price is not a problem..
after all, you can buy 1,000 'bits' for $0.32~ bits:(0.00000100)

its only mainstream when a certain percentage of the population uses it.

its only used by a certain percentage of the population when there is common goods and services for them

when there is common goods and services for them is when you can get paid a wage in it and buy toilet roll, baked beans and a new pair of underwear.

...

in short
its only mainstream when you can get paid a wage in it and buy toilet roll, baked beans and a new pair of underwear.

the main things in life

1. toilet roll
2. food
3. clothing
4. alcohol
5. utility bills.

once there is a shop/service in every town that can take bitcoin for them 5 things.. bitcoin is then mainstream

so if the locked tx IS in the blockchain.. then those 5 customers, 1 starbucks =6 locked tx's in the blockchain (500byte each=3,00bytes)..(ignoring employee as he just a recipient)

then when starbucks finally closes the channel.. another tx appears in the blockchain 30 days later (1,250byte as the example on the right of my diagram).
so now 5 purchases of coffee are not 1,500bytes(old way left diagram) to pay everyone in order and give change.

but now 4,500bytes to cover the 5 locked tx's and the 1 settlement tx to pay 7people (5customers change, starbucks, employee).


i think LN has its uses to finally create more secure means to handle bitstamp day trade or a poker room 'pot'. but im still trying to analyze the benefit for the one off retail market.

you do need to lock your bitcoins, that way LN would trust you to then do offchain tx's. otherwise. whats stopping me paying starbucks using LN but then using the actual blockchain to pay myself(moving funds).. while starbucks does transmit a tx for 30 days..
thus the locked funds need to be in the mempool for starbucks to trust, and for blockchain miners to not mine until starbucks is happy..

i also did read the white paper, and watched their videos, and the presentations.. but that is all theory.. i put their theory into practice using real examples..

ok lets grammar check everyone.
the word cryptocurrencies is abolished.. its now blockchain currencies.

blockchain explains the technology behind bitcoin and all the other altcoins.
words such as crypto seem geeky and not mainstream friendly
words such as digital, virtual dont explain the difference between bitcoin or paypals computer based funds..

so get use to using the word blockchain currencies when generally describing the category of bitcoin and altcoins.

ok guys, lets get back to basics..

imagine we were on the scale of visa 200million transactions a day.

LN locktime tx is 500bytes minimum compared to bitcoins 250bytes minimum..

thats 100GB of tx's just sitting on the mempool because LN wont use blocks, it just uses the mempool (the unconfirmed unmined database of tx's) until the channel is closed

now imagine people using the locktime for 30 days.. and doing 1tx per day on LN (using the mempool)
3terrabytes of LN tx's sat in the mempool.

now imagine the processing power needed to tally up all the balances of the closed channels to be able to produce a final minable tx for the blockchain..

if you think that tx's are only stored locally, ud be wrong. they need to be in the main bitcoin mempool to ensure bitcoins are locked and unspendable on the blockchain whilst people play around making LN transactions within the mempool..

now the problem is not only mempool storage worries for all them locked bitcoins (unconfirmed). but also whats stopping miners purging them. after all miners are already ignoring Tx's without fee's.. so why store 3TB of locked tx's that wont get them a fee because the transactions are all happening for free in the mempool.

and don't get me started on the end resulting tx the blockchain will finally receive.
imagine 5 customers with 1btc are buying coffee (0.01btc) each from starbucks and then starbucks paying 1 employee's whilst starbucks keeps 50% of customers funds for profit.
remember that bitcoin needs to settle all users balances so that the 5 customers are left with 0.99each starbucks has 0.025 and employee has 0.025.



i dont really see it as reducing much bloat. especially at the expense of large mempool requirements for upto a month, miners wont see the advantage. of holding data for a month for just 1 tx fee

re-empt knitpickers.
dont knitpick the numbers, they are just examples.. instead look at the idea as a whole, tell me the advantages using real life scenarios, demonstrations of what LN can do that will revolutionize bitcoin

1. a 30second tv advert cannot squeze in enough informative details to be of use, beyond looking like an apple pay app
2. a banner may be seen as just one of them binary options scams floating about.
3. until people can buy food, clothing and toilet paper. bitcoin is not ready for consumer mass adoption.

we need to concentrate on getting merchants onboard first. afterall thats what applepay done. merchants first, users second. mass merchants third, mass adoption forth..

we are nowhere near forth

i think the OP means presuming the genesis block privkey is lost. like most keys were in 2009 as bitcoin was buggy and wallets were changing around etc..

the reason people put funds into it is as a thankyou to satoshi.. no one expects him to spend it.. its more of a bow in honour, a tilt of the hat recognition symbol.

