, etc. Plus there are now apps made for Lightning. Try this, https://satoshis.place/


I believe there are many nodes that have done more than $10,000 in routing.


That will not happen. Haha.


Old news, and that never stopped Bitcoin. I want to see arrests for running Lightning nodes and Bitcoin full nodes because they are not KYC/AML compliant. 8)

As far I know (from docs) the lightning network is not centralized.

arguing about AML/KYC in LN is right now empty argument..
but what people on both sides to defending offending the devs dont realise is that LN is NOT a service solely to be used by bitcoin.

as soon as the FIAT hubs start atomic swapping for btc on LN then you will see the AML/KYC compliance issues

yep when the 'decentralised exchanges' start operating. then you will see all the other BSCartel services start making their money.. EG Civic with thier admin fee for ID registration/checks. circle,coinbase,and other exchanges taking fee's and ... requiring ID

again LN is not a pure BTC network. its a offchain service to atomically swap between currncies and its been the gameplan since before 2015 to earn the BSCartel millions.

ever thought why rusty russel and sipa were getting millions of dollars if all they were doing was coding for bitcoin community,
(blockstream has ovr $100m and less than 100 employee's so ach guy linked to Blockstream has over $1m)
reality is that all the development is being pushed to make services to make returns on dev investment back to the BSCartel (barry silbert doesnt run a charity, he wants returns eventually)

P.S
if you think devs are interested in making transactions cheaper onchain. or have a cheap tx system. please refrain from replying
 just look at whats happened
bitcoin core price october 2017 ~$6000  ... min dust tx  limit 1000byte =6cents min to have tx happily relayed # (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/0.14/src/policy/policy.h#L48)
bitcoin core price june 2018 ~$6000  ... min dust tx  limit 3000byte =18cents to have tx happily relayed  # (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/policy/policy.h#L48)

funny thing is after october the price increased. but did the november or the january code releases DROP limits to compensate the value change.. nope they infact increased the dust, not decreased.thus double whammy (facepalm)

The static snap shot is not of help.

Dynamics are important together with economical attractors - > these are always leading to centralization.

Only external factors like op-risks can break these up, like PoW has plenty of.

People running full nodes have nothing to worry about as they are only keeping a ledger of public information.
They are not sending any funds.  AML/KYC laws can not touch them.

LN Hubs on the other hand will facilitate fund transfers using their own note system like a bank allowing redemption in bitcoin
or as Franky1 said another crypto or eventually even fiat.


Two completely different things.   :)

Yes, you cretin, that much is obvious.  No one is unclear on that.  Now let it sink in to your empty head that wording applies to ALL cryptocurrency transactions.  Not just Lightning ones.  Thank you for yet again completely failing to make a relevant point.  If regulators had their way, every on-chain transaction would be subject to KYC/AML.  But they can't practically enforce it.  So it's not an issue.  Same with Lightning.  Same applies to large, physical cash transactions out there in the real world.  You can't realistically monitor them all.

Learn to brain plz.  



But as soon as you send a transaction for a substantial sum, even on chain, that should bring the regulators sniffing.  Don't try to crawl out of the corner you've painted yourself into, you'll only look like more of a fool than you already do.  

If you're using Lightning to send millions of dollars, or whatever, then sure, you might conceivably have the tiniest hint of a point.  Watch your back, they're probably coming for you. 
Doing your weekly grocery shopping with Lightning once that level of adoption is commonplace?  No issues whatsoever.  Now stop talking crap.

@DooMAD

I take it back, you were born that stupid.

I shall leave you to your false religious beliefs.
Logic and reason have no place in your mind.

Have a great day dumbo.   :)

It might also be that there is no argument worth doing in the first place.


There might be, but it might also be a demonstration of the disruptive nature of Bitcoin and decentralization. Was it not that that attracted us to be here?


There will always be business men who will fill the gap and offer services for profit. It is the business men that are building around Bitcoin today.


Yet the blockchain is unaffected by this.


More tinfoil hat theories. Bitcoin is controlled by the Bilderberg group. Hahaha.

Ah, the good ol' discussion. And I see arguments haven't changed in the past year :(

I believe the Lightning Network will surely have some centralizing incentives. But that does not mean that the whole system will be centralized. For me, it will be a mix of hubs (commercial ones and altruist ones) and decentralized routing happily coexisting. After all, LN (like every cryptocurrency!) is a social network, it's a network of individuals, and they decide how to build it up.

Have you seen the Channels Factories (https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/67158/what-are-channel-factories-and-how-do-they-work) proposal (Whitepaper (https://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/file/a20a865ce40d40c8f942cf206a7cba96/Scalable_Funding_Of_Blockchain_Micropayment_Networks%20(1).pdf))? In short, CFs are single channels opened between multiple parties (up to 15 with the current limitations of Bitcoin Core, but afaik many more if Schnorr signatures are implemented). Members of such a group can open sub-channels at no cost to the other members of the group, and transact freely.

That has two advantages:
- first, you have to pay only one transaction fee for all the 15 individuals to open or close the channel. The transaction is bigger, so the transaction fee will also be bigger, but the fee per individual node would be >5 times lower.
- second, you can integrate a well-connected node (a little hub, for example) into the group, to be able to recharge channels that get "out of balance". That would mean that there will be very few necessary on-chain transactions.

So CFs could be an interesting part of the puzzle to avoid the scenario that "only wealthy individuals and businesses" could afford to open channels. Instead, you would open a channel factory with your friends, some merchant(s) you regularly visit and perhaps one exchange to re-charge the channel in an off-chain manner if necessary.

Exactly! There will be no mandatory route. Everything is possible. Let's wait and see. I think LN will be an excellent micropayment network, but not necessarily will replace on-chain transactions completely.

As LN transactions are "private", but regular Bitcoin transactions, they cannot be double-spent easily. I don't know if a large LN channel, however, could incentive a Bitcoin double spend attack.

Not hearing an argument presented there, so thank you for conceding defeat.  Regulators will likely attempt to chase down excessively large on-chain payments that might look suspicious, because those are quite easily viewable and plainly understood.  You know beyond doubt exactly how much was sent and when.  So if the authorities can figure out who sent/received those amounts, they at least have a small chance of success there.  It's easier to obtain a warrant, for example, if you already have the evidence that a large sum of money has changed hands.  If you can see it right there on the blockchain, it's easier to prove.

They'll struggle to do that with Lightning, however, since there's no way of knowing exactly how much has been sent.  You might be able to tell how much total BTC is in a channel, but that's not the same as knowing how much is being sent back and forth.  See if you can tell me exactly how many mainnet LN transactions have been sent to date.  It's only been running on mainnet for less than a year, should be easy, right?  Wrong.  You can easily tell how many on-chain transactions have been sent since the genesis block, because the information is there for all to see.  Totally transparent.  Can't do it with Lightning, though.  You can't regulate something you can't even see.  Thinking you can is beyond naive.  Learn it already.  It's not that difficult.

You can't realistically monitor LN transactions unless law enforcement already have the intended target under close surveillance, have cameras on them 24/7 and bugged their house and all their electronic devices.  In which case, I should add, it doesn't even matter which medium you're using to transact, they already know you've done something wrong.  Those are pretty much the only people with something to worry about.  But none of this will apply to casual, everyday users, going about their ordinary lives, buying regular stuff.

In the same way governments have only managed to extract tax revenues from crypto users who have freely volunteered that information, the same will apply to KYC/AML in Lightning.  A tiny number might volunteer for it and the authorities will appreciate that, because they know they haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of monitoring the other 99.9%.  But those tiny number won't get much traffic.  Users will naturally want instant transactions, not wait a week while they send off ID and wait for verification.

And stop comparing exchanges with Lightning.  They're entirely different things.  Not even remotely comparable, unless you're some sort of idiot.  Exchanges are static entities and deal with potentially massive sums of money.  That's their entire business model.  They're an easy target in plain sight.  It's not difficult to ensure they comply with regulations because they're relatively easy to shut down.  LN hubs aren't so unwieldy.  Remember that LN is currently capped at a maximum of 0.16777216 BTC in each channel and 0.04194304 for each transaction.  We aren't talking about particularly large sums of money here.  Plus, if you really don't want to be found, all it takes is some reallocation of funds, a quick change of some technical details, a bit of mixing for good measure, and *poof*, gone.  Little to no trace.  A fresh bunch of channels opened and no one is any the wiser.  It's going to be regulatory whack-a-mole if they tried to come after LN hubs.  

If you ever feel the desire to gain some practical understanding about how LN works, rather than just listening to what a bunch of brainwashed zealots are telling you and then repeating it like a lowly pawn, then you might fare a little better in future.  But for now, you clearly demonstrate barely any working knowledge and are easily shot down for the ignorant troll you are.  Any more insanity you'd like to present us with?

Well, I consider the Lightning Network somewhat centralized simply because you're going to need to trust LN nodes on the network to route your payments. Not to mention, not everyone will be able to open/close channels on the network, allowing only banks and wealthy institutions to operate LN nodes. And if governments start to apply AML/KYC regulations to such nodes, then there would be no use for the Lightning Network since people would need to verify their ID to be able to use such feature.

Eventually, I believe that Bitcoin will become extremely centralized as people would prefer to transact on the Lightning Network (which is an off-chain solution) over the main chain. Then, there's the issue of miners where they won't be able to claim the block reward if people transact only on the LN, leaving the main chain behind. As such, with the Lightning Network, there would be no incentives for miners, further threatening the security of the Bitcoin network itself. Only time will tell whenever LN becomes successful or not.  :-\

As long as the fees remain low, I don't think it will become centralized due to the nature.

Actually the cryptocurrency is a centralized network wherein it helps the people and the society and the government itself become united and more systematic than before which is a big helps.

Who said that? Is this a network of banks and wealthy institutions? https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/ - The Lightning Network is live.

Stop the FUD. The Lightning Network has more nodes maintained by users than Bitcoin Cash.


"If". That is the biggest distinction. Why not start enforcing KYC/AML on the miners? They "process" transactions onchain, correct?


Centralized how? Explain it.


In theory yes. But let us see how that turns out.

People often seem to conflate trust with centralisation.  They're different concepts.  LN is undoubtedly a different trust model to regular, on-chain, Bitcoin transactions, but that doesn't mean it's centralised.  It's still a peer-to-peer network.  There's no central authority making stuff happen.  



Yeah, I'm as confused by this point as Wind-FURY, you're going to have to explain how you've arrived at that conclusion.  If anything, Lightning is better suited to small payments than it is large ones.  At the time of writing, the most you can send in a single payment is ~$280 USD.  Literally the only thing stopping people from running LN nodes is that they don't understand it yet.  You don't have to be wealthy to do that (although, obviously you have to have some funds).  And you certainly don't have to be a bank.  Once you have more knowledge, you can take part and open/close as many channels as you wish.

Nope!

Peer-to-peer-via-some-other-peers, perhaps, then?  It sounds like you're nitpicking here.

I mean, there's nothing to stop you opening a new channel directly with every person you want to transact with, it's just not necessarily the most cost-effective way to use LN.  But it's effectively as peer-to-peer as you're willing to make it.  No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to route payments through peers you don't know, it's just potentially cheaper to do it that way.

wow your rebuttle to me contains so much detail and scope and accuracy.. not
if your only reply is "tinfoil hat" and not lines of code, not financial data, not examples of anything of context. may you just refrain from commenting until you have some substance. like have a cup of coffee and think about things independantly and research whats been said.. without seeking answers from achowe/carlton mindset

P.S your the one saying bilderberg group..  which is you twisting things.. kinda what id expect from people friendly with achowe and carlton. its their usual tactic. much like gigabyte blocks was never a proposal but the achowes and carltons of the world loved exagerating things to discommunicate reality, to make it look like what was really proposed sound rediculous. rather than actually discussing the reality of the situation


the devs made segwit purely for the identification of transaction type to be used specifically for LN,
bc1q(and recently added ltc1q) and soon will come more
LN is not a bitcoin only network.
the hop model has shown not to work for gneral random spend to random people as many scenarios have proven. thus hubs is the way they are going (factory channels are coming too.. research it).. go on, get truly enlightened. research it.

while also allowing hiding how many counterparties (N of N) will be involved in the signing process (research schnorr)
even your friend carlton LOVES the idea of having managers monitor channels with thir own third key to chargeback(revoke/punish) certain users

ask the devs. if they really wanted bitcoin to have cheap fee's why take out the fee formulae.
(you'll hear waffle about free market)
ask them why did they INCREASE the tx dust relay limit from 1000 to 3000
(you'll hear waffle able control. (opposite of freemarket))
ask the main devs (rusty russel for instance) as founder of blockstream how much of the hundreds of millions of dollars is his 'share'. and what those investors expect as a means of return on their investment

 

Interesting. I've never read the whitepaper related to Channel Factories before, but I'm glad that you've shared this information with me. It seems that the LN could be decentralized after all, if Channel Factories achieve said purpose. The good thing about this feature, is that it minimizes on-chain transactions, which prevents the main chain from getting clogged with lots of transactions made from opening/closing channels in the Lightning Network.

Hopefully, the addition of Channel Factories and the use of Watchtowers, would make LN as robust as possible, to help drive Bitcoin's usage to new heights. As long as people don't replace the LN with the main chain, then everything should be fine. Because, imagine if everyone starts using the LN, and never interacts with the main chain. Then, miners might become affected as they won't be earning money from fees in the long run. :)



I hope so. Because if people start using more the LN than the main chain for any kind of transaction, then miners would be doomed, IMO. But, it seems very unlikely for that to happen since the LN would make transactions on the main chain for opening/closing channels. Therefore, in the end, miners will always get their block reward and fees as usual.



Well, if LN is as secure as Bitcoin's main chain, then there should be nothing to worry about. After all, opening/closing a channel in the LN, requires an on-chain transaction to be made. As such, the LN would obtain the same level of security as the main chain since it requires the blockchain to settle HTLCs. However, as with any new technology, it needs to be properly tested, for issues to be addressed, making it as resilient as possible against external attacks. ;)

Because we have been there before and I believe we need to accept that we cannot agree on some issues. The Bitcoin developers are taking it to one direction and the Bitcoin Cash developer is taking to another one.

Let us leave it and support the network we believe in.



Leave it. It is done. The Lightning Network is live, https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/

The Bitcoin developers decided to solve a problem by maintaining decentralization, security, and through LN, scalability.

The Bitcoin Cash community have their 32mb blocks, which is more than what they need. What is the problem? Why keep attacking Bitcoin?

I think lightning network is a technology attached on bitcoin transfer and its not affecting on bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin still decentralized because the power of bitcoin is on decentralize system

It could have something to do with the fact that BCH's 32MB blocks are continually empty because there are hardly any transactions, so franky1 feels compelled to drum up support and recruit some new users by attempting to smear the thing people are actually using.  It's basically an aggressive form of marketing.

Consider that if all you're doing is you're listing the "selling points" of a Bitcoin clone with a single value altered (and some of the features missing), the sales pitch doesn't last very long.  So you naturally resort to attacking the clear market leader, because it's literally the only way you'd have anything left to discuss.

BCH apparently doesn't have enough interesting content worth talking about, which is why he has to resort to dramatic fantasy tales, with evil banking hubs and a malevolent Blockstream pulling the strings like a sinister puppeteer behind the scenes.  At least it sounds more intriguing than BCH, even if it's a total fiction.   ::)

And miners could also open well-connected LN nodes, integrate them into channel factories charging a small fee for "recharging" channels etc. . It is short-sighted if miners oppose LN because they fear a smaller income stream from transaction fees, because if LN is a success, then the growing user base will compensate them for transactions which go off-chain (which already exist, albeit via centralized services like Coinbase). Even Jihan Wu once wrote on Twitter, "miners love LN".

The reason why I think that LN will not replace on-chain tx completely is more related to the security concept of LN, which in my opinion isn't really suited for transactions where your life depends on (e.g. your salary). Instead, I expect people using LN as a "prepaid card", recharging their channels (via LN/channel factories) with e.g. 100-500$ per month and then doing all the small transactions via this method.

The difference is that because LN transactions can be "reversed", there are two things to consider:
- you must always have a backup of all the transactions you interchanged with the other side of the channel (and with all sides of a channel factory)
- you must be online at least so often that nobody can reverse your channel state. This is, however, what "watchtowers" want to address.

It is however possible, that if a large hub wants to defraud most of its users, it could combine their LN attack with some other (double-spending?) attack, which could be dangerous if the hub is also a big mining pool. So for me it's crucial that the community should be wary that hubs do not grow to a size of more than a certain number (e.g. 10K) of users, and if possible, to use routes which avoid them. (It may not be entirely possible to figure out which hubs are operated by the same operator, which could be a problem. Need to think a bit about that. )

I'm not spreading any FUDs. As a long-time Bitcoin user, I hate Bitcoin Cash simply because it will tend out to become extremely centralized in the long term with its huge block size increases. However, I'm only concerned about how the LN on Bitcoin might turn out to become if fees rise to astronomical levels as usage increases over time. I'm still studying the whitepaper related to the Lightning Network, so I still have a lot to learn about it.

