lets add my 3bits to this

1. visa does NOT store bank balance information on its servers and does not fully process a payment in seconds. here in the UK a bank branch has a sort code(americans have route numbers). what visa does is asks the bank branch server for a balance to ensure customer can fund the payment. and then tells the bank to put the funds on hold. it is then the bank that actually does the payment processing/fund movements

visa's operation is basically the unconfirms tx relay. letting a peer check balance and check the authorisation(signature) is valid..
so with fibre being available i can easily push through 24,000tx's to another node

2. even checking out visa info
"With Visa, you can scale your business to conduct speedy transactions in person or online, knowing the world's largest retail electronic payments processing network is behind you. VisaNet handles an average of 150 million transactions every day"

150m/24= 6,250,000per hour
6.25m/60=104166.6666666667 per minute
1736.111111111 per second

yep averages 1,736 TPS

3. also adding to point one about visa not making a settled payment....., the visa network is not one network
each country has their own separate entity (like a side chain) this is how america pretty much said for visa to stopworking within russia. because visa has a separate network for russia.
so adding it up may look big as in nearly 900million card holders world wide doing 150mill tx's a day..
but thats like saying bitcoin core bitcoin cash bitcoin gold can handle a dozen megabytes of data every ~10minutes by saying they are "all bitcoin"

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"

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

sorry about my previous post, i needed a rant.
but to answer OP

I.T professionals that know the buzzwords, will have an upper hand. after all they can understand "cryptographic" "decentralised" "peer to peer" instantly. where as average joe would need about an hour of youtube videos to get through the buzzwords and then hours and hours translating many things.

but with that said. right now. there are becoming more jobs available in the community that are not techy.
exchange corporate offices hiring cleaners, staff lunch room cooks. leaflet delivery guys. conferance ticket checkers. delivery guys, even some conferences have "bikini babes" walking up and down the sections.

bitcoin is moving beyond the technical.. and into the domestic/consumer arena. and so the possibilities are widening..
howver if you want to be DEEPly involved in bitcoin. then yes knowing the technicals helps, which is faster to learn if you already have a IT / technical mindset

let me just butt-in to clarify things in regards to the danny hamilton vs anti-cen debate about LN
FTFY anti-cen because danny hates it unless people use the correct buzzwords (buzzwords that are meaningless to average joe i might add) which is where some of this community fail to understand that making up new buzzwords to sound cool actually causes more issues than helps.. as proven by this topic and dannys instant reaction to attack someone for not being technical enough with the buzzwording..

it is especially brutal when not using the right buzzword danny and others then argues too much on the bad use of buzzwords rather then the underlying issue your trying to communicate.
but atleast there are some people that can think out side of the box to know what is trying to be said

anyway..
lets rebuttle some of danny's comments

so now people are suppose to do due diligence and KYC who they connect to.. i call that a barrier to routing
i guess LN's "auto pilot" is less than auto.
seems all of LN's promises of limitless fast, cheap, barrierless promises start falling apart.
(as ill explain a few of those fallings apart if you keep reading)

yes its open source.. it is soo open source infact, that the hubs('banks') can tweak their personal node to have the upper hand...
after all. in any contract. whoever signs first is usually the one that has more to lose/will get treated worse

a hub could set it so the user signs first. and thus the hub 'could' refuses to sign their part.. forcing the user to send a stale tx because its the only fully signed tx they have..
to which the hub then signs the new tx (the new one the user signed but hub refused to show sig), hub broadcasts it. just to get to CSV revoke the users (stale)tx so that the hub can take the collateral

offchain is full of flaws.. after all.. the whole purpose of blockchain is that thousands of people audit and no single point of attack.. but in LN there is no community audit. its just you vs the hub while inchannel. so they can mess with you, (and yes you can mess with them).

danny can you not remember many years ago. lesson one of why bitcoin and blockchain was so revolutionary in the concept of currency. come on think about it.. if transactions could be trusted peer to peer without a blockchain. without miners. without decentralised checks.. there would be no need for bitcoin..

i beg to differ..
ill link you an image.. and here is a hint
purple, red, green and orange are all 1 person(1 person, 4 nodes) attacking blue to double their money.
https://i.imgur.com/9FMMkdK.png
and as you will see it is possible to rob people, simple by using LN's biggest feature against people

wow danny.. i can see anti-cen may not have the linguistics perfect. but your missing the context just to be a grammar nazi

and i feel anti-cens point is.. if they are taken out. then all the linked users ar then made to close channels and open new channels.
meaning:
1. sudden onchain mempool growth of users broadcasting tx's of a hub that had hundreds of channels that are redundant but have FUNDS IN THEM
- hint its not a simple, as you put it 'nothing'.. meaning you think "oh well lets move on in 0.01seconds... no harm, no loss no foul, no delay"
 
