It's a point I've always raised when people discuss things like consumer protection.  Individual companies can and should be regulated because there need to be consequences when rules are broken.  But it's simply not feasible to attempt to regulate open-source protocols in which rules are enforced by user nodes.  Particularly if proposed laws would weaken the security of those protocols or diminish the fungibility of the currencies being transacted.

I think people generally interpret the word "guarantee" in the wrong way when it comes to stuff like this.  Even prior to this latest twist in the story, people should never have seen it as a guarantee in terms of absolute certainty, but rather as an assurance based on trust.  Insolvency has always been a possibility.  Regulatory shutdown has always been a possibility.  Saying that it's guaranteed does not negate these possibilities.  Tether are a company who have made a promise to their customers.  That's it.  Promises can be broken, as appears to be the case now that it seemingly isn't backed 1:1 by USD.

Legislation is definitely an important point in this discussion.  Decentralised cryptocurrencies with nodes in just about every point on the Earth are difficult to legislate for.  But if you have a single entity holding fiat or other assets in reserve, that entity will likely be subject to only a small number of legal jurisdictions.  Perhaps just the ones where they base their headquarters and any where they store their backing funds/assets.  It will be comparatively easy for legislative bodies to enforce any appropriate laws.  This is why centralised systems are inherently weaker.

"Safe" is a matter of perspective.  Bitcoin (and other altcoins that don't require backing) are not dependent on trust.  The vast majority of stablecoins are entirely dependent on trust.  They require you to believe that a centralised entity is holding the reserves they claim to hold.  It's a risk you have to judge for yourself.  

Doesn't make it any more factually accurate, though, does it.  The traffic is clearly closely monitored.  I don't see any cause for alarm.

It's not the easiest problem to solve.  Even if there was some sort of online repository where you could view the code for your firmware, you would also need the hardware itself to broadcast something like an MD5 checksum so you could check the integrity of your firmware on any given device and ensure it matches exactly what is in the repository.  

And the bigger question, even if you could get hardware to do that, how many people would actually bother to check it matches?  Is the average user really that security-conscious?

If there is any alteration in price, it's probably only going to come from a change in the value of Pound Sterling with all the upheaval.  Anyone who uses other national currencies is unlikely to notice much difference.  It's difficult to say if there's going to be any impact in adoption or usage as a result.  I don't think many people plan for this and are just idly waiting to see what unfolds.


//EDIT  Thursday 14th March:
MPs vote to delay Brexit.  Response now awaited from the EU to see if they grant an extension.

For anyone who would like to enhance their understanding about rebalancing channels, feel free to have a look at the following links to understand both the upsides and downsides:

https://blog.muun.com/rebalancing-strategies-overview/
https://medium.com/coinmonks/redistribute-lightning-channels-balances-9ba3265584ee
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/84786/is-it-possible-to-rebalance-channels-by-sending-to-yourself-from-a-channel-to-a/84787

It's ultimately up to each and every one of you how you choose to transact, both on and off chain.  The most important thing is that you arm yourself with all the appropriate knowledge.

If you did some research, you'd know that closing and reopening channels is not the only available option in Lightning.  The difference between us is that I don't exclusively run the worst case scenario (and literally nothing else) like you do.  This means I can factor in things like circular payments and the use of negative fees in order to assist in rebalancing a channel, rather than just allowing the channel to become exhausted like your scenario above.  A node may only need to charge enough in fees to cover the cost of making a circular payment to balance the channel, or cover the negative fees to incentivise routing transactions in the other direction.  This is a strategy each user will have to decide for themselves, but it's not as simplistic (or as dire) as you like to portray. 

As always, I'm not portraying it as "utopia".  Circular payments and negative fees do have their limitations.  They won't always be viable options.  There will be times where it won't be possible to rebalance a channel and you'll have to open a new one.  But the fact that you won't even acknowledge the existence of these options makes me believe you are not capable of being reasonable and can only talk about the negatives.  I can discuss both the pros and the cons quite happily.  Why is it literally just 100% negatives with you?  Please keep pretending it's just me stirring up "drama" and "social stuff" when I draw attention to what appears to be questionable behaviour on your part. 