Perhaps, LN is still a decentralized scalable solution for Bitcoin after all, considering that you don't need to trust a specific node to use it. The large number of nodes available on the LN, shows the strong support it has among individuals, eventually leading to geographically distributed nodes to prevent centralization. And yes, it's true that there are a lot more nodes within LN than Bitcoin Cash, which shows that BCH is more centralized than BTC. BCH will become even worse as it increases its block size to unprecedented levels over time, making costs to operate a node much expensive for an average Joe.

Nevertheless, I hope to become enlightened about the Lightning Network as I read all about it in the whitepaper. Until this point, I learned things that I've never knew by simply browsing this thread. ;)



Yes, that's correct. If they never did enforce KYC/AML on miners, then I believe that there should be no reason to do so in the LN, since it's not subject to a single jurisdiction. Hopefully, once LN becomes active and stable enough for daily use, we'll see how everything would turn out in the regulatory sector. :)



I was referring to centralized in the sense that only wealthy individuals will be able to open/close channels. While this might not happen quickly, it will in the long term, as fees on the main chain will keep rising. I think that a simple solution to make the Lightning Network better, would be to increase the block size of the main chain by small increments every 2 to 4 years to make opening/closing channels on the main chain cheaper than ever.

That's why I've believed that LN would become centralized, but other than that, it could perform just as intended without the need for middleman or centralized control. Only time will tell how everything will work out with the LN. Hopefully, it could remain as decentralized as possible to maintain Bitcoin's security and resiliency against external attacks or manipulation.  :-\

Bitcoin made a concious design decision not to increase the block size to make the network "scale out". That means the opportunity to increase the running of full nodes because the requirements for hardware to run them will not be high. That decision maintains decentralization and security.

To solve the problem of scalability in accordance to Bitcoin's design decision, a 2nd layer is needed. Bitcoin Cash is solving it by having everything onchain, but it will have to negatively affect decentralization and security.

Your fear that it might increase the fees astronomically are only that. When that problem arises, do you believe that the developers will leave it alone? There are already future plans to allow channels to add more Bitcoins if needed to refrain the users from opening and closing them as often.


What is worrying in Bitcoin Cash's 32mb blocks is if it scales, it might isolate some full nodes and make it hard for them to sync and keep up to the rest of the network because of the higher hardware requirment.

That's an attack scenario for some bad miners to use to attack the network and isolate some full nodes deliberately. Security and decentralization are slightly given up for scalability.


I believe you are thinking of the worst case scenario. Let us leave that thought open and observe how it happens in practice.


Yes, only time will tell. But never sell your Bitcoins. 8)

Then I guess that there will exist on-chain transactions after all. The most important thing here is that miners receive an income in BTC even if the LN is used. And according to your explanation, it seems that miners would still profit from the LN via the use of Channel Factories. As well as you do, I hope that people would also use the LN for small to medium transactions and leave the large transactions to the main chain.

This way, Bitcoin would retain its current level of security, as the amount of hashrate would be the same due to on-chain transactions being processed on the network. What's interesting of the Lightning Network is that it enables atomic swaps which could eliminate the need for an exchange (either centralized or decentralized) to swap from one coin to another. This feature could be useful, IMO, as well as watchtowers to keep the LN as strong as possible. 8)


Yes. Maybe with the WatchTowers, the possibility of a double-spending attack would be reduced to a minimum, making the LN as strong as the main chain. Of course, the LN is still being tested, so it might take quite some time before it becomes resilient enough against such attacks. At least your explanation helped me clarify some of my doubts related to double-spending, but I'd need to keep reading more about the LN to know how it really works. :)



Well, one thing for sure is that Bitcoin has the most prominent developers in the blockchain industry. Therefore, I think that fees rising over the long-term shouldn't become much of an issue, since solutions would be found to make the LN as better than ever. I'm so excited about this and hope to use the LN in the mainnet soon for everyday purchases at merchants that accept it.  8)



Yes. Bitcoin Cash is going to become a quite troublesome cryptocurrency, as it grows in user adoption over time. What's worst is that it'll be constantly hard forking to increase its block size over time. Therefore, the bigger the block size, the higher the risk will be for BCH as it turns out to become extremely centralized. I'm glad that Bitcoin still has a 1mb block size limit, despite that it's not scalable this way. It helps to maintain its decentralization, and with second layer solutions such as the LN, the risk of centralizing the main chain is mitigated.  :)



Yes, we'll see what happens eventually. In the meantime, I guess it's up to buy Bitcoins while they're cheap as I have the feeling that they will skyrocket in value when LN becomes practical in the mainstream world. ;)



You bet I won't. After all, Bitcoin will continue to soar in value once the LN becomes stable and practical in our world. What's best is that over time, Bitcoin becomes scarcer, which shows that it's prone to become more valuable in the future. I'm hoping that it reaches a price goal of $50,000 and beyond.  ::)

Even if the Lightning Network is centralized .....  it makes the Bitcoin Core more Dezentralized becourse another team made the network.
So far i really love the Lightning power. Was a good update for the Bittcoin.



regards

Same. I'm starting to like the Lightning Network because it enables fast and cheap transactions on Bitcoin. Not only that, but it's also decentralized since it allows you to choose your own routing nodes or channels in case there's a centralized or malicious actor on the network. The best of all, as you've said earlier, is that LN is developed by another team, and even if it fails in the future, it won't cause any harm to Bitcoin's main chain.

If the Lightning Network becomes successful for Bitcoin, then I think that the scalability problem would be solved. Then, Bitcoin can continue to grow for years without experiencing downtime in transaction speed, or an increase in fees, due to the flexibility of the Lightning Network. Of course, as with any software implementation, the LN needs to be checked out for bugs over time, to make it stronger and resilient as possible. In the end, time will tell us all whenever LN could fulfill its promise of scaling Bitcoin effectively or not. It would be best to buy Bitcoin at cheap prices and hodl onto them for the long term, just in case its value spikes when the LN becomes mainstream. Just my thoughts ;D

What are the facts on which they are claiming it to be centralized? Please provide a reference of this claim where you read this.
May be the people who are claiming this are not well aware of lightning network. Lightning network has nothing to do with the centralization in any way.
Up-gradation of network can't change the root characteristic of bitcoin i.e decentralization.

Me too ... however, if Bitcoin is very popular (>100 million users) and there is no block size increase at all, on-chain transactions will be expensive. For me, sidechains are an interesting "intermediate" layer between on-chain tx and Lightning. They are more trustless than LN but potentially more expensive, as all sidechain validators will also have to store the transaction history, and so they will try to charge a fee, too.

If we need sidechains or LN+on-chain is enough, in my opinion depends on the final user base. If Bitcoin is a "large niche" of a couple of hundreds of millions users, LN+on-chain (with channel factories) may be enough, while in a "world currency" with 1.000+ million users, some third layer (like sidechains) would be needed. For this case, my preferred model would be a network of inter-connected regional sidechains for operations with stores (brick-and-mortar or online) within the same region.

I mentioned channel factories as an example how miners could use their liquidity in BTC to get additional fees. However, they could also operate as "standard" Lightning nodes.

Yes. These swaps could also be the technology that ends making sidechains more usable, as a "sidechain-to-sidechain hop" could be instant (at least if no on-chain settlement is needed).

https://cointelegraph.com/news/study-low-reliability-for-successfully-routing-payments-on-lightning-network


Shall we call the 0.4% , oh I don't know , Maybe A BANK!!!   :D :D :D

FYI:
https://diar.co/volume-2-issue-25/
 ;)

FYI2:
In an I told you so moment.  :D

Time 7 hours ago,
https://cointelegraph.com/news/homeland-security-agents-posing-as-darknet-crypto-traders-arrest-criminals

Next Step for homeland posing as a LN hub and collecting data to arrest doomad as an illegal money transmitter.    :P

Here are some tips for you guys running LN hubs and plan to do it without a money transmitter license:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-evade-a-police-helicopter
 ;)

FYI3:
Some say Bitcoin Miners will also be targeted as money transmitters.
But that is simply untrue.
https://www.coindesk.com/fincen-bitcoin-miners-investors-money-transmitters/

Node of LN working how centralized but starting and endidng operations operate in main blockchain whats doing all LN work decetralized

I once thought that the Lightning Network was centralized simply because the fees would rise to the point where ordinary people won't be able to open/close channels. However, I was enlightened by a few members of this community that Channel Factories and Channel Routing help prevents unnecessary increases in fees when opening/closing multiple channels at the same time, as well as giving users the ability to select other nodes on the network if they believe that a specific node is centralized.

Therefore, I believe that the Lightning Network would not affect the decentralization of Bitcoin whatsoever, due to such features. And even if it were to fail in the future, it wouldn't cause any harm to the main chain, since it's a Layer-two solution that operates on its own. Let's hope for a smooth and stable release of the LN for the masses to enjoy. :)



Yes. We’ll see how everything would turn out to become for the LN once it becomes fully adopted in the mainstream world. Of course, there's the concern of rising fees on the network according to usage, but I guess that developers would figure out a way to maintain Bitcoin as fast and cheap as possible. With the above features such as Channel Factories and Sidechains, nothing could go wrong IMO. ;)



Interesting observation. I've never thought about this in the first place, but I'm glad that you've helped me clarify my doubts about this. I'm so excited to use the LN right away for quick and cheap transactions once the stable version is released. :)



That's certainly interesting, mate. Atomic swaps are the way of the future, as it provides convenience to people for an instant exchange of one cryptocurrency to another. While I believe that both decentralized and centralized exchanges will exist in the future, atomic swaps may have greater usage as they eliminate risks of hacks, or theft of coins. ::)

Thanks for the article, Zing-Zang, but I want to remark some things here:

And what is the goal of LN? To provide a micropayment network. So where is the problem?

That is also not a problem - it's the norm in online commerce. How do you buy something from some merchant if you or the merchant have no Internet connection? In brick and mortar stores it's the same issue - if you pay with your smartphone, you need an Internet connection, and the store will also be connected. The same with blockchain payments. While the store could, in theory, connect a bit later after you made your transaction, in this scenario he couldn't confirm ("Thanks for your payment!" etc.) your payment.

LN is at an extremely early stage. I have already mentioned that there are some mechanisms that would incentive a bit of centralization, but as the concept matures it should become increasingly easier to route payments avoiding these hubs.

Well, LN is not anonymous - maybe a little bit more than the blockchain. But blockchains are A LOT more verbose than LN ;)

But here is another theory that "rains on your parade", if block rewards become low and fees collected are too low, some of the miners would have to stop, making mining more centralized because the "niche" has become too small to accomodate but the most efficient miners. But we will have to wait and see how that turns out.



Yes, as long as the block size is "regulated" to the most necessary size, the network will scale out. The Bitcoin Cash supporters say it does not matter because "Moore's Law". But what they did not consider is not all node operators are willing to do the hardware upgrades.



Plus everyone should try to understand that Bitcoin is not a "consumer product". It is decentralized, censorship resistant hard money. The core protocol is what should be prioritzed the most. "Scaling for the mainstream" is good, but should only considered "secondary".



6 figures. 8)

Well, but you can't compare only LN to VISA. The competition is between "the Bitcoin ecosystem" (on-chain + off-chain + maybe sidechains) and "the VISA network".

And take into account the fees credit card companies charge ... they're often higher than Bitcoin transaction fees (and LN fees).

And LN is, as I said, at an early testing stage. So it's logical that most channels are charged with low amounts. I think in a mature LN it won't be a problem to send 200$, while it maybe could be a problem to send $10000.


Well, I interpreted your cite referring to "being online at the moment of the trade":


But first, you don't need 100% constant internet access - it's OK if you are online so often that the Hash-Timelock contracts do not expire. I currently don't know what the standard value for a HTLC length is in current LN implementations, but it would be strange it it was very short.
Second, yes, this is definitively a disadvantage of LN, as I have mentioned earlier - and a reason why I think that LN won't be used for payments "where your life depends on" (e.g. salary payment, trades for expensive goods like houses or cars) but a "prepaid card replacement", which you'll re-charge each month (via LN itself/channel factories).It is also the main reason why I think there will be a market for sidechains. (And I think, too, that there will be several cryptocurrencies, so even if crypto becomes the "leading money" no one will have more than 1 billion users, approximately.)

The already mentioned "watchtowers" should mitigate that problem, too.

I don't think that this will happen. Small LN nodes have no need to generate profits - profits from fees will only be an additional income.

I don't believe there is a statement from FINCEN regarding LN hubs yet, as it's beta technology. Anyway, only "commercial hubs" should be affected (it clearly writes "engages as a business" in the money transmitter definition)- and these will mostly own a license, like Bitcoin exchanges do. I believe that exchanges will be one of the main "LN hub providers" as they will be the easiest way to recharge LN channels. The problem Antonopoulos mentions regarding KYC should be solvable.

And the US isn't the only country in the world to run a LN hub ...

im laughing first of all you sound so desparate that bitcoin is perfect that you are in denial of its issues. yet then you want to promote sidechains and offchains which by their own invention show that bitcoins mainnet has issues for these commrcialised side networks need inventing.

once you admit that developers have stagnated innovation onchain to push these commercial networks. then you can kick the devs asses to stop concentrating on commercial sid services and get back to innovating and scaling the mainnet.

also i laugh that you think because i do not fear admitting there are issues that somehow makes me a lover of alternative networks.. sorry dude but it seems its you that loves alternative payment systems that are not done via bitcoins mainnet..

first sign of fixing a problem is admitting there is one.. think about it

And if there is an issue, the solution is not to get rid of the people who freely offer up their own time and effort to find potential solutions to the scalability problem (rather than just ignoring the fundamental issue and pretending that infinite blocksize increases will magically fix everything without consequence).  The solutions proposed have now been accepted by the majority of the users and miners, so blame them.  There is nothing you can do to change that, so quit your infantile whining already.  

If you don't like what the developers are doing, either make something better yourself or use something else.  Developers don't owe you anything.  Get over yourself.  Life doesn't work like that.  I spent a long time thinking a larger blocksize was the way to go, but I'm mature enough accept that not everyone sees it that way.  So we (that's the users and the miners) went with the compromise of a larger blockweight via softfork, which incidentally does allow for more on-chain transactions (which you strangely keep failing to acknowledge  ::) ) and the introduction of Lightning.  

This is Bitcoin now.  Lightning happened.  It's not going away.  Not a single thing you can say or do will change that.  And best of all, it's optional.  No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use it.  So it's time for you to grow up, be mature and accept that simple and undeniable fact.  

This.  Is.  How.  It.  Is.



And what "innovation" do you think will solve scalability, exactly?  I hear all the critiques, but absolutely bugger all that sounds like a solution from you.  Come on, let's hear it then...  

Hint:  Blocksize increases are not "innovative".  Look up the definition of the word.

Developers are also working on Schnorr Sigs and MAST, which (like SegWit) also contribute towards on-chain scaling in an innovative way.  But you're too busy bawling like a spoiled brat to acknowledge that either.  Again, grow up.



Good luck trying to make a Lightning payment without making a mainnet transaction first.  Reassure me one more time you actually understand how Lightning works, perhaps?  'Cause I'm pretty sure you don't with the nonsense you keep spouting.  

Ultimately, this is the road the users have decided we're going down, you can get off anywhere you like.  But then it stands to reason you can't be a loudmouth backseat driver from the pavement, so I'm sure you'll stick around and continue to be an annoyance to everyone else by blaming the developers for everything, even though they aren't the ones behind the wheel.  One of these days you might figure that out.

gotta love and laugh at your mindset, basically our saying
'if you dont like the fact that devs have stiffled bitcoin. make an altcoin or go use another altcoin.'

now that is the most monarchistic totalitarian comment you coulld ever say.

how about stop kissing devs asses and letting them get away with stiffling bitcoin and instead kick thier ass to make it better for everyone.
devs owe the community to be responsible.. and its a damn shame there are so many sheep that just have a mindset of, leave the devs alone, let them do as they please

as for the 32mb and your obsession with BCH
ill say this.
imagine you had a PC and ther was a game you wanted to play that needed 1gb of RAM.
you would be the fool that would buy a PC with 1gb of RAM.

and then scream to the world there is no need for 16gb ram mothrboards because 1gb is enough
..
imagine you had to do some shopping. its winter. you would only buy that days food. you would not bother thinking about tomorrows needs. you will scream you only need to eat one sandwich today so its all you need.

think about it.
..
imagine you own a bus company. you buy a bus with only 4 seats because th average bus stop only has a queue of 4 people.


in short. 32mb blocks do not mean 32mb of data need to be filled/used befor something occurs. it means there is buffer, space, potential, room to grow,
even if blocks only utilise 1mb now. guess what. if it gets popular/busy tomorrow, it can cope with 32x more capacity without sudden fear of bottleneck. without panic of 2 year discussion of should it grow to 8mb.
its like a bus of 32 seats. ya most bus stops might lt on just 1 passanger. but if 7 people were waiting at the next stop. the driver doesnt have to refuse srvice and tell people to wait for another bus.. or spnds years debating if  2 seater or 4 seater bus is better...it just lets them in.
if theres 16 people waiting. no debate, just get onboard.

if you want to play your 1gb ram game, and then twitch stream it and have skype on along with having som music playing. you dont need to dbat geting a ram upgrade.. you just multitask to your hearts content.

research the word buffer
it does not mean the space needs to be filled to function.. it means extra room to cope with variation/chang of size without getting strangled so soon.

but anyway you go back to kissing devs ass and calling other networks the best thing since sliced bread.. because its actually you that does not like bitcoins mainnet to innovate, you are the one that wants people to use other networks.

you said it yourself you want me to go play with an altcoin and you want others to enjoy LN...

