I find myself having to agree with you, well presented argument but "proof a-b-c-" is just a basis for "Trust" and this runs
against the manter here about "Trustless" network.

PoW is not so bad if it's useful work and not just 20,000 nodes clogging up the CPU and network but that's not whats happening with Bitcoin
but what is happening is CPU-Wars have been created and that only keep Intel rich and the miners competing against each other.

What might had been acceptable if we only had the 1000 miners we needed to maintain the network does
not work when you have 20,000 of more or them and lets save the none debate about the 51% attack

Good point and most home users (Not miners) would not know how to port forward the router so I let nodes connect to a program that
I am working on and then reverse the direction and keep the connection open so that they become useful and not just parasites to the network


These numbers are not bad and you can use QoS in some routers to limit the traffic if you needed too
but on larger systems (100m nodes) network chatter really does become a killer without a degree of
centralization but few people here are prepared to accept this conclusion that "free for all" has it's limitations. 

Yes we had that option with some wallets on BTC but if you didn't pay the crazy fees demanded then your money went
walk about for days so lets forget about "Market Forces" and "Competition" between miners because clearly it was not working
and the reason is because ten big mining pools account for 90% of all miners or would you like a link with that one.

Your argument "Any hub that charges too much won't get any fees at all" is blown out the water unless you want to
re-write the history books here.


Large companies are not the major users here, Joe public is and he's afraid to open more than one channel because fees to close and settle "On-Block"
can reach as high as $55 on top of the fees charged by banking hubs which all so put paid to any debate about bitcoin still being decentralized because if
the hub is down then the user is down too.


Do save the "Spend to save" argument because it's cheaper today than it was yesterday because we were happy when fees were $0.01 and didn't even kick up
much at $0.50 but then they went too far, feed you problem-reaction-solution and your "loving it" so I have to ask if your a miner or not ?

Yes agree a team for a year to get something that will work in real life on the tinternet but i think some of the posters here are talking more about
knocking up a object that represents a block-chain and testing it via a function call.

Took me a month to come up with a data structure that is used for node discovery that would scale to maybe 1/4bn nodes and not much
more and I am still far from happy with the results but i could have dealt with 50,000 nodes using a XML-Data table is an afternoon

Do you want a pop or do you want to hide up your mother skirt or not ?


No bullshit is not accepting that Tx Fees + Interest fees =Bankers as can be seen from the lightning network map
or do you also have trouble understanding pretty picture too.
https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/

Your words smith does not cut it here, facts win every time and the news is out anyway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g with lots of people agreeing with my view
on things so what are you trying to achieve.

I must say sorry for that one, thought my reply had been deleted as is often the case here but I was mistaken, another two post got deleted instead but
the field is not level here, I am not sorry for that bit.

Wot you mean like $0.01 per transaction like it was not so long ago on Bitcoin but instead I am reading that the LN charge is
0.6% per transaction instead so thats like much cheaper than it was when tx fees hit $55 and killed Bitcoin but you still want me
to be happy about it.

Remember the bit about "Virtually free transaction fees" well that was a lie as is the whole of the lightning network
with it's banking hubs not being as described in the official propaganda sheet about Alice and Bob running the hubs.

People are voting with their feet over the way they have been treated by the development team and miners and poor
excuses from the party faithful here won't bring them back.

My Ripple gamble lost me money but they didn't pretend to be something the were not however anyone that holds a knife to my
throat like the miners here did in December with $55 fees had better be ready for a little pay-back and calling lightning hubs anything other than banks is
a total joke.

I remain loyal regardless of price until something happen to betray that trust so i will continue to gamble with ETH and Ripple
but me and the Bitcoin casino are done.

Set yourself a stop-loss and stick to it if you cannot afford to loss the money like me.

Nice graphic and it looks like a diving board to me but i prefer to deal in facts and talk about the lightning
network being nothing more than a system of banking hubs, rip-off $55 fees from the miners and no one trusts
bitcoin these days and letting the market trend be your friend.