but flailing Junk said it better
for good wishes and good luck

poloniex manages this.. they hold people to account for losses.

a decentralised model would cause people to just 'leg it' if they lose and not repay if they win.

localbitcoins, itself is not that bad..

but thinking logically.. people wanting to only trade for cash in hand, is a bit shady. so be careful with those types of transactions

theory of smart contracts, yes. but again ill say it
i do not beleive that there is a standalone executable that is truely 'p2p' that gives the communication ability to make 'offers'/loans/shorts

but he wont get rich..
bitcoin would be worthless..

imagine it 15million coins redistributed to 15 million people..

coinbase coldstore balance would disapear.. bitstamp, bitfinex, all exchange balances would disapear.
people would start sueing businesses.. and never trust bitcoin again..

instantly bitcoin would tank to $1.. and then those 15million people with 1btc each would sell the bitcoin in fear of the drop to 1cent..
the possibility of wanting to 'hold' bitcoin would vanish as there would be code to just make it move out off addresses without owners consent.

all because some basement dweller(op) thinks sitting on his hands and not earning bitcoin deems him worthy of getting free bitcoin..

he has no logical understanding of economics or how to even earn bitcoin bitcoin the regular way.
(work as an employee of a bitcoin business/start a business offering products or services)

buddy... dont start up the old argument about redistributing coins. its been done to death and has come to a consensus that its unfair to anyone that 'holds'.
classifying all coins not touched for X years is a recipe for disaster.

that said.. hows life.

while we are at it
in america there is $15,400,000,000,000 ($15.4trillion) in personal bank accounts

lets make it so that at midnight of each night, its reset. so that every man, woman and child gets $44,000 each..
no matter if they spend it all. or keep it.
no matter if they receive $4,400,000 from 100 people, by selling goods/services... at midnight.. its reset back to $44,000 each

the end result is that $44k would only have a living cost value of 1 days food or bills.
then people wont want to work because they are guaranteed $44k tomorrow.
so next there would be no bills because there are no workers at the nuclear plant keeping the lights on..
eventually people will resort to trading physical products because there is no electric to power bank databases, internet, ATM's..

so now you know that doing such a thing to a highly dependant FIAT.. would result in returning to the middle ages..
what benefit would it be to do the same to bitcoin..

tell me exactly how people would continue to value bitcoin, if its reset?

if this supposed email from taiwan regulator to coindesk is true.. that no actual regulatory changes have happened and the 2013 decision remains..

then this is what i have been saying about most 'banned' countries.. only the banks themselves cannot offer bitcoins directly to customers.
though the independant/private bitcoin buyer and seller do not have any regulatory oversight, and thus free to trade.

i would still remain cautious if you suddenly want to operate a business where fiat is handled as regulations may affect you.

decentralised.. is a highly over used word..

as soon as there needs to be a server to link users together to communicate 'offers' and to hold users in debt to account, its not decentralised..

i do not beleive that there is a standalone executable that is truely 'p2p' that gives the communication ability to make 'offers'/loans/shorts

i remember the winkles great plan a couple years ago.. people buying baskets of bitcoins in allocations of a few thousand bitcoin per basket.
..
i know gemini is just a subsidiary of the winklevoss ETF trust. but still, volume of gemini is quite low at the moment and not good if suddenly these basket bundles start getting bought up real fast.

all i know for sure is when the true ETF opens up.. the game rules will change

actually seems less relevance to him trading dodgy coins.. and more so doing bank transfers with dodgy people on the banks blacklist.

either way. best be careful who you trade with

ok im going to try a different tact.

imagine within your 'big brand fashion advocates' there are 4 main target demographs of customer type.
soccer mom branding lover,
rich retired branding lover.
white collar branding lover,
branded loving teens,

in fashion there are 4 seasons of clothing. (lazy brands cater to only 2 seasons)

now lets segment that and have a poll of 25%'s for each demograph and each season.


now lets say you had $64k for advertising.. how would you split the funds to get the best adverts to the best people at the best time..

dont worry i already have a logical answer for you..


so 50%(2 of 4) of white collar workers would receive a woolly sweater as a christmas gift, but not at any other time of the year
so 25%(1 of 4) of trendy teenagers would receive a woolly sweater as a christmas gift, but not at any other time of the year
old and soccer moms love woolly clothing. but soccer moms only when the temperature starts to dip and retired wear all time round

so based on the woolly jumper. there is no point advertising in spring or summer, or doing any trendy adverts to white collar/teenagers as most of them are only buying or receiving for christmas..

this is why its important to know your customer so that you can push all your efforts into the autumn/winter sales.. and advertise in autumn, when its most likely to sell. it also helps with the content of the advertising to plea to the right people.