A LN node does not use much electricity. It can work also in the background of your PC. It does not even have to be online 24/7 (most people have some device running at least for 10 hours a day), but If LN gets popular, LN software could be even installed on always-online devices like routers.

So no, I don't see why people need to rely on profits from LN.

I would not even qualify it as a "hobby", but simply as a part of managing your personal finances. Instead of dealing with online banking, you deal with your LN node ...

I still don't get it - if there's a small hub that charges a very small, or even non-existent fee and is not profitable (this fee is more of a "tip"), why should you use a large hub instead if he needs to charge you a relatively high fee to be profitable?

And small, non-profitable "mini-hubs" (e.g. "your well-connected techie friend") are not money transmitters, as they are not businesses.

10 years time
DooMAD's child "my dad told me once that he used bitcoins mainnet, that was a laugh, these days i use unaudited LN transactions that just circle settlement payments through LN factories.. bitcoins blockchain is so old school no one uses that no more.. if i ever want to get out of LN id never settle to bitcoins mainnet. its too slow, cant scale and too expense, i attomically swap it to a cheap altcoin instead. i literally laugh at the fact that my dad use to use bitcoins mainnet.. infact my LN unaudited payments are measured in hyperledger tokeks with the USD1q prfix. i dont know anyone at my school who even bothrs with bc1q prefixed payments anymore"

to answer the question for zing zang its probably easier you run some scenarios.

EG imagine you are a mini hub concted to only 14 peers.. the chances that you are a hub thats connected to the recipient zingzang wants is low. so its more chance that the person you are connected to. is then connected to someone else and then connected to someone else.. and so on.. to finally get to the destination.
do the maths. how many mini-hubs are needed to have connections of 1bill plus users
14
196
2,744
38,416
537,824
7,529,536
105,413,504
1,475,789,056

(14 to the power of 8)

so imagine these mini-hubs only charges 1 millisat.  you probably end up ACTUALLY paying upto 8 millisats once you include all the hops
and have the extra risks of 8 points of failure/offlines/unfunded routes.

now imagine a mega hub of 1000.
1,000
1,000,000
1,000,000,000
(1000 to the power of 3)

so imagine these mega-hubs only charges 2 millisat.  you probably end up ACTUALLY paying upto 6 millisats once you include all the hops
and only 3 points of extra risk

so although it appears cheaper to conect to mini hub of 1 millisat.
with the risks and add on costs of the multiple hops of a mini hub model. people end up moving to mega hubs where theres less risks. less end to end cost per payment.. and the mega hubs themselves with 2millisats have 1000 'customers' a day (=2000millisat if everyone does 1 payment through them a day) instead of a minihub whos only income is 14millisats if 1 payment per conectd user a day

thus the minihubs get less incentivisd to reserve thier own funds for use for other users because they dont earn much.. leading to them not bothering after a while

EG - bitcoin mining scenario
an S9i asic costs $950 and can break even in 9 months
as USB asic costs $5 and can break even in 9 months.. but no one bothers USB mining because $5 for 9 months is not worth it they just let the s9i take over control of mining.

@franky1: I get you point. But if you're a mini-hub only because you use LN "as a consumer" and have no interest to exploit your LN node commercially, then you will be able to charge zero fees, as long as your node does not become part of a "unbalanced" route (with funds moving almost only from A to B and not back from B to A). Channel factories should mitigate that problem if it appears.

Just for understanding: You really lose the fees you paid if the route you chose does not "reach out" to the recipient of your transaction? I meant to have read that everything is rolled back in this case.

I also think there will be lazy users that will use mega-hubs (e.g. their exchange), but I think there will be enough "libertarians" trying to use LN the most decentralized way possible, so even "semi-commercial" mini hubs will have a niche.

i actually bothered to read the bitcoin cash codebase.. and actually. if you read the code. the 32mb is known as a consensus limit.. but they also have a "regulated" limit of 2mb called the policy limit
https://github.com/Bitcoin-ABC/bitcoin-abc/blob/master/src/policy/policy.h#L19

this is the same as what bitcoin core had  before 2013.. 1mb consensus limit but 0.5mb "regulated limit" (in policy.h)which then went up to 0.75mb
and then in around 2015 went up to 1mb.. all without needing to fork or have big discussions because the policy was a flexcap limit

check it out consensus.h vs policy..h

so if you think that spammers can just spam their way all the way to 32mb you will be wrong. just like spammers couldnt spam thier way to 1mb in 2013 on bitcoin core..
try reading code and not reddit propaganda next time

p.S im not an advocate for bch i just like to wash away the bull crap that core and utopian propaganda sheep spout out..
funy point is core devs themselves have admitted core have issues and core is restricted on purpose to incentivise use off offchain services... but ass kissers love to brush that under the carpet

the idea of policy.h is that a limit exists, but can be moved without 2 years of debate and without needing forks.
gotta love it how even 2 years on the same scripts of 32mb by midnight, 1 gb by midnight screams are still shouted . but the real code shows something different.

it was requested by the community at satoshi roundtable 2013 that bitcoin cores consensus.h go to 8mb. and then allow policy to increment up at 0.25mb amounts as and when needed.
luke JR said 8mb is bad.. even with the enphasis of using policy.h to flexcap control the growth without neding constant debate and fork warnings
then at a later conference, called consensus december 2015 another compromise, that bitcoin cores consensus.h go to 2mb. and then allow policy to increment up at 0.25mb amounts as and when needed.
luke JR said ok....   but then a few months later.. 2mb is bad

now luke JR says 4mb weight is good but lets bring policy.h down to 0.5mb (facepalm)

I guess you must have missed it, so where's the reply to this part franky1?  

What's your proposal to fix everything?  

You're clearly all-knowing, so a reply from you must be worth the anticipation we're all feeling in waiting for a response on this question.  We eagerly await your wisdom and enlightenment.    :P



The totalitarian is the person insisting that developers shouldn't be coding what they want to code.  The totalitarian is the person telling people they shouldn't have a choice to use off-chain if they desire.  The totalitarian is the person who would demand that everyone else be willing to sacrifice the qualities they appreciate in Bitcoin for the sake of scaling.  The totalitarian is the one saying the market was wrong to choose this route and shouldn't have been permitted to do so.

I advocate freedom.  You evidently don't.  

Also, the developers haven't "stifled" Bitcoin.  You're simply too dense to grasp the wisdom of what users and miners have chosen.



And LN can cope with 32,000,000x or probably even more capacity without sudden fear of bottleneck.  AND without fear of adding all that extra data to the blockchain, meaning we can still have a decentralised layer 0.



While it's possible you might be exaggerating just a tiny bit, I honestly don't see what's wrong with atomic swaps being used to move funds to other blockchains if the transaction is for a smaller sum and the fess are lower that way.  In many ways that's preferable to staying off-chain.  I'm of the view that scaling could well take that form if that's how people freely choose to use LN.  It's just one of the many possibilities we can now explore.

There is only one proper proposal for a working Bitcoin scaling concept, that also keeps the SEC out of it.

It is real industrial style on-chain scaling. Sorry to say that, but I fear this guy here, Joannes Vermorel is absolutely right.

There is no time any more left for romantic experimentation with Bitcoin and some fancy unsolved SEC layer stuff around.

Listen around 1:25

https://memo.cash/post/f3cba7ea021820b07435eba96c209609b643ca81cf4f9db60b87546f52a9ea19

Repeat if you feel not understanding that.

Feel free to not understand it as well.

32,000,000x..

LOL
im laughing..
oh.. and stats of btc in 2009 had the potential of 7tx/s
even upto 2016 btc never got to 7tx/s... in 2017-2018.. bitcoin still hasnt got 7tx/s even though bitcoin devs have meant to be innovating the main net for upto 9 years.

all i hear the core devs says is that bitcoin cant scale. bitcoin cant do this and that..bitcoin fee's cant be controlled..
why
because they stifled onchain growth. they removed fee controls. they backtracked consensus agreemnts and with one hand pretended they were not core devs to get out of the community agrement. but then went full retard going in a diffrent direction of mandatory bilateral split to get what THEY wanted.
the 4mb weight is not a scaling compromise to shut up the community. its still a 1mb limit for legacy and then extra side space for waste data they can prune off or keep because of heavy multisig and many signature data and even confidential payment waste data to sit in while not really giving the room for more transactions onchain(estimates of 2.1x~ at best if EVERYONE used segwit tx's).

..
and if you think devs should get to do whatever they want and not listen/answer to the community... then that is totalitarian because you think no one should tell them what they should be doing.. you sir have just handed control to the devs...(facepalm)
...
heres a few fixes
1. change things to no longer allow someone to make just 5tx's to fill the limits.. yep core changed a few things to make it so someone can create a just 5 tx's that can fill a block. but done nothing to mitigate it (research signops)
  EG pre segwit argument "it cant scale because linear sigops take time".. solution.. dont allow Xk sigops/tx instead limit a tx to be just 500sigops so it then means more tx's can go through without having clumpy tx's with big sigops to fill blocks and slow verification using just 5 tx's

2. incorporate a new fee priority mechanism that penalises people that rebroadcast low confirm count tx's (average users dont spend 144 times a day so make it expensive to resend every blocks(spam))
  EG 144sat per byte / confirms) so 1confirm =144spb     144 confirms=1spb
(i very simplyified it but i remember doing code for it and also pseudocode documentation for a fee priorty years ago.)
  

3. increase the base block limit(consensus) and then use policy to "regulate" the increments that way it does not require constant fork debates to control the block size but can be done more easily when actually needed without years of debate.
 
4. fix the issues of segwit.. yep some devs and even pools that advocated their love for segwit in 2016.. are still too afraid to use segwit bc1q addresses even now due to some issues.

5. if you want to make bitcoin great again. make LN be a sole feature of bitcoin.. that way it doesnt sway people to use other coins as their exit and it keeps bitcoin ontop as they get the cheap speedy tx if they do want to do 144 tx+ a day.. (once LN solves its flaws ofcourse)

but while theres no fee control onchain. people can spam 144 tx's a day onchain without it costing them extra for the privelidge.
and they can fill a block using just 5 tx's. all without having to pay a huge fee
EG imagine a plane with 2000 seats first of all would you want to hold up all the passengers at the gate because someone bought just 5 tickets but had 1995 carry on luggages, but didnt need to pay for the carry on luggage, but that carry on luggage used up all the seats.
wouldnt you as airport control mwant to implement something that if someone kpt doing that, they will need to start paying more for the privelidge

then... guess what. then you will find your niche market of people who would (if genuine business needs) wanted frequent travel and bottlenecking the gate decide its better for them to want to use LN..(when/if LN is fixed)
but no, the idea devs have is bottleneck the gate and then tell the infrequent passengers (emphasis: that dont frequently travel) that their family(funds) have to split up and go to LN airport where husband has to go to gate 7(one channel) wife needs to go to gate10(another channel) and the kids have to go to different gates and hopefully everyone will arrive at the destination if all the alternative route work in a timely manner.
...
do you know that visa/master card users only do ~40tx a month. and bitcoin users only do 5tx a month..
LN is not in practice economical for people to preplan a month-6 month ahead their spending habits to know how much to fund into LN then have funds locked to save themselves a few sats.

LN's niche would be for the ones that want to move funds multiple times a day to save the sats where they can plan for a few days ahead and make enough savings offchain for it to be viable to lock funds off
try running real scenarios. without reading a promotional reddit post / watching video/cartoon that suggests LN is going to be a solution for everyone

If Bitcoin were closed source and we had no other choice but to run their code, you might possibly have a point.  But since that isn't even close to how Bitcoin works, you just sound like a raving lunatic who has no idea what freedom means.  Their code means nothing unless people choose to run it.  That's why it's fine for them to code what they want.  If the users don't like what they code, no one will run it.  Is there any way that will ever sink in to your impenetrable skull?  It's the people who run the code who make the decisions, not the people who made the code.  The devs are listening to the community and what they're hearing is the community's support for their ideas.

I can quite happily say that all the BCH dev teams are free to code and create whatever they want, as I'm sure you are.  So why are you totally incapable of extending that same common courtesy to developers on the other side of the fork?  Is it just the ideological differences?  Or is it possibly because you're so broken in the head that you can't even see the double-standard anymore?  



In fairness, I do recall that one.  We discussed it when I was promoting a proposal for dynamic blockweight adjustments and I actually thought your fee priority mechanism was a decent idea.  However, I also recall that, even then, you were so belligerent that you couldn't accept the part of the dynamic adjustments that involved the maximum blockweight potentially decreasing if there wasn't sufficient demand, even if that meant alienating people who could potentially support the proposal.  You just wanted perpetual increases and weren't remotely open to compromise or reason (like a totalitarian, one might say).  I think that's yet another one of the occasions where I lost some respect for you.  And ever since, our encounters have only lead to more of that respect being eroded away because you became more and more of an extremist.  And now that I think you've attained BoJo-grade levels of shitweaselry (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3909008.msg41857284#msg41857284), that respect is now long gone.

Remember that I campaigned for larger blocksizes before your so-called "bilateral split" too.  The difference between us is that I'm prepared to back down and accept the community's decision on this.  Consensus is more important than any one person's ideals or ideas.  My proposal clearly lacked support.  Hardly anyone cared.  I have no shame in conceding that fact.  I don't have a problem with that, because we now have things being developed that will scale Bitcoin far more than my proposal ever could.  It was the right call.  And the simple fact is, that however good your fee priority mechanism, or your other ideas, might be, it doesn't even touch the sides compared to Lightning.  None of your minor tweaks and adjustments would create the potential to move the coins within any given channel an unlimited number of times with just two entries in the blockchain.  None of your ideas come close to achieving scaling in the sheer magnitude that Lightning potentially can.  Of course we don't know with absolute certainty how it's going to turn out and there are clearly some things to solve along the way, but everything I can see tells me we're on the right track.  

If you don't think we're on the right course, no one's forcing you to stick around.  That's not me being a totalitarian, it's just you pissing into the wind yet again.  Consensus made this decision, so either follow or don't.  Those are the options now, because that's just how Bitcoin works.  Again:

This.  Is.  How.  It.  Is.  

If that causes you frustration, feel free to take it out on me if you like, but don't blame the devs for merely giving people the choice.  And stop being so manipulative and tory-like with your rhetoric.  

frankly I do not see what's wrong with the swap atoms used to move the funds to another blockchain if the transaction is for a smaller amount and a lower fess like that. In many ways it is better than not chain. I think that scaling can take that form if it is the way people are free to choose to use LN.