Pipe dreams don't rock my boat and I got out at $18k and to be frank I don't think I foresee the need
to buy back in to this market.

Some posts here are loaded with lead weights and some seem to be filled with hot air or am I the only one
who has noticed and dare speak out.

I remember the days well and all the usual suspects with lots of merits needed to host adverts in the footers of each post
they make here were collecting loads of page impressions as they told everyone that today was a good opportunity to buy.

Today they are talking the same old FUD but they are wasting their time because the harden gamblers left around here will still be around
if BTC goes below $1000 after "Investors" fled the market because miners put fees up to $55 per transaction and that won't be forgotten
unless they pay all them stolen "Contributions" back to those that got mugged.

oh, yeah, forgot to tell you all that i got out at $18k and hate to see people being ripped off but some of you just ask for it.

Dreamer, dream dream dream is all I do, dream ......

Who is ever going to trust Bitcoin again after the miners pumped fees up to $55 per transaction or do you think that everyone is stupid
and didn't notice the magnets under the table ?

The lightning network is just a system of banking hubs and we came here to get away from the bankers without becoming
infected by them but you won't see it because your just a dreamer with your head in the sand and no facts to back up your theory.

Not if they cannot make it scale (which they can) without moving off-block like is the case with Lightning network because they needed an
excuse to install banking hubs so the bankers/miners could make a bigger profit.

Block ledgers allow the block-chain to become 3D instead of just 2D and this allows for scaleability but alas
I don't think Bitcoin on the current path will be around as top dog for much longer because it's an evolutionary
dead end.

"Don't lose your faith in BTC."

Well yes you need lots of faith to continue ignoring the facts and if you want to call something that charges
interest rates plus transaction fees a lightning network hub instead of a bank then good luck to you.

My "Faith" in common sense made me sell out at $18k to reap a profit after I watched the miners holding a knife to
the faithful throats and changing people $55 per transaction but it seems that the OP is asking for you all to still have
faith that they won't do it again.

Nothing is "decentralized" about the lightning network banking hubs, here take a look at the picture as centralization take place.
https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/

Fees killed trust in Bitcoin miners and the development team and since fees peeked, Bitcoin has continued to fall and I don't
think this can be reversed so this is why I cached out when Bitcoin was at $18k and never looked back.

You do know that the miners are hosting these banking hubs don't you ?

Cryptocurrency needs justice and Bitcoin has dragged the other coins down because the BTC miners have yet to be paid for
pumping fees up to $55 per transaction so clearly no one with half a brain can ever trust them again.

We need to clean house or we will be left with no house to clear.

You have eaten the problem-reaction-solution cake when it comes to lightning being a fix for Bit-coins not scaling and it's been designed so that
BTC credits remain in ledgers and the movement is not liquid so that in effect we get charged interest on top of transaction fees needed to keep the
channels open.

Transaction fees + interest = banks 

The banks on the lightning network is a step in this direction and who's to say that fake BTC won't be pumped into the
off-chain private ledgers !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g

Pump-en-dump by bankers using Bitcoin is not something that can be stopped and clearly the miners have no loyalty towards
users so my guess is that it will all crash anyway given all the gambling and naked speculation.

0.6% I think is the rate but lets think back, yes I remember "Virtually free transaction fees" and we watched as
these fees hit $55 per transaction and have no guarantee that the same scam won't happen again from the miners who
are hosting the lightning network banking hubs.


I don't mind rules so much but clearly here we have one set of rules for the party faithful spreading FUD
and another set of rules for everyone else so save the bullshit because I am not taking it.

No need to given the facts that clearly you cannot address.

What part of charging transactions fees and interest on BTC needed to keep channels open don't you quite understand when I like many
more people call the lightning hubs "Banks" 

The deception has been blunted and will get turned back because truth tends to stand up to the test of time.

But lightning is not decentralized and it's not on-block so really it's needs to be measured against TPS of someone like
Coinbase where digits move from pool accounts and not against real cryoto-coins.

If block-chain was so good then why accept anything less