No, but when you say things like:
that implies you believe our default position is somehow that 0.000000000001 would be a normal fee and that clearly that isn't our position at all.  That's something an extremist would say.

Clearly a 0.000000000001 fee will not be a "normal thing".  Why would you say something so blatantly obvious, unless in your head you honestly believe people do somehow think LN fees will normally be that low?  You would also be correct to point out that the sky is normally blue.  But most people would take that as something that doesn't really need to be pointed out.  What point were you trying to make by saying that fees would not normally be 0.000000000001?  I don't see anyone in this topic saying it would be a normal fee.  So why even say it?  But let's sit back and watch while you respond with "social drama" one more time and move on to the next distortion, manipulation or outright lie.

So you can't explain how Lightning is going to become expensive to use?  That's what we thought.



Pretty sure no one was saying it would be a normal thing, but okay.  Thank you for once again pointing out the extremes that obviously won't apply in real life.  If nothing else, you're good for that.

Exactly.  The rudimentary impression people seem to have is that 1 tx equals one transfer of value from person A to person B, but this is simply not the case in many situations.  It's not accurate.  Taking that inaccuracy and then using it to predict market movements simply isn't viable.  You've got a better chance of using transaction volume to predict tomorrow's weather.

It depends how this generation raise the next generation.  If we keep indoctrinating our descendents with the belief that the safest place for our savings is in the bank, then clearly the banks will continue to thrive for many decades to come.  It's a cycle that needs to be broken before anything is going to change.  It's not an easy mindset to un-learn when you've been using banks for most of your life, but future generations may find it easier if they are armed with the knowledge we clearly didn't have while our generations were being told to store our money in the bank.  

The raw number of transactions is a problematic metric, because it doesn't really tell you as much as you'd initially think it does.  

It's worth considering the significant impact of transaction batching for starters.  One transaction can be used to transfer value to multiple recipients.  Prior to 2017, many Exchanges were pretty reckless in terms of not batching transactions and wasting available space.  Most have reformed their ways since then.  More people can receive payments using fewer transactions now.

Conversely, not every transaction is an actual transfer of value from one person to another.  Sometimes users are just moving funds from cold storage to a hot-wallet or vice-versa.  Some transactions are merely for other blockchains, altcoins and certain services to leverage Bitcoin's security for their own means.  Transactions like this are not indicative of any kind of economic benefit to Bitcoin.

If you're trying to use any of this information to read into market price swings, it starts to look pretty tenuous at best.

Except that, unlike bank ATMs, options are currently being developed for future versions of Lightning to give users the ability to opt out of those channel limits, providing both participants in the channel agree.  I encourage people to look this up and discern the facts for themselves. 

Echoing the sentiments of everyone who likes the layout as it is.  It's perhaps not ideal on a smartphone, but that's the closest thing to a complaint I have about it.  Most modern "layouts" just involve adding an unnecessary overabundance of white-space to make it look "clean".  Definitely not a fan of those.

Typical franky1 manipulative distortions.  I said savings you disingenuous faecal blemish.  Not Income.  You are the lying sack of excrement who says everyone supposedly wants to get rich from earning fees from LN transactions.  You've even accused me of wanting to get rich from earning LN fees in the past, because you were either too stupid to understand how it works, or too much of a liar to be honest about the fact that LN will not be a source of income (obviously you've changed your tune now that you realise how utterly wrong you were).  Everyone other than you is sticking with the truth, which is that Lightning allow users to spend less in on-chain fees and will allow merchants to find massive savings in paying less to Visa/Mastercard.  SAVINGS, NOT INCOME.  Find a braincell and use it if you can't figure out the difference between those two words.



And as always you took things to extremes and talked about "getting rich", when absolutely no one else was talking about that.  You can't help but be a some sort of fanatical zealot.  You're the crypto equivalent of a hate-preaching religious crackpot.  Some people had the mistaken impression that it might mean a couple of bucks a month, when what they should have been thinking is a couple of pennies a month.  An honest mistake, easily corrected.  But there you were in a heartbeat attempting to blow things out of all proportion and make grandiose claims about "getting rich" that have absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.  

