Before people become too fixated on that "51%" figure, as they always seem to do, it should be reiterated that's the threshold at which attacks become sustainable for longer periods, but attacks can technically still be carried out with less than 51% of the hashrate.  I'd be happy to do away with the name "51% attack" and simply call it a "hashrate attack" for the sake of accuracy.  It's also worth remembering that an attack is still unlikely, not only because that level of collusion is difficult to orchestrate, but also because of the alignment of incentives.  The network was designed to make it more profitable to remain honest than it is to break the rules and cheat.



It's difficult to tell for certain, but yes.  It's fair to assume that one single entity doesn't directly control every single last participant in the pool(s).  It's largely symbolic in a sense.  It puts people at unease when one entity is perceived to have too much influence simply because it doesn't look good.  It doesn't necessarily mean they have the power to do anything malicious, it just appears as though there's a chance they might.  That's enough to worry some people.  After all, decentralisation is one of our most cherished attributes.  



You're free to if you want, just don't expect everyone else to tag along.  Seems a touch dramatic for my tastes.

True, but just two years ago, I'd have been surprised if even one customer got just a shiny penny for their efforts.  I thought the legal system and lawyers were going to consume whatever money was left.  This is still shaping up to be a more positive outcome than many had envisioned, even if it isn't perfect.

Speculation is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it gives a steady steam of media coverage and a potentially larger audience.  But on the other, it also often gives the wrong impression, leading some people to believe speculation is the sole purpose.  All people can really give is opinions here.  It's largely a matter of perspective and personal preference.  There are undoubtedly plenty of people using Bitcoin purely for speculative purposes, but equally, there are those who use it because they disagree with fiat ideology and want a safe haven from rampant money printing and generally poor economic policies that plague "traditional" currencies.  Each to their own, in my view.  The traders just have more to lose than I do, since their BTC is at greater risk of being lost.

Personally, my earliest interest in Bitcoin was initially speculative, so had that not been a factor, perhaps I wouldn't have got involved.  But over time I began to appreciate what I now feel are the more important properties.  Now I believe that the freedom it provides is far more important (and valuable) than any fiat appraisal one might ascribe to it.  I no longer have the slightest inclination to sell my Bitcoin for any national currency.  I still believe in purchasing power, of course, so my interest isn't completely devoid of speculation.  It's just that my belief in government issued "money" is waning and I think the world can do better.  

Ultimately, I see Bitcoin as an alternative to an increasingly tyrannical, authoritarian, corrupt and economically illiterate world I wish to distance myself from.  It buckles under the weight of its own ineptitude and folly before my eyes.  Who wouldn't want an escape route from that if that's how they perceive the world?  I doubt I'm the only one here who feels that way.

Some sources for anyone that would like context: 
https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/06/24/mt-gox-situation-develops-trustee-announces-bitcoin-repayment-process/
https://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-crypto-bitcoin-exchange-creditors-win/

I'm sure I'm guilty of proclaiming that Gox users would never see their money again, but I'm prepared to eat some humble pie if this actually happens.  It would be nice to have some sort of favourable closure to the whole sordid mess.  I guess we'll see what happens next.

It's unlikely this will happen until mainstream adoption occurs and a few select altcoins find some real-world utility.  There are probably a few niches where some coins might shine.  Only coins that find an actual purpose will stop tracking BTC and begin some natural price discovery.  The rest are just speculative tokens and will either continue follow the market leader or become worthless.



Short of mass-collusion, there's no way to achieve this.  It'll either happen by itself, or not at all.  I don't think we get a choice in the matter.  

The main take away should be that whether or not they do have the funds to back it, tether is more of a company than it is a cryptocurrency.  You're effectively relying on that company and the promises they make.  At any time and for any reason, they can issue more tokens from nowhere.  It's not the same issuance model as other altcoins.

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.  

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.

For me, this only raises further questions.  If the money really has been there all along, why wait until now to prove it?  Why not allow a full audit if there's nothing to hide?  And why only show that one, specific day?  How do we know the money was there on May 31st and earlier?  Maybe I'm unnecessarily suspicious, but this just doesn't sit well with me.  People have had suspicions of impropriety for some time now and this doesn't really feel like much of an attempt to allay concerns.  Rather than just a quick snapshot of records on that one day, I'd be more reassured by some records over a more prolonged period.  A full audit is still needed before I''ll be convinced.