Lightning network is a hardfork of bitcoin that enables lightning speed transactions between bitcoin miners who participated in the blockchain and it is considered to be the solution to bitcoin's scalability problems. For further readings, you can check it for yourself from this topic here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2854596.0).

freedom
.. augusts MANDATORY bilateral split.. mandatory does not sound like a freedom to me.


open source
yea you can read the code.
i have a open window... doesnt mean that it means anyone is allowed to come in without asking.

but have you seen the process and moderation of getting code added. did you forget how all the proposals that were NOT core roadmap related got treated as an attack rather than a difference of opinion.. or rathr than a different option.. do you even know who the gate keepers are that you have to go through just to get a bip added. or even get code acknowledged.

firstly you discuss it on this forum or IRC. and look gmax, achowe moderated. the IRC again moderated. then you have to go to the mailing list.. moderated by rusty russell.. then you have to make it a bip, again moderated by lukeJr.. and then you need it 'ackd'  by certain people..

many have tried to do their own implementations because the core roadmap is a one way street that has tunnel vision. so because it had been made unsuccessful to divert from the core roadmap, devs have had to make their own implementations..
then those implementations got treated like altcoins and REKT. and told to get off the network if they want changes..

even you yourself have said if you dont like it make your own altcoin..


do you seriously not see that segwit. only had 35% vote for 6 months. thus they knew they didnt have community support for consensus. so instead of them  giving up or changing the code or compromising to something the community would want. they went to the mandatory activation date of august first. and threatened the community and the pools to accept it or get their blocks/nodes rejected/banned from the network.

go check it out. its in the history. its even wrote in the blockchain that it all changed on august first. so you cannot pretend that it did not happen
block 478559

im guessing while reading the previous sentance you now racing to reddit to find some propaganda script that it was cash that instigated it.. so let me pre-empt your attempt and correct you.
cash didnt make a new block until hours AFTER the core network started banning nodes and rjecting blocks that didnt have a certain version number.
core = UTC 13:23
cash = UTC 18:12
 so it was cores network that acted first. oh and there was a special hat people had to wear to show they loved the mandatory split idea.

oh and before you try to say core devs were not involved in it. guess what LukeJr was part of.. :D and a colleague of his (paid by the same boss) was involved too..

you can call me any name you like. but the blockchain data never lies. #478559

imagine you made a highway. you made it free from expensive toll roads. you made it maintainable by the community rather than government..
then a few years later, some corporation decided to remove the fee controls and suddenly costs to use the highway become more expensive. the community requested extra lanes be added. to allow more traffic and also alleviate the risk of high fee's.. but this new corporation decided not to allow it. instead they made a bus lane(segwit). that is only usable for buses where parents could sit, while the children had to use the limited highway lane (parent=witness/ proof(signature) child is real).
this results in only a 2.1x~ extra capacity. even though the one lane highway is now a 1 lane highway with 3 extra buslanes for parents.

then they decided to re advertise that the highway was broken and said it wont scale.
yes the core devs themselves called satoshis invention broken and obsolete...(facepalm)

(much like kodak said you cant store images on removable digital media in the 90's because it was only 1.44mb of space on rmovable media back then(floppy disks)... look what happened to kodak

so although everyone, including devs knew that it could scale(yet they were screaming it cant scale) and that they knew 2-4mb was not such a big ask and was even safe even as far back as 2009.. the devs kept the highway at a legacy limit and started developing a new road network that was not even a strong immutable network that the whole blockchain revolution/invention was based on.

basically taking away all the features and benefits of blockchain. and reverting back to how banks work where assets need to be locked up and where a user no longer has 100% control to randomly give assets to anyone.
they now need not only the signature of somone else and play around with unconfirmed paper receipts..which are co-managed in a channel(bank account) but also now the funds have to be 'hopped' through multiple accounts where each account holder co-party need to agree. just to get to a destination.

then to add to that devs realised they cant trust users to press agree. so they made it automated. so now although its not a human agreement. an agreement is there.. but now a human cant disagree and stop their funds being used on behalf of others. (yes people have run scenarios and stolen funds by emptying peoples reserves via routing. not allowing users to use all their funds themselves)

then imagine devs envision the horror of people wanting to withdraw. much like a bank run. so they create factories(fort knox) where funds dont broadcast to the network.. but sit back in fort knox and then redistributed back into the unaudited unconfirmed network. thus never needing to be audited by the community(use the blockchain)

while still not increasing scaling bitcoins mainnet to have buffer capacity to cope with any bottlenecks if people really did want to get back on bitcoins mainnet.
thus strangling bitcoins utility in the hopse people hand over their bitcoin and grab an altcoin via offchain swaps becasue devs have made it.. yes they made it undesirable to want to return funds back to the mainnet. (imagine it like gold.. throw the gold into a bank, get handed a bank note signed by th bank.. then get told by the bank. 'nah you dont want to lug around the real gold, its heavy and the fee's to withdraw your gold is too high... take back this bank note and put it into anothr account and if you really want to. go find someone to swap it for silver(litecoin)"

anyway. LN is not a sole solution for bitcoin. its a roadmap to move people away from bitcoin.
and thee whole segwit stuff was not to add transaction capacity. but to allow all them multisigs which would have bloated the legacy limit. to sit outside the lgacy limit thus in the end not hlp capacity growth. but just delay capacity reduction

if people actually cared about bitcoins ethos, utility and function.. and not just see it as a system to run back to fiat ASAP richer. you would see th issues. but too many people are blind and only wantt o se extra fiat in thier pockets. thus missing the whole purpose of bitcoins invention/revolution in the first place

but hey.. let me guess all ill get is insults and get told to screw off to an altcoin... (facepalm) simply because bitcoin is no longer a revolution but a fiat get rich quick scheme.

this network of lightning is very good for things that are important and only done by professional people and can make us better understand about it.

Yeah..right...
I like on-chain transactions a lot better though.

That is not the argument at all. The argument is if Bitcoin Cash does scale to billions of users and that it was necessary to use the full 32mb everyday then it would centralize the network with users losing the ability to run their own full nodes. Or is becoming a widely used global network for decentralized payments not in Bitcoin Cash's long term roadmap?


What are you? An advocate of Roger Ver? You have the same FUD and misinformation styles. Haha.


I believe what was being avoided was the risks of a hard fork? There are people out there who want to kick out the Core developers. The "2x" hard fork was one supposed to be one of their traps. But post quotes and links of the facts. I would like to read them.

Log into the Lightning network through the opening of the payment channel. This requires a transaction in the blockroom (the one in which transactions are always written). The payment channel allows you to send bitcoins between two parties (this is not a new development). To put it even easier, imagine that you use Yandex.Money or Paypal. You can send money to another account within the system quickly and without commissions. The limit is only how much money you have in your account. To enter or enter the payment service, you also need to make a banking transaction (from your card or ATM enter money to your account). Similarly, for Lightning - to open or close the payment channel, you need to perform a bitcoin transaction.

You can run whatever code you like, follow whatever chain you like, create your own chain if that's what you want to do.  Total freedom.  The only catch is you don't get to dictate what code other people run or create, which sounds an awful lot like what you're trying to do here.  Stop telling people what they're not allowed to code.  I made the same arguments when some people here on these boards did their "REKT" idiocy with other alternative clients, so congratulations on becoming the very thing you claim to hate.  You're officially "one of them" now.  You are trying to use the exact same "REKT" methodology to attack Lightning.

Freedom means the users on this network are free to disagree with you.  And clearly they do.  None of your manipulation and propaganda is going to suddenly make them think you've got the right idea.

If you think freedom means you get to tell developers they shouldn't develop Lightning, you are against freedom.
If you think freedom means you get to tell users they shouldn't run the code that enables Lightning, you are against freedom.
If you think freedom means you get to tell miners what chain they point their hashpower at, you are against freedom.

None of that is your decision.  None of it.  The stuff you can make decisions over is:

• Your private keys (and corresponding wealth)
• Which software you choose to run
• The chain, or chains, you wish to transact on
• Whether you run a full node and influence the rules enforced on your chain, or just rely on SPV

Again, I will make the same arguments to defend alternative clients who propose changes to this chain.  You've seen me do it.  I defended XT.  I defended BU.  And I'd do it again.  Alternative clients are not an attack on this chain.  They are not a hostile takeover.  Not a power grab.  My stance doesn't change on this.  I support decentralised development.  I welcome competition from alternative clients because I believe it has the potential to make Bitcoin stronger.  But you have now taken on the role of the "REKT" attacker, using whatever lies and deception you can in an attempt to derail a project you've clearly taken a disliking to.  You're now arguing that Core are the attack, the hostile takeover, the power grab, etc.  Your hypocrisy is shameful. 



If you want your code added to Core, they can follow whatever submission process they want.  You don't get to decide what goes into their client.  If you want to code your own thing, go ahead, make absolutely anything you want to.  You have every right to do so.  See how the market reacts.  But you then need to accept that people might well tell you your idea would be better suited as an altcoin.  If your idea isn't compatible with what the users want the code to do, why should they accept it?  You can't force them to like your changes, they're free to run whatever code they want.  If they don't want to run the code you want them to run, too bad.  Your totalitarianism is impotent here.  And you can't blame the developers if the users don't like your idea either.  

Whine about it all you want, but every single person on the network gets to make their own decision about what they choose to run.  The users on this network are freely choosing the chain with SegWit and Lightning enabled.  

Apparently, this all boils down to the fact that you are bitter and resentful that your vision isn't being accepted by the users.  So in response, you troll the community with this pathetic nonsense about developers being in control and stifling innovation.  But anyone with even the faintest understanding of how Bitcoin works will know you're talking absolute bollocks.  It's just getting sad now.  



No thanks, reddit is a cesspool.  I was under the assumption that's where you were getting your mindless drivel from.

After studying a bit on google about lightning Network, it appears centralized to me.

take any altcoin including imagine btc with 32mb blocks. (i know you love trying to pidgeon hole me into the ver camp. but thats your failure of understanding and ur failed attempt to divert attention away from the real problem. so lets stick to the debate of scaling)

billions of users by midnight .. nope
gigabyte blocks by midnight.. nope

floopy disks vs microsd by midnight.. nope.
scaling over time vs leaping overnight.. nope.

people doing 100tx a day.. nope (people do ~40 fiat transactions a MONTH and only ~5 btc tx a MONTH)
so dont exaggerate... well i actually mean dont take the reddit script exagerations.. but you get my point

chill out on the reddit scripts of disaster by sunrise and realise the reality.. buffer space now to avoid deadlock/debate in years.
stop living in the floppy disk era of 1.44mb is more than enough.
many people have 256GB portable storage on their devices whether they need it or not. they dont go to shops demanding only a 1.44mb floppy because all they want to hold is 2 images

think rationally.. 20 years ago was floppy disk era. 10 years ago was SD era. now its microsd era.. imagine the next 5-10 years
P.S we are no longer in dial-up internet era either. .. fibre and 5g cellular has arrived

"their code"
P.S in a real true decentralised open source network its not a THEIR code or THEIR network. its an OUR network.
did you se gmax go full wetard last year over wanting to sue altcoins for forking btc code.
one day he argued they had to name his group in the copyright, then he went full reverse arguing that he doesnt want his group associated with altcoin..
now thats not how open source mindset reacts

as for me dictating. ha ha ha. goodluck with that one.
if core were not dictators and "they" actually worked on a open level playing field with other software bases and actually used true consensus.. without REKT campaigns and without mandatory consensus bypassing techniques.. then WE as a community would actually see the real benefit of real decentralisation where WE could choose what software to use.

but the way things are. if its not cores roadmap, fork off to altcoinland.. seems to be the mindset.

thus centralised

If you made a client, I don't get to tell you what you can or can't code.  It's your code.  If the community then freely chooses to adopt that code, it has the potential to become OUR network.  If a majority of network participants (both users and miners) agree with it, that's what Bitcoin would then become.  However, the community chose Core's code.  It is OUR network and OUR network chose Lightning.  If you can't respect that choice, you clearly don't respect OUR network, so what are you even still doing here?  Other than making a complete nuisance of yourself, that is?  Why do you still want to be a part of something you're clearly so disillusioned with?  



I agree the community would be better without the REKT campaigns against alternative clients.  I wish people were more mature about these things.  But the simple fact is, I don't get to dictate how they should behave, as much as I might personally find it objectionable.  It's just one of those things we have to deal with as best we can.  All we can do it point out how childish that sort of behaviour is and hope people don't pay it more attention than it deserves.  Much like I'm pointing out how childish your behaviour is and how much of a hypocrite you are by doing exactly the same thing they were doing.  Twisting the narrative, spreading FUD, manipulating things and taking them out of context to make them sound more sinister than they are.  You're doing everything they did, short of impersonating Satoshi to discredit the particular client you dislike.  

If you have a legitimate complaint about Lightning, I'd love to hear it.  But so far, all you've managed to present is either a gross lack of comprehension on your part, or a deliberate attempt to deceive.  



Bottom line is, there is no conceivable way to have one client actively enforcing a 4mb blockweight and another client actively enforcing a different blocksize on the same chain.  So... you can either cry like an infant with your conspiracy theories about dictatorships, or you can accept the fact that the two ideas are not compatible and a fork was inevitable.  There is no magical alternative that would have made this turn out any other way.  If there had been a way to prevent the fork and keep everyone on the same chain, we would probably still be in a heated deadlock where no one agreed on anything.  Is that what you want?  Are you some sort of sado-masochist?  Forks might not be a perfect solution, but anything is better than the quagmire we were stuck in before.

So there was a fork.  At the time of the fork, the BTC chain had the clear economic majority and clear hashrate superiority.  It's irrelevant who you blame for it.  It's irrelevant how you think it happened.  It's irrelevant if you don't think it was fair.  It doesn't change anything.  That's what happened.  We're at a different point in time now, so it's too late to change what has already occurred.  Fixating on your warped interpretation on the past doesn't change the facts of the present.  You are clearly not going to get whatever it is you think you want (and honestly I can't even tell what that is anymore).  Consensus chose Lightning, which you clearly don't like, but now you're just going to have to live with that.  You CAN choose what software to use, but your choice might put you on an incompatible fork because that's how consensus works.  

Seriously, what is it you want?  For everyone to play happy families and magically agree 24/7/365?  Do you want a time machine to go back and watch it unfold exactly the same way again because your insane theories are totally meaningless and wouldn't have any bearing at all over what happened?  Do you want us to un-fork and somehow merge the two chains back together?  Or, more realistically, do you simply want to lash out at Lightning as you clearly don't approve of it?  Are you still upset that more people didn't agree with your way of thinking and you don't like your views being represented by an altcoin?  Do you think your incessant tirades are going to convince Core to change their process?  Speaking of which:



It's called "peer-reviewed code".  Funnily enough, that means people get to review it before it gets merged.   ::)

Go ahead and launch a client where it hasn't been thoroughly reviewed.  See how long it survives with all the bugs and security flaws you inevitably missed because no one checked it first.

It's like that for a good reason.  It's not their fault that the people who take the time to check the code happen to agree on the general direction.  It's also not their fault that the users then appear to agree with that direction, partly because people appreciate the thorough review process.  It might surprise you to learn that people find it reassuring that it's not easy to launch any untested code on layer 0 that could potentially cause problems.  Layer 0 provides the foundations for what we're now building upon, so it has to be secure and strictly vetted.  It's not a damned conspiracy.  Take off the tinfoil hat already.

What bugs have you fixed in BCH then?  I assume you've had loads of code merged into their clients if it's so easy to do in what I assume must be an ultra-accepting hippy commune, at least in comparison to Core's supposed fascist police state?   :P



Lightning has at least three separate dev teams.  Thus not centralised.



Only in your warped perception.  The way things are, if you can't respect this chain's decision, fork off to altcoinland.  The devs can only propose the roadmap.  The users chose the roadmap.  Get a clue.

luke wantd to avoid hardforks....?? .. pfft.. no. luke wanted to avoid the network voting against the cor roadmap. basically not following the core roadmap, so  he went out screaming that everything not core roadmap was bad.. and then went on and became part of the 3 shell trick game to actually cause a harkfork (mandatory bilateral split)
i call it the 3shell game because it appears as if its 3 choices to make on august first, but when you look under the shells, the result is the same.
USAF, BLOQ, ABC are all part of the same thing all paid by the same investors. (DCG.co)

as for luke wanting to decrease the soft limit(policy.h) back down to 0.5mb and you wanting quotes.. and your love for reading reddit and taking what is said on reddit as gospel. i shall give you your dream and desire of quote and of format you desire.
so here it is, on reddit. that way its from the horses mouth and from the source media site most fanboys love. thus you cannot say its biased.. because its handed to you exactly as you would prefer
https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/61yvvv/request_to_core_devs_please_explain_your_vision/dficjhj/

this is him talking before segwit about how moving the policy from 0.75 to 1mb was premature and how core devs veto'd all hard limit(consensus.h) proposals.. and how he wanted the soft limit back down to 0.5mb... he even went on to say when LN finaly works he would hope for 0.1mb blocks.

ask yourself WHY
(answer: bottleneck mainnet. say mainnet cant scale to keep people using LN and vault up the coins into 'factories' to recycle channels(fort knox) so all that people play with in the end is unaudited unconfirmed, non community verified tx's.. oh wait. thats fiat2.0


gota laugh though. Luke Jr was part of team USAF which instigated the mandatory split. even though segwit from november2016 to spring 2017 only garnered 35% community approval.

but those funded by the DCG.co invstors did not just say lets go back to the drawing board and find a compromise the community would accept. they tripled down to push it through by making it MANDATORY


and if you even want to dare say that 32mb or any size above 1mb wont work per block..
then please.. go tell netflix that 32mb/10min(3.2mb/min) wont work and netflix should close for business because netflix cant work
tell itunes that its impossible to download a 3.2mb mp3 in under 1 minute...
go tell all the live streaming/video call services that they cant work.

But why do these millions transactions per second need to be validated and stored by every full node, forever?

Even if we discarded LN (for whatever reason), I think solutions like sidechains, pegged alt-chains of various types (e.g. the Basecoin style or the BitUSD/Dai style), child chains and sharding do make much more sense than massive, monolithic blocks. All of these solutions are based on the on-chain transaction paradigm and so are not in danger of being restricted by the SEC or other organisms.