Try being reasonable and balanced just for once.  You only claim people think it's "utopia" because you are only capable of seeing things in absolute extremes.  Just because someone might say something vaguely optimistic about LN, doesn't mean they're some sort of die-hard fanatic.  They do realise LN has limitations.  They recognise it's not perfect.  They understand there are some benefits with on-chain transactions that Lightning is unable to offer.  

Ultimately, Lightning is a compromise.  You know, a thing that people who aren't extremists are capable of doing.  Making concessions for the greater good.  Maybe consider giving it a try?  Your current tactics clearly aren't having the desired effect.



We get it, Francis.  You want bigger blocks.  But you don't believe in it strongly enough to actually go ahead and do it, because you know you'd end up on a network by yourself as your ideas have hardly any support.  You can't find enough nodes on this chain who agree with you.  So you sit there sniping from the sidelines in a feeble attempt to make people think that SegWit and LN are bad, hoping in vain that it will bring people around to your way of thinking.  How's that working out for you?  After a few years now of trolling the boards and derailing topics left, right and centre, how many people have you rallied to your sad little cause?  

That "certain group" not saying Bitcoin is "bad".  This is another one of your extremist exaggerations.  They are saying there are realistic and legitimate concerns over scaling that need to be addressed, which is a sensible stance to adopt.  And the users here tend to agree with them for the most part.  If you don't like what that "certain group" are doing, there are several courses of action you can take:

• Not running their client.
• Not using SegWit.
• Not using Lightning.

But since you're doing all of that already and it still doesn't seem to be enough for you, I'll add the following to the list:

• Cry harder.
• Accept that consensus doesn't give you the power of veto, you are wholly impotent and there is literally nothing you can do to stop anyone working on LN
• Consider what it is you actually want and weigh up the benefits of finding another chain where you might actually agree with what the other nodes on the network are running and save the need for all your incessant whiny complaining, just because you can't get what you want here.

You are welcome to be a part of this network, but you need to acknowledge that the majority of those securing the chain do not share your views.  If you hate the BTC chain's chosen direction that much, why subject yourself to it freely?  What motivates you to stick around and follow a chain you fundamentally disagree with?  Users on this chain are currently stating irrefutably, 24/7 that this is what they want because these are the rules they are currently enforcing.  It would behoove you to respect consensus and stop being such a petulant child about it.  

It's not a nitpick, it's annihilating your earlier balk at merchants paying $200 to become their own payment processor.  You said:


And I rightly pointed out that there are a significant number of companies that could easily recoup that setup cost in a very short space of time if people use LN payments instead.  You simply don't understand how much these credit card middlemen are profiteering.  1.51% might not sound like much, but it's absolutely huge for some businesses.  The resulting savings would easily cover any costs from "running 3 programs" and still leave money to spare in the company coffers for other things. 

Learn to read, moron.  That's $0.10 plus 1.51% of the transaction cost.

I work in a large call centre.  On an average day at work, eight hour shift, I can easily clear between £4000 and £6000 worth of transactions.  Sometimes more.  Not all of them are card payments, some use direct debits, so let's say £3000 to £5000 on cards.  In case you're as much of an idiot as I think you are, let's show you what 1.51% actually means in practice.  That works out between £45 and £75 in fees.  Per day.  And that's just the transactions I process, not counting the other 200+ people that work there.  

Yeah, companies are just going to be weeping in sorrow at having to pay a few hundred to become their own payment processor.  

Fucking imbecile.

Indeed.  With the way Visa are raising their fees, that $200 is going to start looking quite tempting to a large number of merchants.  It puts them in the drivers seat and could save them a small fortune over the years if their customers start paying with LN instead of a card.  I believe the current Visa fee is $0.10 plus 1.51% of the cost of the transaction.  I can't seem to find any reference on what it's increasing to in April yet. 

Except that it clearly is an economy.  It's our economy and we couldn't care less if it doesn't meet your "standards" to qualify as an economy.  You are of no consequence to us.