2. users having to pay onchain fee's to close and open fresh channels with a different hub to move the funds from the redundant channel to the new channel
3. imagine a DDoSer purposefully attacking the most popular hubs. as soon as they are taken down. it moves onto the next popular one
its not a split second operation to close a channel and then open a new FUNDED one.. (yes i said funded, meaning onchain delays/costs)

and to pre-empt obvious rebuttles
yes nodes will already have more than one channel open. but in a network of say 1 million users. having 2-3 routes is not enough for a hop model to b "well connected". thus having 30-100 channels open is not cheap or easy for avrage joe. (EG if someone only wants to risk $60 in LN then each channel would only have $0.60-$2 in it) meaning it limits spending per route. thus again hop model doesnt work

so thats where banker hubs get established where users only have 1-2 channels where one of them is a central hub(bank) that way users risking $60 only have to split $30 between them and the bank and them and another friend/relative/person. to allow a bit of 'play' in a differnt direction(route)

pre-empt obvious rebuttle
i guess the next empty reply is that not all channels need funding upfront. and you'll probably say nodes will set up 30-100 channels unfunded and only fund them when they need to spend funds in that particular route.
well ask yourself where do the funds come from.. oh yea onchain transactions.

oh and lets not forget that if connecting to another node unfunded then it opens up DDoS risks to occur without penalty because there is no funds at risk for the attacker..
which brings me onto the other problem. needing an entrance fee(yes LN devs have this concept) of needing to be funded to then lay out penalty fee's and also to know how much the channel participants can/wish to reserve for themselves and also to use for routing of others, etc which all dips into the $60 a average joe might want to risk in LN

(P.S i have run many scenarios, far beyond the devs. who have only ran basic "do they connect" tests.. not real world lifestyle/usage in the real world scenarios.. and yes the devs do not give a crap about costs/how often channels need to close and open. they will just blame users for not cautiously learning for themselves or depositing too much/to little or other excuses about how users themselves decided x,y,z so problems are not devs fault.)

afterall someone point out a flaw. and the reply was "*Why isn't it your fault?  Take some personal responsibility for your actions."

im guessing you initially deposited 2btc.. and then decided you wanted to deposit another 1.5btc and got informed that the 1.5btc payment was not recognised.

if so:
this is usually because some services dont offer a address-reuse on deposits. meaning every time you want to deposit you need to generate a fresh deposit address.

the message you got that it was not recognised is probably an automated message. you would need to contact their support system and get them to check their USED addresses to then credit your account with the 1.5btc

and then remember to refresh and use a new address for every deposit to avoid their crappy system glitching

i could be totally wrong. but from the limited info in the OP and seing similar stories in the past with similar advice given as to the solution. its as best as i can offr as advice from what i can see

this is a good start above. but some websites store passwords in cleartext. so if you went to a phishing site of your email providor and used
myemail_blah_123
they can then get into your email. find out who your bank is with and then realise that your banks password might be
mybank_blah_123

instead have the easy reminder for your brain.. but then HASH the reminder before using on the website
so when you set your password for your email you use the hash
255a702d1e3df60f4a0db118c4ecf77f
now a phishing site wont know that your brain can easily remember how it got to that hash. nor can it work out instantly what your other passwords will be, because they are unique to each site

for instance
myemail_blah_123: 255a702d1e3df60f4a0db118c4ecf77f
mybank_blah_123 : 68a6eca313bd2d3fb147e958fcc32b07
myebay_blah_123 : f44c5b0991d8913ad2ac0f338698ae0d

nope

physics
bitcoin needs the internet. if bitcoin was to become bigger than the internet then it would end up utilising every website, every IP and a new international communications platform would be needed to cope with bitcoins communication overflow.
also not everyone with the internet will have bitcoins.

bitcoin can become bigger than many services that utilise the internet.