(And no, a IoT nanopayment network based on the Bitcoin technology and on-chain transactions is totally crazy. I think 100K to 1 million transactions per second are totally OK for a global currency. 23K/sec already enable to make every household in the world to make 1 transaction per day, which in most cases is sufficient.)

At worse case, LN Hub will be required to register as banks
at best case,  LN hubs will be required to register as money transmitters.

As such , it is against the law for them to discard transactions for up to 10 years after a person dies.
Business & Corporations transactions have to be recorded basically forever.

Thinking LN hubs will be able to discard data is a myth , that is going to bite them in the legal asset.  ;)
They are going to be required to store all data, even if they don't store it in the block chain, it is still going to take up data storage space somewhere.

Truth be told , why fools waste money running free nodes has always been stupid in bitcoin, miners make money ,
yet PoW node operators (suckers) are supposed to work for free.

Give the Node operators a % of the transaction fee profits and then they can afford to run the nodes.

You can argue for years but the Bitcoin Core developers will never be pressured to hard fork to bigger blocks because there is the minority in the community plus the sockpuppets, that is led by the fraudster Roger Ver, the scammer Craig "Faketoshi" Wright, and in connivance with Bitmain founder Jihan Wu. We are already witnessing network centralization of bigger blocks on Ethereum.

Plus you have your big blocks in Bitcoin Cash. As you want to believe, "Bitcoin has bilaterally split in two". Good luck to your big blocks.


The Kardashians drama? Hahaha. There were also rumors from /r/btc that Blockstream is part of the Bilderberg group.


Then do you believe that Roger Ver, Craig Wright, and Jihan Wu are the people that we should listen to, follow and support?

I'm very convinced of that real open markets and open protocols will solve that by alligned incentives.
If you want Bitcoin to be big world wide, think big and do not try to dictate how ppl should use Bitcoin.

We might agree on a truth: If you try to scale up a system (like a internet protocol), the base parts of it must be as simple as possible, that attracts all sorts of builders. Side chains included, sure.

> keep the Bitcoin consensus protocol as clean and minimal as possible, so decentralization comes in with world wide use and growth. 

nope, Lightning Network is not centralized in any means.

Even if you were right and that happened internationally, in every single country of the world (which I don't believe will be the case) - storage space is not the main problem.

The problem with a massive blockchain is the immense validation work required by all full nodes. In LN, there is a lot less work as nodes only need to validate transactions where they participate themselves.

I think you refer to the free LN nodes I mentioned earlier. But LN is an "inverse commons (https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/the-cathedral/0596001088/ch04s05.html)", as users are also "producers" - the more people use the system, the more mini-nodes can be used as intermediaries. And mini-nodes do almost not have expenses so they can work for free (like current non-mining full nodes), as I already wrote.

Where are there PoW nodes working for free in current bitcoin? Unprofitiable miners? Don't understand that. Or do you refer to the post-2140 future where only transaction fees will be paid to them?

I don't want to dictate that, and nobody can.

But free market forces would mean: If LN is cheaper for a day-to-day transaction than a "massive block Bitcoin (Cash)", then LN will be the the dominant solution. And if micropayments (=most of the payments that exceed the 1 payment/day per household "threshold" with a 23K tps BTC) are cheaper when carried out with client-server solutions (like Paypal) than when they use LN, these centralized services will continue to exist, but if LN is cheaper, then it most likely will "rule that world".

From all what I heard until now, LN is one of the cheapest solutions, and so it will be most likely very successful - if it works as expected.

Here we agree. LN is not part of the base consensus protocol, so it doesn't affect it.

Good,  so lets put risk / reward measurement on that.

prio1: base protocol as thin, bold and simple (rule #1 if u want to scale software!)

-> remove as much code as possible > max_block_size is clearly one thing here, free markets find it out better, also if you can put best effort into parallelization and optimization of the parts Joannes pointed out.

SW is not needed as well, too complicated, too much tech dept and we can have 2nd layer on top of Bitcoin without it.

LN can be done as ppl need it and go live after some years of maturity.  Not prio 1

Then you'd think the free market would have already found a Bitcoin that works like that by now?  I mean, it's had plenty of time.  The option has been there for a while.  I'm pretty sure it's been well publicised.  But the market hasn't found a Bitcoin without a restriction on the blockweight.  Yeah, it's a real mystery...   ::) 

You seem to be running into the same dilemma others are having, in that they have a preconceived notion in their mind about what would be "better", but the market seems to have an entirely different notion. 

We could keep talking about what a free market might find in a world where everyone agreed with your stance, but it's probably more realistic to look at what the free market already did find.  And then chose.  Past tense.  Bit late to change it now.

ASICS Miners make the money, ie: New Bitcoins & transaction fees

people running the Bitcoin Full Nodes (that don't run a warehouse full of asics) earn Nothing and that is the ones you are always complaining can't afford to host larger blocksizes.

If Miners donated 10% of their transactions fees to people running full nodes, your arguments go up in smoke.

All one has to do is look at Dash, their version of PoW using Masternodes is superior to bitcoin and they never have to worry about a node shortage,
which is all we have heard bitcoiners whine about since a larger blocksize was mentioned years ago.

Well, "free markets" are currently deciding that max_block_size is a part of the protocol worthy to preserve ;) (current relation: ~6350 to ~700)

You cannot dictate free markets what exact lines in the code are "superfluous". This line really doesn't add complexity.

I agree SW may be a bit complicated and may not be really required, but again ... markets are wanting it, and if it was not implemented, another malleability fix was required for easy 2nd layer integration. (I, for myself, would have liked to see a FlexTrans implementation in an altcoin, for example - to be able to compare both ways.)

Well, that's actually happening. Nobody is forcing you to use LN, currently, and nobody can force you to do so, forever. If we run into scalability problems, and the Bcash way is the most popular way, I would have no problem with that. I'm not a Segwit fanatic. But I have my doubts - I think the Bcash way will be more expensive and more centralized, and thus, less popular, in the end.

So you want most people to use light nodes, right? But you know that for individual, non-mining users, running a full node is more secure - even if its' a pruned full node? I always sustained the opinion that a business/merchant, of any size, should be able to run a full node.

I think if we have the opportunity to keep the blockchain light, and using second layers (of various types), then we should do exactly that. As I already answered to hv_, the free market now is valuing the "Bitcoin [Core] way" higher than the "Bitcoin Cash way".

maybe in usd or euro but for other currencies visa is cheaper.

I think in these debates there will always be disagreement on terms such as centralized and decentralized, because they may be defined differently and some may view certain types of centralization more dangerous than others. I think there will be some centralization as the LN gets developed, but the blockchain itself will remain decentralized.

Well, at least where I know about, Visa charges 1,5 to 4% of the payment depending on the merchant service provider. This may be cheaper than Bitcoin in the case of micropayments, but currently already a $10 purchase is more expensive with Visa. I know that wasn't always so - we had minimum fees of ~$3 (on weekends) or so in January, but this was because nobody was using Segwit then, so a giant backlog formed. And the likely spam attacks ...

The difference may be that Visa charges the fee to the merchant and not to the customer, while with Bitcoin, the buyer has to decide the transaction fee - but merchants (if there are no legal restrictions) can give discounts to Bitcoin payers (as some give discounts when using cash).

The reason why the blocks are regulated to 1mb is to make the network scale up. That means the network should keep growing in terms of number of nodes as the hardware becomes cheaper and the bandwidth becomes faster. What many people have failed to know is bandwidth grows slower and slower as the years pass by, and network latency slower still.


You talk like Segwit is very complicated. It is a simple malleability fix. The block size increase is a side effect. Plus you talk of side chains, then why not a 2nd offchain layer?


It is, and Bitcoin's regulated block size to 1mb will scale the network up. A good example of centralization and its network designed scaled down is Ethereum. Their blockchain is 1tb large and increasing, and an increasing number of nodes cannot keep up with the network.

Consider that their miners, who control the gas limit, which also control the block size are playing nice by regulating the blocks.

In my opinion, it is more decentralized. Because if the centralization system is not clear who is the official party. Indeed if Lightning Network run then will only be played by people who have large capital and rich. A mediocre person like me can not follow this ecosystem because honestly I am a person who barely has the capital to join the circle. Only people who have the wealth and strength that can survive and play in this ecosystem. It may be my little view of Lightning Network.

So your arguments getting weaker... or malleability ? ETH (apples - oranges) ?  

I leave it up to you to draw the final picture of BTC future, where you surely hope many small ppl are STILL happily running cheap relay nodes - connected to a few monster nodes from mining pools etc ,  never ever will be able to pay for a safe on-chain settlement for all their fancy un-secure TXs (any interface and off-chain tx / storage / ...  IS by orders of magnitude more un-secure than on-chain)  - because that secure on-chain settlement will exceed the cost of running their cheap on-chain settlement nodes by orders of magnitude....  so why running them ?
 Only for 'decentralization'?  How much is needed really ?

I rather will go with that picture Joannes Vermorel was drawing, where manny of the solvent corps with proper business cases and risk managements behind will run the expensive shit for all the other ppl in the world for good. Still that many, that we have enough decentralization at work, because we all (should) know that Bitcoin has good game theoretical / economical alignments at work from the very beginning (a variant  of the Nash Equilibrium)!  So I m really not concerned about any 'too high un-decentralization' - you can have 'decentralization' at any scale -> what makes Bitcoin a fractal like structure.


 

 It isn't centralized in a significant feeling. If your center within the hub-and-spoke system associated with LN stations actually gets referred to as an issue after that everybody can begin redirecting close to this. As long as blockchain costs for any solitary TX aren't excessive there is very little "locking" anybody into utilizing an issue center. Along with a poor acting professional working, the center is extremely restricted within what forms of hi jinks they are able to perpetrate anyhow.

I want to get back to this, and I am embrassed to say that I am not sure how that works. Who decides when to increase the "flex cap" limit? Is it the miners only, or does it have to be in consensus with the non-mining full nodes?

If a hub in the central network and talk of LN channels is known as a problem then people can start routing around it. And a bad actor performing a center is very limited in what kind of hijinks they can perpetrate anyway. Network deployment is really a good idea for everyone because it can save on high transaction costs. There are still questions that arise in my mind as there are still shortcomings expected to be encountered, So how can we solve that problem?

"just route it around"
thats called broadcasting to mainnet to get your funds out of the channel you have with the hub.
you[$30-$30]hub[$30-30]destination                          mainnet: you[$0]
you[settledmainnet]hub[$30-30]destination                 mainnet: you[$30]

and then making another mainnet tx to put funds into a new channel with another party to hop your payments without a hub involved

you[$0-$30]hop[$30-30]hop[$30-$30]destination         mainnet: you[$30]
you[$30-$30]hop[$30-30]hop[$30-$30]destination         mainnet: you[$0]

and ofcourse.. hope the HOP your now channeled to also are not upto the same hijynx as the hub was

anyway moving forward a few concepts..
new invention.  factory.. lets call it LN fortknox.. (idea is to put funds into factories so you dont ned to settle to mainnet because your initial funding channel funding is not from your own mainnet tx. but from your mainnet funding going to fortknox an they pay your channel partner who then pays you)

you put funds into LNfortknox. and lock it up for 2 years. you then set up a channel with a well funded hub whereby you dont put funds in. and fortknox then routes a payment to the hub via their relationship and the hub sets up the initial TX to give you part of their funds
EG
instead of
you[$30 - $30]hub where that $30 is your own value you lockd in from your own mainnet tx..
its like this
you[$0 - $60]hub[$0 - $30]FK where the $30in in FK is your own value you locked into fortknox. the hubs $60 is the hbs UTXO (that he will have to settle)
and then this happens
you[$0 - $60]hub[$30 - $0]FK
you[$30 - $30]hub[$30 - $0]FK

now you have $30. but its not using your own initial UTXO you owned locked into the hub chnnel. the funds are a share of hubs initial $60 UTXO
your UTXO is locked in fortknox(factory)

moving on say your sick of hub and you want to move funds to hub2. and your new id Utu(you2)
.. now to get out of a channel you can do it without caring about rbroadcasting to mainnet. you make a payment back to fortknox and tell fortknox where you want to put that payment. so lts start with how it looks befor you dcid to leave the channel

you[$30 - $30]hub[$30 - $0]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
so
you[$0 - $60]hub[$30 - $0]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
you[$0 - $60]hub[$0 - $30]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
you[$0 - $60]hub[$0 - $30]FK[$0 - $30]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
you[$0 - $60]hub[$0 - $30]FK[$0 - $30]hub2[$30 - $30]Uto

now you have your funds in a new channel and dont care about the old channel bcause your mainnet UTXO is not lockd to that initial hub channel. so  you can forget about it and leave the hub with the problem of settling out their balance

but.. heres the rub, although you think you have less worry about closing a channel becaus your iinitial UTXO is not locke to that hub...you still have to get the hub to agree to pass the $30 out. meaning
at the state
you[$30 - $30]hub[$30 - $0]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto

if they are playing hijinks they can still hold funds to ransom. by refusing to sign your $30 back out of channel
also.. hub can spend the $30 the hub has with fortknox.. meaning the hub then has no value left in hub-fk to then pay to fortknox to then allow you get fortknox to rout your $30 to a new channel all offchain EG
you[$30 - $30]hub[$0 - $30]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
as you can see hub spend it for hubs coffee. but now even if you give hub the $30 in you-hub..  hub cant then give another $30 to FK because hub-FK has $0 hub balance to do so

meeaning your again stuck with having to broadcast out the you-hub tx to mainnet. which hub could treat as an unsanctioned event and invoke a punishment

in short. if hijinks is occuring and even if you think using a factory will help reduce the amount of times you need to close a channel via mainnet settlemnt.. the end result is your still at the same risk of needing to settle to mainnet to get your $30 out of a hub is upto hijinks.

P.S there are far more vulnerabilities/ransoms/blackmail/hijinks risks that i can describe. but yea tryin to close a channel is not just a easy ok, done in 0.002 seconds no issues. the reason, even with factories.. well thats simple. DUAL AUTHORISATION RQUIRED every time. LN is not a simple single party push payment system so if the other party messes around. your stuck and may end up paying the cost of their hijinks

at current coding. core and cash accepts anything below consensus.h limit.. and then core freely allows the mining pool to make the blocks bigger than policy which will still be acceptable to core as long as the new blocksize stays under consensus (meaning to non-mining nodes) policy is meaningless to core users as its something pools decide solely by themselves

however take bitcoin unlimiteds proposal a few years back (core rejected it) where by the policy.h becomes somthing non-mining nodes vote on by having s a value in their node identity and then mining pools only move forward making bigger blocks if a high percentage of nodes wave a flag to say its ok to do so.. they said it was a bad voting mechanism

kind of funny that devs that said no to it.. becasue it was them same devs that actually then went on to beg users to put "nosegwitx2" or "yesUASF"  in their identifier to see how many people wanted the core roadmap. they even promoted people put it into thier twitter usernames and other non-code social stuff such as 'buy a UASF hat and take a picture on social media and get people to share it'.. (facepalm)

devs love their social drama campaigns but try to avoid code voting (avoided consensus upgrade and done the 3shell trick of a MANDATORY bilateral split) which they thought was OK because all the social media and social identifiers said it was ok (facepalm)

Yes, thx good summary.

The peer to peer trustless Bitcoin character is removed. Congrats


You could only do peer to peer with your existing, frequently used peers, simple netting application. But actually, no such complex LN needed for that.

After implementing the Lightning Network, the Ethereum network will remain decentralized. All the rumors about the centralization of this technology are a lie.

Maybe I misunderstood but how would it be "meaningless" if it is enforced to stay under a limit even if pools can decide but only if up to that limit?


Yes it is very bad because it would be open to Sybil attacks. It would be easy for some group of people to set up and run nodes in Alibaba cloud service.


The Core developers should not be pressured by fraudsters like Roger Ver, Craig Wright, or the mining cartels. Do you agree or disagree?

In the entire open source bitcoin world there will be pressure on everybody with real skin in the game.

You are on the right track, you re identifying Bitcoin's SPOFs (single point of failures) - as you put down here, core is one - and so will mostly fail ( or did ).

I think Lightning network is decentralized. 

Not at all my friend !
As you already have watched all the videos related, it's a technology under ( or upper ) the blockchain itself that can contain micro transiction waiting to be confirmed so you do not have to spend a fee to regulate a fraction if BTC that can cost you more than transaction itself.

Understood ?

Yes but the question was should the Core developers be pressured and follow the agenda of the fraudsters like Roger Ver, Craig Wright, and the mining cartel?


That I will not deny, but tell me which other group of developers are as good as Core?

Given we only talk about the pure protocol level and that I can only answer for myself here -

my conclusion was that a perfect protocol is as tiny as possible and does not contain any magical numbers and does not need other layers on top
for its most attractive and basic function (exchange money for nearly free or fees < 1cent ) it cannot be the core that came after Gavin.

