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You're probably never going to read this, but:

I'd rather call it "smashing the keyboard".

On my electrum, once I opened a channel and locked all of my testnet bitcoins to a multi-signature address, it showed me that I could send up to 10 mBTC, but 0 mBTC to receive. As for the person that pays the channel, don't they both pay it? They both open a channel on the same node, and thus they both create an on-chain transaction locking funds on a multi-signature address.

Specifically, I'll have to "swap" coins in order to increase my receiving capacity. This is what I don't get. The money are on the multi-signature address and node can confirm that. Why do we differentiate "sending funds" and "receiving funds" since they're both "funds" on the same address?


Doesn't the node verifies the liquidity? Why should the users do?

I tried closing cooperatively a channel and I received money on my wallet that closed the channel. On the other one, nothing happened. I had to cancel that too, to receive my on-chain funds.

Yes, but what happens if the node is uncooperative? I get it that there is no problem with the other party, I can cancel it whenever I want. Is the node necessary to force-close a channel?

Why was I completely sure that he'd be the author of this thread?

I've been reading about LN in the last days and I have some queries gathered. I guess that I should asked them here, they're probably frequently asked.

1) The entire system of the LN is based on the node's judgment, as far as I've understood. If both parties remain cooperative, including the node, then they'll successfully transact their money. If one of them becomes uncooperative, then the other party can force-close the channel and both parties will receive their analogous funds. But what happens if the node stops being cooperative? For example, if it stops being online. Isn't the node the one that keeps the channel "alive"? Without it, do both parties own their funds? Can they broadcast the final result to the blockchain?

2) What is the difference between "Close Channel" and "Force-Close Channel"? I don't get it. Is the first one executed by the node and the second one means "uncooperative broadcasting to the blockchain"?

3) Why do we need LN invoices? Couldn't this work with bitcoin addresses? The first party would simply request money on one of his/her addresses and the second one would select an output to spend.

4) Maybe the one that seems the most curious to me. Why is there a "receiving capacity"? I haven't understood this at all and why LN can't work without it. (Swaping on-chain with LN funds)

I may have more queries on my way to fully understand the way LN works, but firstly I'd like to have an answer on these four.

How do you define "officially"? On Satoshi's whitepaper, it was introduced as a borderless peer-to-peer electronic cash system, not as an investment. But, by that, it doesn't mean that every other use of it is unofficial. Bitcoin works in a way. By understanding it, you can make up your own assumptions. Its censorship resistant philosophy made it be seen as more than an e-currency.

I linked it above.

Because if it's backed up by someone, it goes against its philosophy. It goes against decentralization.

You can answer this by yourself: Is it used right now beyond investing purposes?

It seems a dead project to me. First of all, the last change was made two years ago (doesn't it seem a decade?). Note that the current version of TumbleBit is written based on Bitcoin Core v0.16.0, not that it's that important. I liked their idea, when I read, though. (TumbleBit: An Untrusted Bitcoin-Compatible Anonymous Payment Hub)

As far as I understood, it's an off-chain bitcoin mixer, with no third-party required to mix each user's coins. That was the first concept of TumbleBit: https://github.com/BUSEC/TumbleBit. I guess that after that, there were more contributors interested and they started the entire project from zero. TumbleBit (from BUSEC) was written in C++ and Python, but later, they turned it to 100% C#.

I like the idea of having a private way to exchange your bitcoins to monero quickly with no logs and KYC. If this service gains the users' trust, which will happen over time, you should consider that it'll be very active. Work on the UI. I know that you don't care at the moment about the styling, but, personal opinion: Some people judge a book by its cover. Also, you should have added a contact button before you publish it here with a signature campaign.

I'm not sure if I ever need monero, since bitcoin does fine along with a mixer, but if I do, I'll visit your exchange, be sure.  

You're probably talking about online wallets, this is why I see you confused. If you used a non-custodian wallet (like electrum) you would notice that every one of them offers you such feature. You set the fee, by yourself, not via some centralized services. Download it, install it and experience with it.

As ranochigo said, consider using Bech32 addresses (those that start with bc1, AKA Segwit), because they're reducing your fees by a lot.

PS: Stop using online wallets!

What do you mean by "typical"? The fees that are chosen usually from the majority? The median fee?