analogy
you cannot have a bedroom thats bigger then the house its built within.. however it can be the biggest bedroom in the house

they are not insured.. first lie of the website

they have measured their ICO funding in ££ yet have not seeked/checked with FCA about the details of such. even if they accepted poker chips, or bitcoins or beanie babies or even milk bottle caps they would still be bound by some FCA rules because they are 1. uk based and 2. displaying their fundraising in ££
(this is why facebook games use X gems/credits and not even mention its going to cost ££ when games want people to buy ingame things)
yes its a real thing. mention ££(even if not personally handing real uk money, your still stuck in a hole of complience)

they are not FCA complient.. as explained just one flaw above but there are others.
(offering an ICO is not as simple as do what the hell you like because YOU believe no one will chase you. simply with the foolish notion that other scammers think the same thing.. there are some complience issues beyond your narrow minded thoughts)

their policy is a script kiddie copy and paste job.. not a bespoke policy wrote spcifically for gryphon (shows lack of legal advice)

their policy literally tries to make it appear that if gryphon run off in the usual "we ben hacked but are secretly running off with your money" scam that they cannot be held responsible. but reality is they would be responsible (mark kerpeles learned this the hard way, as did trendon shavers and many others)

the reason im highlighting gryphon specifically is because i as a fellow brit done alot of positive work to get bitcoin established in the UK and i would hate to see UK media screaming out bad press when scammers run off with peoples funds, undoing the positive hard work many people do.
so yea whn i see such an obvious threat. im gonna speak up on it before it happens to warn people

so many narrow minded people.. cant see beyond their brown nose

look at the big picture
here is the arguement
"OMG team 2 wants to use the brand bitcoin.. lets report/ban/lawsuit  them so we hand the brand to team one"
cant you even see the reverse psychology of the propaganda finger pointing..

you fools are playing right into the hands of centralising bitcoin into one team.

look beyond the which team should own bitcoin. and remember NO TEAM should own bitcoin.

bitcoin should have NO central point
bitcoin should have Nothing to be attacked because there is no single point

but by you defending core and declaring core the central point, by saying core should own bitcoin you are not keeping the community decentralised.

the reality is. if your storing a blockchain that goes all the way back to satoshi's genesis block of 2009 everyone is bitcoin.
 
now accept no single team owns the brand because no team should. thats what decentralisation is
so there exists bitcoin cash
so there exists bitcoin core

future conversations will be like
we accept dollars... "is that US or canadian"
we accept bitcoin.. "is that core or cash"

the US wont sue australia to make australia stop using "dollar"
the US wont sue canada to make canada stop using "dollar"

think with a rational decentralised mindset. stop thinking about protecting the core team

if you are looking for patterns or trends. you will see that the first big rise of 2013 occured not due to block reward changes. but due to the advent(creation) of ASICS. this happened in october 2013.. then mtgox 'hacked' drama killed that surge a few months later..

if you are looking for patterns or trends. you will see that the next big rise of 2017 occured not due to block reward changes. but due to the advent(creation) of forking the chains after core couldnt accept that they only had 35% vote on segwit. this happened around march/april 2017
(the december 2016 surge to mini sruge from 700-1200 and then drop was the initial segwit bip propaganda.. but died off in january when it only maxed 30%)

critique:

1. bitcoin supply of 21m is not an issue. infact there are at code level 2.1 quadrillion units of measure. called sats. many people have said a unit of measure called bits(100 sats) would result in 21 trillion units of measure. which would be ok as a global medium of exchange unit.
EG 1bit ~ $1   1sat ~ 1 cent
if you think of bitcoin as "$1mill" or a tonne of gold.. and then think of bit as $1 or a gram of gold. you start to see that there is enough units of measure to go around

2. exchange markets are not influenced by the entire coins of circulation. or by the coins produced by a block.. the exchange markets are influenced by the amount of coins that had been voluntarily deposited on an exchange and then user chosed as to how much to put on a order line.
.
to explain further. even if we halted bitcoin production right now at ~17m coins. the markets will still fluctuate. one day an exchange may have 200k coins depositied but the volume per order line might only be 0.0001btc per price spread. meaning its very easy to move the price by just buying 0.0001btc. where as another day ach order line/price difference had 1btc per line. meaning it cost alot to move the price.
. then another day thier might only be 50k deposited because people are holding.. but again inside the exchange the orderlines could be thick or thin.

so in short. production does not control market suply/demand. for the simple reason that the current ~17m coins are not all locked into exchanges to be treated as 'supply' and not all coins that are deposited are sat on order lines.

3. though code/mechanics of economics cannot control markets. i understand your belief of your ida is more about persuading the emotions of trader speculation by hoping inflating/deflating mining rewards will affct their emotions.. but i cant see it happening beyond the first month. and then after that i would then see miners abusing the system to 1 month get thousands of coins. to then. get the price to drop.. to buy even more coins cheaply. to cause a price rise. then when the rewards slow down. they mass-sellof at a high. and they repeat this. causing constant waves bi-monthly

summary
i dont think its a solution to a stable market.

bitcoin knots is just a sheep node. made by a core member to pretend that there are other choices. but all knots offers is GUI changes, but will never be used as a decentralised choice of a consensus rule chance(upgrade) to oppose core.

core control the rules.

as for the brand name bitcoin.
NO ONE owns the brand name.. thats the whole point of decentralisation. so pretending that bitcoin core should own the brand name is like america arguing that australia should never say that australians use the dollar.. like america saying that canadians should never use the dollar. and that the only real dollar is the american dollar and all other dollars are fake and not to be trusted.