So I fell back to check, what Satoshi really did / plan and I decided that BCH is the better implementation- and btw one big feature from Satoshi was, that real ppl do not matter at all - Satoshi's Bitcoin is anti-fragile to that, so no need at all to check / qualify any individuals.

Ok but you know I would disagree and ask what "magical numbers" are you talking about? Are you insinuating that the Core developers are using "magic computer science" to maintain Bitcoin?


There will always come an external cost on any system. Internalize on that very deeply.


Then we should follow Satoshi like a high priest of a religion? Is that how the community should decide what is and what is not Bitcoin?

Plus you did not answer which group of developers are as good as the Core developers.

Magic numbers are hard coded numbers with no proper reason - like the 1 MB hard cap - this should be rather time adjusted param like you have in the halving process.


And no, I m not religious, but it's always good if you back loop your thinking to sources where the success happened and why. Esp in times when things become messy and you need to distill the root protocol in order to scale that in best practice industrial manners.

And yes, no individual can decide what the best globally used Bitcoin implementation of the Satoshi protocol is, but mass adoption needs simple cheap secure on-chain TX. They will decide that for us - that is called just Bitcoin then.

 

Instead of broadcasting each transaction on blockchain, you can create a private LN channel with your friend, exchange funds inside the channel for many times without paying any fees, and finally close your channel by broadcasting the final state (balances) on the blockchain. So with LN you need to pay onchain transaction fees only 2 times.

Except that no fork, to my knowledge, has implemented it in that way.  If it was algorithmically adjusted in the code, like the halving process is, you wouldn't need to hardfork every time you change the size of the blocks.  Every single fork out there in the market right now has a "magic number" (some of them just happen to be larger integers) and will need to fork again in future to change the cap on the size of blocks that are permitted.  It's effectively an endless necessity for hardforks.  That fits the criteria of "needless complexity" in my book.  The code for it might look simple, but the logistics are far more complex.  You have to get everyone to agree where the cap should be at any given moment in time.  As soon as people don't agree, your coin fractures into two and there's suddenly yet another fork for people to argue about which one is closer to Satoshi's vision.

In comparison, BTC is implementing things that should alleviate demand on the blockchain.  If Lightning can handle some of the load and other improvements can make transaction sizes smaller, this delays the need for any hardforks.  So far, that approach appears to be working.  I certainly hope that when the time does eventually come for a hardfork, we seriously consider an algorithmic method that would help negate the need for any future hardforks.  But, chances are, we're still a long way off having that discussion.

Lightning is more decentralised because you're giving users greater choice and self-determination by having the option of transacting off-chain if they choose to (or even atomic-swapping to another blockchain when that becomes more commonplace), rather than forcing all traffic down the same road with no other options and placing all of the resource burdens on the full nodes.  The market will decide how Lightning is going to grow and evolve, purely based on how people use it.  Unlike choosing a blocksize every time you start to approach full capacity, there's no central planning involved in how much or how little people choose to use Lightning.  

Ultimately, it's going to be a natural evolution based on the daily choices each user makes, rather than an evolution led by a group of developers picking an arbitrary number from thin-air and then seeing which developers people follow and which ones fracture into ever smaller groups, all solely fixated on their fixed integers.   

But fair enough if you think that's all too complex or it doesn't appeal to your preferences.  That's why the other forks exist.  Everyone gets to follow the route they think will work out best.

The approach appears to be working in such that 'No HF' of some software has lead always to community HFs and diluting the crypoverse - but maybe we all had to learn that lesson.

For the future, I'd prefer the other way around , and even HFs and job rotations / elections  in the dev team section.

meaningless to non-mining nodes
EG imagine a law that says its illegal accept 2000 banana and another law that says its illegal to GROW more than 1000 bananas.

growers(miners) follow the do not grow more then 1000 law AND if anyone passed them 2000 banana batch. they would rject that too..
howevr CUSTOMERS(non-miners/nongrowers) do not grow banana's so they dont need to worry about the 1000 banana growth rule. they only follow the 2000 acceptance rule


you do realise the events of august.
you do realise that the pools that waved the versionbit to say yes to segwit were not even running nodes that were actually fully segwit ready.
even now today BTCC the biggest suporting pool for segwit still is not using segwit addresss for their coinbase rewards
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/000000000000000000251e0ea67c4fa7998df7e024d35dbadb25f943cbda2beb
13TEThZNnKPk34HYAuo1QqYMwDdjF3qeHx
try looking for BTCC using a bc1q address
then go look at bob lee and samson mow with their silly UASF hats and endless promotion since end of 2015 that "segwit is great"... its funny. that they are now too scared to even use segwit for thier own pool rewards.

nearly a year later and they stil havnt vetted their own code to have a strong enough belief its safe to use segwit themselves. but were happy to simply change the versionbits in their block sybil ID and to wear silly hats on social media

all they had to do is use whatever client(yep even old client) and just FLAG a version number.. without actually having the code in place. oh and wear the hat..

this is why the whole mandatory bilateral split was so controversial. core only had ~35% vote from november 2016-spring 2017.
so at that point core should have backed off and went back to the drawing board to find a alternative compromis the community using consensus would accept..
but instead then it was just a flagging event or threat to be pushed off th network. and done th 3card trick
that there is what even you should realise it waa a sybil attack performed to get segwit activated.

also check the block number of august first. you will see core nodes shiftd first. and it was the non core nodes that didnt move off to an altcoin until HOURS later

the core developers should not pressure the community by calling anyone else the opposition/attackers/invaders/REKTers.. core should realise that its a decentralised network and if core dont get thier way using consensus, then they should have AVOIDED sybil and mandatory crap.. and instead gone back to the drawing board and they actually use thier ears to listen to the community wherby an agreement that meets the communities desires is met.

or.. if you wish to stick to the mindset that btc is core.. then stop cryng when people call it bitcoin core.
if you want the network to be core controlled then actually man up and be happy to call it bitcoin core.

you cant keep pretending its decentralised whel also campaigning anything not core should be treated as invaders..
stop flip flopping.. have a cup of coffee.. sit back and spend some time truly thinking about what you care most about
bitcoin decentralisation and consensus of multiple teams on one network. all on a level playing field of no control
or
bitcoin core centralisation with user distribution of core nodes that use mandatory upgrades

you cant have it both ways

P.S
what your stil not realising.. is.. if you stop reading reddit.. you will realise that vr, wright are not code developers. so while you point fingers at SOCIAL drama you avoiding what actually occured at code level.

whats next. wil you blame oj simpson(losely linked to th kardashian social drama)
yes ver and craig are drama queens.. but your just bleting lik a shep at faces of distraction. all whil bitcoin CODE is bing changed without consensus and into a direction that the dvs are litrally shouting "bitcoins blockchain is dead, it cant scale. so instead lock your funds into LN fortknox, and play around with unaudited/unconfirmed tranactions with hub bank managrs authorisating every pyment you want to make

LN is not a freedom of PUSH payments
LN is not a sole custody system
LN is not a guaranteed payment system

difference being.
if core done things as a consensus, and didnt delay for YEARS (even satoshi in 2010 mentioned raising it.) it could be done where the hard cap is 32mb and then the non-mining nodes algorythmacally have policy rule where the non mining nodes treat the policy as something they should consider. which then moves algorythmaccilly(without download requirement) up by 0.25mb small increments once XXX blocks are 90% near the policy limit. and so then the hard limit of 32mb changes in the background when blocks are 50% at that limit. thus giving plenty of time for people to naturally upgrade their nodes before the actual time where blocks actually reach 32mb

thus it never even gets to hit a wall and then never gets these debates occuring.
EG
imagine a 32mb consensus 2mb policy.
2018 q4: policy moves to 2.25mb without users needing to physically upgrade the nodes. as it moves algorithmically
2019 q2: policy moves to 2.5mb without users needing to physically upgrade the nodes. as it moves algorithmically

54 policy algorithm changes later (many years)
policy moves to 16mb without users needing to physically upgrade the nodes. as it moves algorithmically
the devs then release a node version where consensus.h is now 64mb. but that is still another 64 policy algorythm changes(0.25mb changes) away from users even needing to physically upgrade a node bcause theres still years between 16mb and 32mb

imagine it like 64mb consensus.h becomes hard coded in ALL future versions of core from 2024 but the blocks dont reach 32mb until 2036  thus anyone using a downloaded version from 2025-2036+ will be already set and they wont even realise it.. yes anyone in 2036 using an old 2024 version will get told their node is no longer supported.. but being 12 years out of date, its expected.. id say users of bitcoin from 2025-2036 would have upgraded before 2036 anyway. thus they would not hit a wall/debate like what happened in 2015, as it would all be pre-planned, pre implemented years before its needed

analolgy
to PC gamers.. its as simple as
if a PC game says it needs 1gb of ram do you just buy a PC with a motherboard thats max cap was 2gb.. or buy a PC with 32GB upgrad capacity and then has more than 2gb instslled or knowing you can put more ram in without needing a whol new system as and when needed.. knowing by the time a game says it needs 16gb. you can still have freedom of choice to kp on incrementing up the ram or start saving up for a MOBO that can handl 64gb ram+ knowing its years befor getting to 32mb limit

in comparison LN.. a separate network or any coin.. is implementing things that could alleviate demand on btc blockchain.. however BTC is implemnting bad code to cause strain on the blockchain to promote LN

the need of certain things to make btc work on LN actually caused BTC to need to hard fork to allow LN features. at the time of the august hard fork. devs should have rationally thought.. "hmm seeing as there is a hard fork we are mandating for august lets do the things that can only be done at a hardfork. like logical growth onchain for legacy"

i really do laugh they say they needed to avoid a hard fork.. but then went on and actually caused one, but only for the benefit of pushing LN forward. whil ignoring what the comunity wanted for btc's blockchain

have been perusing and concentrate a great deal about this thing. Lightning system execution sounds a smart thought to everybody as it can spare high exchange charges. Yet, since the two gatherings straightforwardly execute with each other then I can state that it is an incorporated in that way. There are still inquiries that are flying up in my mind like there are as yet expected weaknesses that may understanding, at that point how might we settle that issue.

Maybe, but at the same time that would open the network to node centralization like Ethereum, assuming you propose the block size to double every 4 or more years.

I believe it is better to regulate the block size for now and let the network have the opportunity to scale up.


But is it in your opinion that Bitcoin today is "messy"? You don't believe that it is the most robust and well-coded decentralized, cryprocurrency network?

If not, then who should take over as the "Core developers"?


Satoshi is gone and the network has grown without him. I believe we should not use him as a point of reference anymore, or Bitcoin will not continue to develop.

In your inconsequential, biased and grossly misinformed opinion. 

I'll consider taking your view more seriously in the highly unlikely event you ever manage to say something accurate about Lightning.  Until then, I don't care what a manipulative troll thinks. 

The code clearly can't be that bad if it's supporting the chain that deals with far greater volume than any of the forks that split away from the economic majority. 

Then what is truly meaningful is the 2000 banana limit rule. The growers can grow 1 to 1000 but can increase it to only 2000 as enforced by the non-growers.


We have been going back to that debate many times, Segwit activated, game over. Plus this would be my reply to that, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3670474.msg41475309#msg41475309

Hopefully my expectations are not like that, because when the Network Lightning centered then it is on the verification that there will be a Monopoly for Bitcoin.

But if only Lightning Lightning is created to accelerate the transaction and ease the transaction costs, then I will support with all my heart.
Because my job is to trade in Bitcoin.

For me, Lightning network is going to be centralized in near future

no, Lightning is not centralized.

my opinion is the same as your opinion,
I think this is not fair because only rich people can get this lightning, and I think lightning is centered

perhaps Lightning will be a temporary solution to speed up transactions and implementation in the usual areas, but this step of centralization is frightening. Perhaps the management of the technology at some point will be closed for editing, so it will repeat the way bitcoin will be decentralized and anonymous

I d say adoption dynamics are much more important than any static snapshots.

The implication being that you think adoption will start to change and more people will look at altcoins/forks?  I suppose it's good you can hedge your bets, then, right?  One way or another, the market will decide.  We'll just have to wait and see how this all plays out.  But I still think there's still no point in having two chains both trying the same idea.  It makes sense for BTC to attempt a mix of both on and off-chain ideas if other forks are going to keep their focus purely on-chain.  Why put all your eggs in one basket if you don't need to?

people lightning network is not cwntralize, in fact a lot of platforms right now are using it to make transaction faster, litecoin is just one of the few, and i think many will follow and use it somehow in the tokens also. be guided and read more about LN

Don't forget that the Lightning Network could be also used for cross-chain atomic swaps. In some cases, it still does not make any sense, but it's a feature that might be used by people who want to avoid using exchanges and escrow. Some people think that Litecoin and the Lightning Network is a perfect combination. Well, payments processors are busy implementing Bitcoin LN payments.

Few people saying its centralized and few saying not centralized.  ::)

If you ease hurdles and open up such bridges Bitcoins built in scarcity is at risk.

Is it, though?  The ability to conveniently hop to other blockchains doesn't create additional supply.  It's creating extra utility, not more coins.  It wouldn't make litecoins equal to bitcoins, it simply removes some potential middlemen between the two.  They're still different coins, so there will be no impact on scarcity.

I think hv_ still is dreaming of a monopoly game with Bitcoin (=Cash?) as the one and only cryptocurrency - and then, somewhen later, as the only currency of the world, making early adopters extremely rich (even I with my tiny BTC holdings would be rich in this case ;D, and Satoshi would be richer than the 100 top billionaires of today.)

In this case, his argumentation makes some sense. But without an authoritarian regime of some kind (even if it's an authoritarian developer group which uses his power "softly", e.g. bribing merchants to not accept other coins than Bitcoin) this won't happen.

First, because there will always be an incentive to create other cryptocurrencies. Second, atomic swaps are already happening, they're open source. You can't forbid them (the only way would be, ironically, to make the block size smaller to achieve extremely high fees, which would lower the incentives even for LN-powered swaps).

But I think also, hv_, that your fear is unfounded. The strength of a cryptocurrency lies in its ecosystem, and as DoomAD already said, in its utility. So scarcity won't go away, because only a limited number of cryptocurrencies can really see mass adoption. I don't see Bitcoin not being part of this group.

the funny thing about bitcoin cash and its followers is that they talk shit about bitcoin while doing whatever bitcoin does, either now or in the near future. and i mean it literary everything including SegWit, LN and everything else. the only thing they changed was block size. they may not have all of these now but they will add them with a different name eventually. for example Bech32 addresses are already implemented for BCH, there are talks about second layer with a different name than LN!
Atomic Swaps have also happened already on BCH network. in fact it happened last year in November!

Nope.

Well, if you look at the opinions made from veteran users of Bitcoin within this forum, you'll find out that the Lightning Network is in fact a decentralized solution to help Bitcoin scale to millions of TPS. The whitepaper explains this thoroughly and it's expected that the protocol will upgrade to become a better layer-two solution over time. Users will have the choice to select other routing nodes or channels, in case they suspect or fear that a specific channel or node is centralized. Since it's a Peer-to-Peer network, it brings this level of flexibility, without harming Bitcoin's decentralization. Fees would remain cheap, and transactions blazing fast, while anyone would be able to open/close a channel at will. If successful, then Bitcoin could easily overcome altcoins by a long shot (including Bitcoin Cash itself).

I'd recommend that you read more about the Lightning Network's specific features such as: Watchtowers, Atomic Swaps, Channel Factories, and more. It seems that such scalability solution will maintain the decentralization of the BTC blockchain, while helping the pioneer cryptocurrency reach mainstream adoption. Just my opinion :)

It all sounds great but don't forget that opening and closing channels still force user to broadcast a transaction. At some point in the future, we might have problems with a large amount of transactions being unconfirmed. Solutions like SegWit and Schnorr signatures are going to help for some time by making transactions smaller. Channel factories could be used to create new channels from existing ones by replacing only two participants with a whole group. Unfortunately, this feature is not available yet.

More layers can be build on top of the Lightning Network and they might be actually what ordinary people will use. Before that happens, Lightning Network still needs some tuning.

Well, they have a point, at least: If they implement LN or a similar off-chain network, with a bigger block size, they can claim at least three advantages:
- that it would be easier to open a LN channel, as transaction fees will be smaller;
- that they leave people the choice to always do a (relatively cheap) on-chain transaction even if the network is more congested (e.g. with more than 10 tps) instead of massive pressure to use LN for everything in this situation;
- that if an hub tries to scam their clients broadcasting massively old channel states, there will be enough block space for all victims of this kind of scam to settle their channels fastly.