If I had to guess, the money doesn't normally just sit there.  It gets "invested" (read "gambled with").  Which is why a full audit won't happen.  People would see what risks they're taking.

If people keep creating tempting targets for thieves by amassing their combined wealth in one, big easy-to-steal pile, then duh, of course people are going to keep stealing it.  It's not a difficult concept to grasp.  I honestly don't know how people haven't worked this out yet.  The more money sitting there, the more motivated someone will be to try and break in.  Stop leaving funds on exchanges and the problem goes away.

Bitcoin wasn't designed for people to (ab)use it in this way.  You're supposed to be the sender, the person you're paying is supposed to be the recipient.  And that's it.  There shouldn't even be a third party custodian in the middle getting hacked and losing funds.  You're doing it wrong.

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.

Yes, there's definitely an element of that too.  It doesn't help that mainstream media often call it a scam/ponzi/bubble/etc, meaning that some people are less inclined to look into it because the media have already told them what to think.  Everyone wants to get their information second-hand rather than finding out for themselves.  I suspect it's going to take a while for perceptions to change.



To play devil's advocate, this alone is sometimes too complicated a subject for many people, heh.  By the time you've told them to be careful with online services designed to hold funds (which should always be one of the first things to explain to new users), make regular backups, how to store the backups securely, use a unique and strong password, not lose your password, how to keep your devices secure and malware-free, etc. many of them will have glazed over and forgotten half of what you just told them.  

There is quite a bit to explain if they really want to understand on a technical level, but then the same applies to Automated Clearing Houses.  It doesn't matter if none of that makes sense, because you don't need to understand it to use cards to pay for stuff.  Just like you don't need to be a technical expert in Bitcoin to use it effectively.  Plus, clever people are always coming up with new ways to make the software more user-friendly.  It's only ever going to get easier to use over time.  All anyone really needs to understand is to observe someone sending a transaction to see how simple it is.

Of course, we should encourage people to understands things a little better.  Part of the reason the traditional financial system is such a mess is because the average Joe Public doesn't know how it really works.  Some people genuinely still believe banks lend out from existing deposits, for example.  Almost everyone has heard of the phrase "fractional reserve", but I doubt more than 50% of people could explain it correctly.  But anyone who really wants to understand Bitcoin will inevitably find their way here to these boards.   

It would probably help if we draw the distinction between permissioned and permissionless cryptocurrencies.  Until recently, any usage of the word "cryptocurrency" meant exclusively the latter.  If fiat currencies are to transmute into anything, I'm assuming Mr Allaire is talking about the former.  

Permissioned cryptocurrencies, where central bankers still have all the money-printing capabilities they have now, do seem inevitable at some stage.  It's just the natural next phase to the "war on cash" some governments are already waging.  They might well call their centralised creations a "cryptocurrency", as it will likely use encryption for the security.  It's just not what we would call a cryptocurrency if it has a controlling authority with the powers to freeze funds, create new coins from nothing, etc.  We'll still have our proper crypto, but we'll just have to get used to the nomenclature being shared by those we don't necessarily agree with.

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?

If smart contracts start to become a major selling point, Bitcoin can simply implement them on another layer.  But for now, all people seem capable of doing with ERC20 is churning out a bunch of worthless crapcoins.  Not exactly a feature I'd like to see duplicated in Bitcoin.  People need to learn how to use smart contracts to create something useful before it's worth expending any large quantity of development talent on supporting them in BTC.  When more sensible and legitimate applications become common for them, perhaps people might start to care about it a bit more.  Until then, I don't think we're missing much.  The demand isn't really there right now.

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.

The best advice is not to get into Bitcoin because you think it's some sort of magical get-rick-quick scheme.  It isn't.  Most people should forget all about trading simply because they suck at it and constantly lose.  There's no polite way of saying it.  You are meat for the grinder if you try to play the speculator game when you don't know shit about it.  So don't do it.  Bitcoin is about realising there's something deeply and fundamentally wrong with "traditional" money.  Something that can't be fixed.  You shouldn't be looking to sell your bitcoins for a larger pile of broken fiat than you paid for them.  That's not the point at all.  The point is to have something better than fiat.  If you sold it all trying to make some dollars or whatever other national IOU is mandated in your locale, clearly you don't understand this yet.  Come back when you do.  Bye for now.

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.

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.