"dollar" is not owned by any country
"bitcoin" is not owned by any team

some argue this
(a)             _________   1
__________/_________   2

some argue this
(b)
____________________  1
               \__________  2

reality is this
(c)
                __________ 1
_________/
              \___________ 2

silly sheeppeople that want to defend a central team are fighting A and B
1 'we are the bitcoin
2 no we are the bitcoin

the reality is everyone is bitcoin. now accept no single team owns the brand because no team should. thats what decentralisation is
so 1 your bitcoin cash
so 2 your bitcoin core

future conversations will be like
we accept dollars... "is that US or canadian"
we accept bitcoin.. "is that core or cash"

america does not solely own the dollar
core does not solely own bitcoin

now get on with your lives

do yourself a favour
take an amount of money you would normally waste on fast food or a t-shirt you would only wear once.. and by bitcoin whenevr you have an investmnt itch that needs to be scratched.

remmber the money that would have been used on fast food would have just ended up in the toilet after ~6 hours of digesting the food.
so by investing instead of digesting.. you dont have to worry about losing it if the prices change. atleast that money isnt in the toilet

nope
thats a crypto website, misquoting a reuters website, misquoting a IRNA website, misquoting a memo it received from CBI

BANKS cannot trade crypto

no where did the circular mention citizens or businesses

EG BANKS cannot trade beanie babies. thats why you dont se beanie babies being sold in a bank.. it does not mean beanie babies are banned from bing sold or bought by businesses or citizens..

please read beyond the title of a topic and understand the wording of the actual "news".
its nothing to worry about and just a reminder that BANKS will not have a bitcoin ATM, or a beanie baby or a tobacco stand inside a bank branch. all they can handle/trade is fiat.

the sooner this community stop just reading titles of topics and creating fud. by actually understanding the real details. the sooner the fud calms down and stops circulating and things go back to usual

they are not banning it.
stop reading titles/headlines and reacting.. learn to research

its a reminder that banks themselves cannot handle crypto directly. just like you wont find beanie babies, tobacco, or socks bing sold in a bank.. its standard memo remindr about something that banks cannot and never have been able to do..

however
private businesses and citizens can use crypto

speculators:

every day there are new speculator topics created by people with less than 250 activity, always muttering the same thing. about how other people need to get in or adopt bitcoin fast

will you please realise one thing.
you are trying to preach to the converted. there is no need for it. people on this forum already know of bitcoin.. its why they are on this forum (obviously)

its much like a preacher sitting in a church knowing everyone who attends church has some pre knowledge of religion. but the preacher still pretends people know nothing and needs to become religious

the majority of readers probably know more then you newbie speculators and understand that your just trying to pump so that you speculators can exit with fiat profits.. we get it. we understand your fiat greed and motives. but just understand this.

screaming at a bowl of baked beans that it needs more beans. wont make more beans happen. you need to go get some beans from ELSEWHERE and bring them to the bowl.

again,
if you want more beans. go out beyond this forum and go get more beans

its basically a memo/reminder

that banks cannot directly handly crypto.. just like they cannot directly handly beanie babies, or tobacco.. the only thing banks can directly handle is FIAT..

standard memo, no law change. its just a reminder.
it does not affect private businesses or citizens.. iranian people can still handle bitcoin. but you will not be seeing a bitcoin ATM or a beanie baby vending machine in a iranian bank branch

so relax folks. its not FUD news nor fake news. its just a reminder of standard practice that has been going on for decades

speculators:

every day there are new speculator topics created by people with less than 250 activity, always muttering the same thing. about how other people need to get in or adopt bitcoin fast

will you please realise one thing.
you are trying to preach to the converted. there is no need for it. people on this forum already know of bitcoin.. its why they are on this forum (obviously)

its much like a preacher sitting in a church knowing everyone who attends church has some pre knowledge of religion. but the preacher still pretends people know nothing and needs to become religious

the majority of readers probably know more then you newbie speculators and understand that your just trying to pump so that you speculators can exit with fiat profits.. we get it. we understand your fiat greed and motives. but just understand this.

screaming at a bowl of baked beans that it needs more beans. wont make more beans happen. you need to go get some beans from ELSEWHERE and bring them to the bowl.

again,
if you want more beans. go out beyond this forum and go get more beans