I still think that BCH fans underestimate the centralization risks of their approach. A more conservative flexible-blocksize currency would have my support (like I wrote several times), but BCH is going way too fast.

but there are a couple of problems with that.
- BCH was created solely because their views (at least what they pretended) was that bitcoin should only be used on-chain and there should be nothing else. adding LN or something like LN with a different name would be proving their true reasons for creating BCH: taking over bitcoin
- people sometimes forget that BCH is a fork of bitcoin so it shares all the problems of bitcoin too. just because they increased the block size it doesn't mean they solved the "spam attack" problem. the reason why it is not happening right now is because blocks are completely empty, there is no incentive to attack something like that. if it starts being used more and blocks were fuller then a spam attack would occur and the congestion that you mentioned would occur over there just as easily.
- and finally there is nothing stopping bitcoin from increasing the block size with a hard fork. and i do believe that it will happen eventually in which case there would be even less reason for BCH to even exist.

Agree. The Lightning Network would need some tuning over time, if it wants to successfully scale Bitcoin to many people worldwide. Right now, the LN is still being tested and it's not fully robust as a layer-two solution for mainstream use. With the implementation of Channel Factories, costs would be reduced as it would only be required to open/close a single channel for a lot of transactions. However, until this happens, we would have to deal with opening and closing a channel every time, adding up costs as fees increase in the main chain.

I believe that the Lightning Network, SegWit, Schnorr Signatures, Mimblewimble, and even Sidechains, will make Bitcoin a powerful cryptocurrency to handle all the world's payments. Perhaps, by then, there would be no need for Bitcoin Cash, or other altcoins, since Bitcoin would provide instant and cheap transactions without sacrificing the decentralization of the network. Just my thoughts ;D

The key is that the primary layer, or main chain, will remain decentralized, but even then Bitmain is gobbling up too much market share. In the case of the Lightning Network, it too will also be decentralized, though powerful companies will exert some influence. Blockchain can never be 100 percent decentralized it seems.

"Taking over" Bitcoin - or better: "achieve the leadership in the cryptocurrency sphere" is something I think every single altcoin community out there is pretending. And in our system, there are all the incentives for that.

Now BCH is also an open source project, and if one community member decides to implement something like LN, then nobody can stop him. I am however not very interested in BCH (but I also don't feel hate against it, why hate an open source project, maybe with the exception of a "wiki gun" project or so?) and thus I don't know if the decision to implement LN is supported from their "core" development team. If they implemented a malleability fix, it's a clue that this may be the case.  

It may be more difficult to spam transactions with the intention to fill a 32 MB block than an 1 MB block. While the fees would be small for the first half or so of the block size, if the block really gets full he will need to waste some money for that. But if he wanted to obstruct the workings of BCH (e.g. to carry out a LN scam), then he would make more harm, too, because 32MB of transactions are much memory/cpu-intense to validate than 4MB.

However, that's exactly my point of criticism with respect to BCH, and the point of most "small blockers": A "successful" BCH would need full nodes with more powerful hardware.

As LN currently needs a full node to run, that would even introduce a new centralization risk: People could only open secure (BCH) LN channels if they ran powerful hardware ... while in the future light LN clients may exist, I guess they will be less secure than those that work with a full node.

I even hope it will be possible without a hard fork. The Segwit "weight ratio", as I've read somewhere in the heat of the scalability debate, could in theory be modified with a soft fork, just like the 1 to 4Mb increase was achieved.

  Lightning network is a potent solution to cryptocurrency scaling that means it creates a layer on the top of Bitcoin that enables fast and cheap transactions  which  can settle on Bitcoin blockchain . Lightning network cannot be said as decentralized one, since lightning network relies on large centralized hubs  lightning network will be unattractive technology to cryptocrats since by lightning network the anonymity of the Bitcoin will be lost . The central banks and government agencies will be involved Bitcoin means it is free of political and government interest,

I think vast center points show up in light of the fact that individuals need to interface with hubs that are constantly on the web and right now have numerous associations, since it can bring about shorter courses and along these lines less expensive charges. Thus, on the off chance that we consider hubs/centers as a type of installment processors, there are still a ton of contrasts amongst them and conventional installment processors - they can't stop or take your coins effectively, on the grounds that Lightning convention has solid hostile to swindling instruments. You don't need to utilize center points in the event that you would prefer not to, you can simply pick some option steering or simply interface with somebody straightforwardly - this isn't conceivable with fiat, since you can't simply begin your own particular little bank.

Lightning network will most likely not become centralized (more knowledgeable members could confirm or refute this statement). You can Listen to Andreas Antonopolous explaining this concern at 6:35 of this video. He points out that by running a node with lots of payment channels used for many routes, or in other sense, becoming a hub or centralized node, you run the risk of being a target for hacking.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-nKuInDq6g

Lightning Network is a centralized platform that is built as a layer from Bitcoin which is decentralized. If lightning network fails then there can be many other systems that are tried out and the one that works the best will become the norm

Lightning network implementation sounds a good idea for everyone because it can save high transaction costs. But because both parties directly transact with each other, I can say that it is centered in that way. but I think like there are still deficiencies that might be experienced.

hate is a strong word. but also when they are constantly telling people that "BCH is real bitcoin" and go as far as misleading newcomers to buy BCH by mistake then "hate" comes in. you can see victims of bitcoin.com who are confused why they haven't received bitcoin despite buying it from there!

the thing about spam attack is that it benefits the people who are doing it and with centralization it becomes easier to do. imagine you control nearly all the mining power going into BCH and decide spamming the network. effectively you are just putting money from one pocket to another one of your pockets because you find all the blocks and no money would be wasted and it can even be profitable when others start paying higher fees. in some cases you don't even have to broadcast the transactions to the network, you can just inject them in the blocks so you would be the only one picking them up and take the fees.
so in my opinion it will all come down to incentive. spam attack against bitcoin meant 3-5BTC (about $10k last time i checked) profit per block. and i haven't checked the end of the year blocks!

light clients are always less secure. and that future may not be that far away: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/tree/lightning

it wasn't a block size increase though. block size is still 1 MB, but the capacity has increased with SegWit. and it is not a 4x increase, i am still not sure how much it is because i have heard different percentages. some say 80% increase!
but other capacity increase solutions also exist like schnorr and signature aggregation.

Huh, just entered the site. Crazy stuff, very close to the S-word  :o. Here I understand you a bit. Well, at least they offer "Bitcoin Cash" and "Bitcoin Core".

Well, in this case a cryptocurrency is doomed anyway. I still don't understand how spam can be profitable otherwise. There's always a risk the fees go into other miners' pockets.

No, Segwit has increased the maximum block size. The absolute maximum is almost 4MB, however, it is almost impossible to reach it because you needed 100% SegWit transactions of specific kinds.

Jimmy Song wrote a nice article about that:


Full article: https://medium.com/@jimmysong/understanding-segwit-block-size-fd901b87c9d4

The 4 MB can be (almost) reached with complex transactions consisting mostly of witness data (ScriptSig). However, an average Segwit transaction has about half the block weight than a legacy transaction, so most of the blocks will be full at about 2 MB of size (estimations I know are in the range of ~1,7 to ~2,4 MB).

Wrong. Thanks to neutrino (https://github.com/lightninglabs/neutrino), anyone can run a Lightning Network node without setting up a full node. Neutrino is currently available in one of the most popular Lightning Network implementations - LND (https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd). Even Raspberry Pi 3 B+ is powerful enough to handle Bitcoin Core and Lightning Network node at the same time. Storage is the biggest problem in that case.


Block weight would be more appropriate term. Take a look here (https://medium.com/@jimmysong/understanding-segwit-block-size-fd901b87c9d4).

I was referring to Bitcoin Cash + LN in this case, with 32 MB blocks - here a Raspi would be probably a bit underpowered ... Thanks anyway. I had seen neutrino some time ago, but it is warned that it's still experimental (quote: "not recommended to use it with real money"). Is it now stable enough to be used productively?

I linked to this article in my previous post ...  ;) But what I was referring to is that blocks, since Segwit's introduction, definitively can have ("real") sizes of more than 1 MB, up to almost 4MB, but more than 2 MB only in extreme cases.

From my understanding, Lightning Network is an incorporated stage that is worked as a layer from Bitcoin which is decentralized. In the event that lightning system bombs at that point there can be numerous different frameworks that are gone for and the one that works the best will turn into the standard. In the event that you don't care for utilizing a unified stage you can simply adhere to the fundamental chain. The charges may make you not have any desire to however.

Then I believe it would also prove that the Core developers of Bitcoin made the correct design decisions all along. The Bitcoin Cash community did not need to hard fork from the main chain. Bitcoin also does not urgently need bigger blocks now like many of them said 3 years ago.


No latency, block propagation is the real issue, not "more powerful hardware needed".


I agree, a hard fork in Bitcoin is very dangerous. There are too many attackers waiting to take advantage of it.

That is where we differ, BTC does not need it any more (today) because many txs happens on other chains

BCH wants them all in the end, and in such a manner, that there is never such a congestion than we had in 2017 in BTC.

Bitcoin is about electronic financial solution, a system for electronic cash and of electronic store of value if you want to highlight that in a separate sentence...

Anyway - no financial participant is interested in congestion if it come to real live usage - that's a no go for small or big participants.

To keep things up and running as stable and secure as possible AND free of regulation attacks and middlemen - there is only one correct way to go.

KISS

well one solution is more decentralization of mining and more spread of these mining pools so that reduces the risk of them cooperating with each other for evil purposes. but also you should keep in mind that miners are also making profit as long as bitcoin is working healthy and strong. such actions are not just damaging bitcoin, they also damage their long term profitability.

yeah i mainly meant the base size of the block without SegWit. that's the real restriction since we will never have 100% SegWit usage in blocks. just like even after all these years there are still people using uncompressed public keys despite them being double the size.

there is more transactions on altcoins but these aren't bitcoin users going there to use altcoins because bitcoin fees were high temporarily. and merchants didn't suddenly decide lets drop bitcoin and go to unsafe cryptocurrencies that nobody has tested or used for payment before that are getting hacked, 51% attacked,... left and right.
these transaction increase was due to the pumps that occurred last year and nothing else.

checking the merchants they are doing the same thing as before. those that were accepting bitcoin are still doing so, those that had additional options like litecoin still do and those which dropped it like Steam never chose another  cryptocurrency they just exited this scene.

and as i said before nothing is solved on BCH. just having bigger blocks is not preventing congestion and higher fees unless you have unlimited blocks or blocks bigger than 1 TB

yes but first of all it is about a decentralized electronic...

there is no argument about the goal but the way to that goal is important because the consequences of choosing different routs are different. some worse than others. increasing the block size is one of those terrible ways that ends with centralization needing middle men in form of centralized servers running the nodes controlled by certain people opening way for regulation attacks and government interference and censorship.
next thing you know you have to use a VPN to be able to hide your IP when connecting to that node to push your tx because that node is blocking your IP because US ordered them to sanction these IP ranges and they obeyed.

As far as I know lightning network is called to develop the usage of blockchain bitcoin and a lot of regular users will be able to use it more comfortable than before. Miraculous somebody needs to be in charge.

Sure? I've still the Bitfury study (http://bitfury.com/content/5-white-papers-research/block-size-1.1.1.pdf) in mind, where >8MB blocks would need powerful computers with more than 8 GB RAM.  Or has this been debunked? Most computers today still have between 4 and 8 GB, and a LN node with a Raspi has even less.

But anyway, if LN on a light Bitcoin node like Neutrino is secure enough for a full LN node, then the centralization risk I mentioned for a Bcash-based LN does not exist, and I was simply wrong ;)

I'll probably try out Neutrino soon (on testnet) so I at least get an impression how it works.

We had already blocks of more than 2 MB (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7rstsx/the_biggest_block_ever_on_bitcoin_was_mined_today/), if I'm not wrong. While Segwit transactions are far from 100% the percentage is increasing, and the Bitcoin services I use regularly now almost all operate with Segwit addresses.

that thing is too old. here is a better link: https://www.smartbit.com.au/blocks?sort=size&limit=100
so far we have had 17x 2+MB blocks and nearly 100 above 1.5 MB blocks.

I think Lightning Network is not centralized? Because of the idea of the Lightning Network, not all transactions have to be recorded on Blockchain. if not recorded on the blockchain. then how do the block strings validate.
No negation of the use of the Lightning Network makes the cost and transaction time shorten, but more research is needed to ensure that it does not affect the block chain.

Bitcoin is a medium for censorship resistance for me than a "financial solution" for an electronic cash system. It's not an insignificant consumer payments product, but an independent financial system that should be kept secure, efficient and decentralized.

If Bitcoin Cash wants to re-enable and add new OPcodes and increase to unlimited blocks, good. But leave Bitcoin alone. The Core developers have been doing a great job by being conservative and careful.

I do not want to do finger pointing.
Yes core devs have done a good job at most of the time , that is not the issue. Core devs are doing a dev job, so what would anyone expect on top? Wanting to be business developers, requirement engineers, change managers or even operational risk managers?

No, I see now that these things will come to Bitcoin Cash in an industrial manner so that institutions (having exactly same setup internally to mitigate risks) will have only one option to move forward with crypto or none, because SEC will kill any other cryptos soon.

Agree. The Lightning Network as a secondary layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain poses no threat to the cryptocurrency's decentralization whatsoever. If it were to fail, then there would be other layers or sidechains to make Bitcoin scale. The last option available would be the main chain, in case everything fails.

However, I doubt that would be the case since the Lightning Network will improve over time, to become the most decentralized scalable layer for Bitcoin yet. Therefore, I believe that the Lightning Network is the safest way to scale the Bitcoin blockchain, instead of increasing the block size over time which threatens decentralization. Just my opinion :)

Lightning Network is totally decentralized. It uses thousands of lightning nodes and channels to distribute transactions. The nodes are decentralized, no need for trusted third-party. Therefore, LN itself is decentralized.

Due to long transaction verifiation processing time of bitcoin, lightning network is developed. This network processes bitcoin tansactions through its active nodes located around the world. These nodes make the processing time lesser by almost 50%.

But, the question if this network is centralized depends on these active nodes. Are these nodes come from independent miners or from few big companies? That would determine the degree of decentralization of lightning network.

As do I. I see both coins having their own merits. But with Bitcoin having more than Bitcoin Cash. 8)


I do not understand what you mean. Please explain.


But you do not see how Bitcoin Cash is following Ethereum's path to node centralization, scaling their network down? How would that be good for censorship resistance?

Industrial style means scaling in all relevant / needed aspects. It is not about to runnig just more raspis - not if you want to leave the nichy romantics of BTC, sorry.

You need to see how the fintecs - not only big payment processors- scale, that's a different world and decentralization will be there as well, just under big guys - not little home users. I understand all the ranting Lukes - but world is changing and the result will be cheap cash for all.

Coding is just a very minor part in that. Its about hard product delivery and stability for world wide usage. No games and tries with unready insecure LN and 2nd layers.

And no, Bitcoin Cash cannot be compared to ETH - it's main task is cheap cash - not full retarded smart contracts coded in script langs.
BCH will enable ICOs in a different way now (see the Wormhole project or others), that needs some PoW from token emitters - not getting on-chain security for free. (That's my hope), and also forces emitters to check the laws, since only Bitcoin  on-chain will be SEC compliant.

LN and ICOs will get a hefty hit now here: https://news.bitcoin.com/us-government-to-aggressively-pursue-unregulated-services-around-the-world, and I expect more things hitting the romantic soon .

There's a mathmetical measure for "decentralization", you can't tell how exactly centralized it is by looking.

Obviously, to be exact, one would have to calculate a number.

However, it is trivial to observe qualitatively that the network is quite centralized, and this is only the larval form. If a meaningful amount of capital was actually involved, it would be much more centralized.

There is a good analogon in physics. A  3 body problem is just solvable (very hard!)  - not  a  4 body problem!

And the BFT threshold of 33%

So having 4+ (equally) independent actors  is a good start.


And pls lookup Nash Equilibrium

However, it is trivial to observe qualitatively that the network is quite centralized, and this is only the larval form. If a meaningful amount of capital was actually involved, it would be much more centralized.

Having a huge block size is very bad for any cryptocurrency nowadays. It increases the level of spam attacks on the network and increases centralization as storage and bandwidth costs increase over time. As such, less nodes would be able to maintain the network, as most people won't be able to cover such high costs. The real deal, as you said earlier, is the verification process.

But the design decision that the Bitcoin Core developers took is for the network to scale up, not scale down. If as much as possible they can make Bitcoin Core software run in the slowest of computers without giving away performance, then they will.


Censorship resistance is the goal, decentralization and security are the means. The goal is not to compete against Fintech.


No one said that Lightning will be the winning solution, but what did the big blocks, on-chain scaling in Bitcoin Cash bring?


You did not understand. What I was telling you is Bitcoin Cash is following Ethereum in node centralization because of blockchain bloat.


I will not read anything that comes from that site. It is either Roger Ver's propaganda or biased opinion.

nope, Lightning network is not centralized, according to the white-paper.

Not compete - use their tech and knowledge to be fast & save on network level.