What kind of changes would you like to see? Sparkling buttons and stylish layouts? This is a serious forum bringing serious discussions about a serious world-changing project that is taken... seriously! There's no need to change anything that would spoil the spirit of this website.  

I'm sure that the web hosting and the moderation team are way too expensive. Both of them are really fast.

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Not sure, but I remember reading that theymos keeps 750 bitcoins on a cold storage. I don't remember if they are for bitcointalk, though, or just for him.

The miner can include any valid transaction to his block, whether if it has a tiny fee or not. The thing about fees is that you can't broadcast a transaction with no fee to other nodes' mempool, because it'll be considered as dust. The answer is yes, he can.

How can you end up with 33 characters? Does it have to do with the starting zeroes of the RIPEMD-160 hash?

I just noticed that every address starts with a capital letter or with a number (after its prefix) and I want to understand why. I'll take a p2pkh address as an example. We add a version byte in front of the RIPEMD-160 hash and it becomes:

Then we add a checksum from a SHA-256 hash and it will be:

These two zeroes in the front define "1" when we convert the above to base58. Why every address starts with a capital/number since we encode a hash?

Oh, alright. I successfully made a LN transaction with electrum. I do have some questions, though. First of all, on "Swap" it shows that this service is powered by Boltz backend. What does that mean? Is it centralized? Or the backend source files are brought by Boltz? (contribution)

Secondly, when I swap my funds to increase my receiving capacity, where do they go? I checked a block explorer and it showed me a transaction in which a multi-signature address spends an output to one my receiving (bech32) addresses. Also, why was it parent? Shouldn't it be just "Unconfirmed"?



For some reason it shows me the error below, while I have enough sending capacity:

Why that hurry? No one is going to send them money.

Meanwhile in a parallel universe...

Seriously, how emotional can you be? They literally tell you "I have no money for school send me some" or "I got robbed please send smth". On the so-called globalized scamming paradise, also known as "Internet", you'll see a lot of frauds. You know that you should never trust a stranger especially if he/she asks you for money (not to mention that the specific are newbies).

In real life, these people wouldn't beg you on the street. Why would they beg you on this forum?

I've never seen this phenomenon again on any other site/forum. People actually beg for money and it seems more disappointing than scammy. Some of them create new threads and explain a non-sense story, that is clearly meaningless to us, and then they provide a bitcoin address to "help" them with their "life problem". But it gets worse! They create off-topic replies on some already discussed topics. Do they believe that we'll take them^[1] seriously?

Is there anyone that believes them and sends money to strangers? Is there anyone that doesn't have enough problems in his/her life and wants to give a part of his fortune to strangers? Just saying, because I've never felt that happy in my life.  

I wonder, because they haven't stopped doin' it. They keep begging money months now and I assume that they've received some satoshis, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

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[1] If we assume that they are more than one person that just wants to make easy money.

I still don't understand, though, why I can't make a simple LN transaction with two different electrum wallets. I've tried it with the link you gave me (yalls.org), but it doesn't seem to be the same when I try to pay myself. Please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere:

On the first wallet I open a channel with a LN node depositing 5mTBTC. On the second wallet I open a channel with the same LN node depositing again, 5mTBTC. I generate a LN invoice from the first wallet and enter it on the address' input field of the second wallet. I enter 2mTBTC and I click "Pay". This is what I get:

If 51% of the nodes agree with the changing of the total supply, then guess what: They are not bitcoin nodes anymore! Bitcoin consensus rules aren't decided by the majority. It's not a one-node one-vote-for-the-consensus-rules. You're probably confusing consensus with the 51% attack.

Who are you asking? You should consider it as whatever you want it to be! If you find it useful then no, it isn't for speculation only. If you're an experienced trader that makes these suitcases loaded with dollar bills, then it's for speculation only. If you want to hold them for the next century, then it's a store of value. Whether you see it as a medium of exchange, a short-term investment or a store of value, it'll be useful to you.

Well, if you google "what can I buy with bitcoin" you will find some results, that aren't many to be honest. But, in reality they are. What do I mean:  Even if amazon doesn't accept bitcoin, there may be a group of people that sell amazon coupons with bitcoin and thus you can buy amazon stuff with bitcoin.