There is no measure for decentralization, but there is open competition and the Nash Equilibrium - fine for having 'enough' of it.

> Bitcoin runs about 10 years with that setup, no matter to change that ( try to abstract size, as done in fractal search and you see that 'many' big data-centers looks similar to 'many' small nodes)


Steady bespoke & trusted low fees for ever - way enough excess capacity to on-board lots of businesses, looking for plan-ability and no further future congestions.


A bloating for cash TX is not same as for smart contracts - but anyhow see my comment on node sizes I expect for BCH.


This source is providing all sorts of news, it is not an echo-chamber.  Feel free to execute your right to freedom of choice.

 ;)

But we should always remember that data-centers or the "cloud" will always be someone else's computer, not yours that you, yourself control.


Forever? Do you believe that 32mb of space would be enough if, by an act of the Lord Jesus, Bitcoin Cash becomes a world reserve currency? If not, then it hard forks again?


If Bitcoin Cash blocks become as big as Ethereum blocks and usage increases you don't believe that the blockchain's size will increase exponentially? How would bigger blocks help in block propagation? The nodes using slower bandwidth and weaker machines will have a very bad time keeping up syncing with the rest of the network. Ethereum users are already a victim of this.


Freedom of choice is good but if the other choice is propaganda without a good technical argument then why should we listen to it?

Hmm, the ability to tell reality from fantasy is paramount in keeping your ass out of jail.
That is a good reason IMO.   :)

I already warned you here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3378014.msg40421240#msg40421240


This speech is FinCEN Director Kenneth A. Blanco : https://www.fincen.gov/news/speeches/prepared-remarks-fincen-director-kenneth-blanco-delivered-2018-chicago-kent-block


All he is doing is confirming what I already told you would happen.
Now good luck seeing that this is reality not fantasy.  :)

Propaganda is everywhere - even here ;)

Technical stuff  is there to help us to be more efficient - no matter who gives it to you. If you think you need to run your own little node to keep entire Bitcoin System secure, I say you are victim of propaganda already.

There is no ideal solution - but simple solutions are good to be adopted and easy to scale. If many others doing that safely for majority of small guys like us - that's the better way imo.

If you feel you need to 'participate' to make it more secure, think big and show your human PoW -> make Bitcoin easy usable for all,  so that with a few small users some bigger come in running the expensive stuff for the smaller -  but be humble and try to see that you cannot help much a high-tech network to scale with small nodes.

That is another one of your propaganda. That does not scare anyone.


But how was the different from a regular on-chain transaction? He clearly said that you will be caught if Bitcoins are exchanged to fiat or physical items. Good luck to that because the Lightning Network helps in making our transactions more private. 8)


Go report Lightning to the FBI, and good luck in YOUR fantasy.

@Wind_Fury

LOL, there really is no hope for you.

Enjoy your orange jumpsuit.   :D

Later.

No hope for me, for what? To dump Bitcoin, buy the altcoin Bitcoin Cash, and then start following it and support Roger Ver, Craig Wright, and Jihan Wu that it is "the real Bitcoin"? No thank you. I will be fine wearing my orange jumpsuit.

Honestly, to date I still don't understand about the character of Lightning-Network, Is it Centralized or Decentralized? But I have heard, that Lightning-Network is very good to implement especially for transaction purposes. By utilizing Lightning-Network, reportedly can carry out transactions with the cost of ZERO (but whether or not it's true or not). And I also heard the bad news, that by utilizing the Lightning Network it was rumored that it could damage the bitcoin ecosystem (this too, I didn't know the truth).

YOu explained it so simply, and straight to the point. best answer so far.

I have been perusing and concentrate a considerable measure about this thing. Lightning system usage sounds a smart thought to everybody as it can spare high exchange expenses. In any case, since the two gatherings straightforwardly execute with each other then I can state that it is a brought together in that way. There are still inquiries that are flying up in my mind like there are as yet expected weaknesses that may understanding, at that point how might we settle that issue?

From my understanding, Lightning Network is a unified stage that is worked as a layer from Bitcoin which is decentralized. On the off chance that lightning system flops at that point there can be numerous different frameworks that are gone for and the one that works the best will turn into the standard. In the event that you don't care for utilizing a concentrated stage you can simply adhere to the principle chain. The charges may make you not have any desire to however.

I think lightning system is centralization, since this lightning system is a product that isn't a piece of blockchain framework, yet in the event that bitcoin convention applies lightning system, it can incorporate worldwide money related exchange volume speedier, and less expensive cost.

as I would see it the key is in "who can run a lightning hub/center point?" as long as it is anyone who needs (which is the situation and now there is motivator to run a hub) at that point I don't perceive any sort of centralization in this. you are as yet associating with a distributed system and making an exchange on it. much the same as some other p2p organize there might be peers by banks, government, shady individuals, ordinary people,... yet, the good thing that I comprehend about LN is that the handing-off hubs don't think about the birthplace and goal of the exchanges they get, they simply pass it along and know it doesn't have a place with them.

I also have difficulty following this debate regarding centralized vs decentralized. But since there are some people with deep knowledge maybe someone can explain what seems to be the problem with adoption. The last time I read an update about lightning there were only a few vendors that had it implemented. Is that such a hurdle from a technical point of view or what seems to be the slow adoption?

Do not question the work of a fully decentralized or fully centralized system. This is the choice between off-network private transactions and off-network second-level transactions with a system that does not require trust.

That's the multi-million-dollar question. The level of decentralization of the Lightning Network will depend on how many independent nodes there would be worldwide. Because if many nodes are dominated by a single company, then the LN would be effectively centralized. However, if it's easy and cheap to open/close a channel at will, then anyone could participate as a node for the Lightning Network, making it a decentralized scalable solution for Bitcoin.

There's still a long way to go before the LN becomes stable and practical for the mainstream world. Thus, I believe that it's too early to determine whenever the Lightning Network is centralized or not. Improvements will come along the way, and adoption will spread across the world for sure. Therefore, if successful, Bitcoin could've reached a major milestone in scalability. Just my opinion :)

It is just an extension for people to used Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency in the market. It would support the system of Bitcoin by introducing it form many people and it might help for the development and the further improvement of the system of Bitcoin in terms of transaction and dealing with investments.

I think it is centralized, otherwise how can I protect multiple transactions? so we're back to centralization again

the same arguments can be made about bitcoin nodes! on this network if we have more nodes run by individuals from different parts of the world, as spreed wide as possible, then we have a more decentralized network. and if we have more centralized nodes run by corporations it will be more centralized.

but LN has the benefit that you have the possibility to now earn something from running a node! before this you just ran a bitcoin node if you wanted to contribute to the network and benefit from having a full verifying node. but now if you run an LN node you can buy some small amount of satoshi. so i guess we can say if bitcoin nodes are decentralized LN nodes will be too, even more because of the incentive.

If Lightning is centralized then who controls the network? Is there third party trust needed to join the network? Are there centralized hubs that you must join to enter the network? No.

I don't know much about the LN but I believe it can make bitcoin transaction even faster than ever before. and can hold much transaction.

Indeed it's decentralized and this is what we need right now especially transactions are taking too long. And with the lightning network transactions will be measured in milliseconds.

OP's concern is the node and lightning network depend on its underlying technology. The nodes are the one who will just confirm the transaction and it doesn't directly affect to lightning network to be a decentralized one.

Currently, it is much easier to take over the network since there aren't many channels. In the future, it will be more difficult for a single person to route most of the Lightning Network transactions because the number of existing nodes will be huge. If someone wanted to disrupt the network, they would have to offer incredibly small fees. Capital won't matter since multi-path payments may be available by that time. Recently, a large node has been shut down by its owner. It affected a few users but it wasn't disastrous.

That's certainly true, mate. I believe that the incentive inherent within LN nodes would contribute towards a more robust and decentralized system for the enjoyment of all. This is somewhat similar to Dash's masternodes feature, where individuals receive a reward if they're able to keep the node alive and running. On the other hand, Zencash has nearly the same proposition, where people running secure nodes are incentivized which has contributed to greater decentralization within the network.

If such model becomes successful in the LN, then without doubt it will become the most decentralized scalable solution to date. With Channel Factories, Watchtowers, Atomic Swaps, and more, the LN will make Bitcoin great again. Probably, this could be the end of altcoins as we know it, since Bitcoin would be capable of processing millions of TPS at near-free costs without much effort.

Nevertheless, the much-awaited LN will bring lots of excitement to Bitcoiners worldwide. Just my thoughts ;D

In my opinion the key is in "who can run a lightning node/hub?" as long as it is anybody who wants (which is the case and now there is incentive to run a node) then i don't see any kind of centralization in this. you are still connecting to a peer to peer network and making a transaction on it. just like any other p2p network there may be peers by banks, government, shady people, normal people,... but the good thing that i understand about LN is that the relaying nodes don't know about the origin and destination of the transactions they receive, they just pass it along and know it doesn't belong to them.

I think that LN is just a way of making the bitcoin transaction faster that what it was today because of it's feature there is no way it could be centralized since it is in bitcoin

We all are ware with this decentralised nature of bitcoin as we all know that there is no such proper authentic regulating body over bitcoin who could keep eye over all the bitcoin activities and specifically the illegal one and thus leading to illegal use like in selling drugs, explosives, money laundering etc and next thing bitcoin transactions does not involve any third party seizure so no third person has the right to see the transaction between the two and thus some social defaulters misuse it and use bitcoin for illegal purposes and this is the most probable reason why bitcoin is decentralised in many countries.

Bitcoin on-chain transactions are not anonymous. Anyone can use a block explorer to view address balance and incoming/outgoing payments. There is no such things as a block explorer for the Lightning Network since there are no blocks. Nodes which take part in the payment routing are the only ones who know about the ongoing transaction.

Next time read what you have wrote before posting. It was difficult to understand what you were trying to say and it wasn't related to your quote.

Indeed. The Lightning Network would make Bitcoin near-instant with the lowest costs possible. In contrast to most scalable solutions available today, (such as increasing the block size or even using DPoS) I believe that the Lightning Network is the most decentralized approach yet towards scaling Bitcoin to a large mass. The upcoming features will not only make Bitcoin faster and cheaper than ever, but also much more flexible when it comes to trading Bitcoin to another cryptocurrency via the use of Atomic Swaps. Once the Lightning Network goes full steam ahead, then such feature could prove to be even better than existing decentralized exchanges.

Aside from that, even if the Lightning Network were to fail, it wouldn’t be of any harm to the Bitcoin blockchain since it’s a second layer solution. Off-chain payments would obtain the security of the Bitcoin blockchain but without sacrificing its decentralization. As such, the failure of the LN would have no impact on Bitcoin whatsoever, as transactions could operate as intended within the main chain.

Therefore, the Lightning Network is the most decentralized approach to scaling yet, but it may need some time before it becomes stable enough for mainstream use. Just my thoughts ;D

The Drivechain approach - Paul Sztorc and his team released a first test version in September (http://www.drivechain.info/blog/first-release/) - is similarly decentralized and can scale to hundreds of millions or even billions of users as lots of "drivechains" could be created and the impact on the main chain would be minimal. It would likely not provide "instant payments", but has other advantages - for example, both nodes don't have to be online together, and there is no trust involved (only in miners). There will be always trade-offs.

I believe both LN and "drivechains" can coexist peacefully. If BTC gets billions of users, then both solutions would be needed.  LN could handle instant micropayments, and "drivechains" larger payments where "instantness" isn't as important.

(LN maximalists' protest incoming ... 3... 2... 1.... ;D )

but there are things such as lightning explorers
they reveal many things, balances per channel, who the nodes connect to. they actually reveal alot more then the bitcoin block explorer does about individuals

its quite funny how much stats you can get out of lightning about a particular node. but you cant get node information out of a block explorer.

using the node information you can see what node just signed some funds and which other node it got attributed to
so have fun looking at lightning network stats/visualisations.

Actually, you are right. 1ML.com (http://1ml.com) is an example of such explorer. However, it is possible to open a private channel which is only known to nodes which maintain it. Such channel is excluded from routing outside payments since other nodes don't know that it exists. LND allows their users to open a private channel by adding --private parameter while opening a channel. I guess it's only useful for people who often trade between themselves and don't wont other people to interrupt.

i can also without LN make private payments. yep you dont need LN nodes.
people have been using multisig for years and doing things privately.
many exchanges have had multisig reserves between themselves for years without LN and without needing to broadcast every trade to a blockchain

people have actually done physical bitcoin trades (paper wallet and casascius coins) without needing to broadcast to a blockchain

in 2012-2013 i remember arbitraging between mtgox, btc-e and bitstamp without seeing bitcoin broadcast onchain

But that should not suggest that layered protocols for Bitcoin should never be explored. If the Lightning Network fails then it fails. What should matter is the base layer, it should remain censorship resistant, secure, and immutable, not taking risks like this,
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DpzX_C2XUAEXHHz.jpg

Maybe you should start working for a risk dept in a bigger institution first - than you learn what it means and what to do about.

But thx that you brought up that very good point!

That's certainly true, mate. Those Lightning explorers disclose more information than block explorers themselves. As such, third parties would be able to see LN node information, which I believe it's a huge privacy risk. This can be used by governments to quickly track a LN node's payments and reveal the person routing those transactions. Of course, many transactions are routed by a LN node, but knowing specific information about the node, would pose a risk to the person running it as the government could easily track him and take the necessary actions against him.

However, I don't think that's something to be concerned about right now, since the LN is as decentralized as it could be. Various nodes distributed across diverse geographical locations, would make it nearly impossible to shut down by the government. Therefore, if a specific node gets shut down by the government, there will always exist other nodes available for users to route transactions. Just my thoughts ;D

oh here we go again
calling lightning a bitcoin feature but using the term "layer"
you might aswell call ripple a bitcoin layer. or circle.com a bitcoin layer
whats next re introduce NXT as bitcoin2.0

.. and then for no reason at all you introduce a random tweet from a nobody talking about a different altcoin.......
seens you really have ran down the rabbit hole of not letting people talk about the reality of lightning and to keep trying to meander the topic into a point finger at bitcoin cash..

so here goes, bitcoin cash is a separate network that does not affect anything. so why bring it up.... oh yea thats it.. 3 years of the astroturfing tactic of meandering topics..
thats a boring well known and failed tactic. to distract the conversation away from talking about real flaws by trying to make it into a bch btc social drama
(do i need to remind you of the kardashian drama trick)

how about realise that LN is not a bitcoin sole feature. it was not designed for bitcoin.. bitcoin actually had to be changed to fit LN, not the other way round

LN asks for the chain hash of which chain to monitor because its a separate network for many coins.
the network is not centralised. but the channels and funds will become centralised. learn about factories
and right now the codebase seems to be coded by the same group that were salivating over blockstream

Meaning what? That the risks of that on the whole system itself are imaginary?


Can you explain how they each work, and how they are the same? I am confused. 8)


The point of showing that random tweet is, "what should matter is the base layer, it should remain censorship resistant, secure, and immutable", that makes a debate for off-chain layers.

Did you not argue that on-chain scaling is the way because Bitcoin is supposed to be "peer to peer cash"?

Yes, here we go again.   :-\

It's a perfectly fair comparison to make when you keep trying to turn BTC into BCH.  You're the one bringing it up each and every time you obnoxiously declare that we should be doing things like other coins are doing.  There is already a chain that have placed the sole focus towards on-chain scaling.  This chain isn't doing that.  There is no point in having two chains both following a similar roadmap.  That would be redundant.  It's better to try divergent paths and then see which one turns out to be correct.  My bet is on the BTC chain, supported by Lightning.  You place your bets wherever you want.  Whether you call Lightning a "layer" or something else entirely, doesn't change the fact that this is what we're doing.  You don't have to like it, you don't have to use it, but STFU if you think you can stop it.  None of your weasel-words can change what is already set in motion.

If BTC users eventually decide they want more on-chain scaling, then that's what will happen.  Until then, you need to accept that, on the whole, they don't want more on-chain scaling right now.  Consensus has been reached no matter how much you cry foul on exactly how that came about. 



How about realise that we already know that.  You talk as though you're revealing some sort of greater truth to us, like we're total simpletons who don't get it.  We know what we're doing.  It's what we want to do.  You're the one who doesn't get it.  You think that just because you want to do something else, we can't do what we've already started doing.  The onus is on you to forge your own path if you can't reconcile your differences with us.  We are many, you are few.  You can tell us we're wrong all you like, but you can't stop us, so your words are falling on deaf ears because you can't come up with a convincing argument.

If the bitcoin transaction is centered, it will return to the government policy that has been carried out, where there are regulations issued by the central bank that make the owner of bitcoin no different from the owner of fiat money. For the government, it is good because there is monitoring, and trying to find an agreement to be able to collect taxes.

In my opinion bitcoin clearly implements a decentralized system, because indeed its main purpose is to divide the server from centralized to each computer with the aim of minimizing fraud and inefficiency.