Bitcoin Security Threatened By Lightning Network

[HCLivess]

http://coincidental.eu/2017/01/10/lightning/

[Xester]

http://coincidental.eu/2017/01/10/lightning/

Lightning Network is not a good choice. Aside from going away from decentralization it is also prone to abuse. This transactions are not very bitcoin like, this may occur if people keep complaining about increasing blocksize and an increased confirmation speed. If this will be adopted transactions will be smoother and fast but it is no longer called bitcoin since it is centralized.

[DooMAD]

Lightning is only really viable for frequent and repeated transactions.  It's no use at all for occasional one-off purchases or trades.  Things like faucets and micropayments in particular and maybe also things like gambling sites and payments for sig campaigns?  Awesome, use Lightning to limit bloat on the blockchain from lots of small amounts going to the same place.  Settle the total on the blockchain maybe once a month or whatever.  But for most other types of transaction?  Not so much.  It really has been over-hyped as an overall "solution" to scaling.  It will help in some situations, but it's not a magic cure.

But for anyone who thinks that direct on-chain transactions should be the preserve of a wealthy minority of whales and everyone else is getting shunted off to Lightning, you can think again.  Not happening.  Bitcoin will not become a two-tier system.  One way or another, there will be an increase (albeit a cautious one) to the blocksize as demand increases.

[Lauda]

This post is completely useless and wrong on several levels. Here's a simple example:

Lightning network is an off-chain solution, which means that in some external system, participants exchange IOUs in some private database. Once the database owner decides for a settlement, they submit their own transactions to the real Bitcoin network.

Wrong. There is no "database owner" in LN.

[Jet Cash]

Lightning is only really viable for frequent and repeated transactions.  It's no use at all for occasional one-off purchases or trades.  Things like faucets and micropayments in particular and maybe also things like gambling sites and payments for sig campaigns?  Awesome, use Lightning to limit bloat on the blockchain from lots of small amounts going to the same place.  Settle the total on the blockchain maybe once a month or whatever.  But for most other types of transaction?  Not so much.  It really has been over-hyped as an overall "solution" to scaling.  It will help in some situations, but it's not a magic cure.

But for anyone who thinks that direct on-chain transactions should be the preserve of a wealthy minority of whales and everyone else is getting shunted off to Lightning, you can think again.  Not happening.  Bitcoin will not become a two-tier system.  One way or another, there will be an increase (albeit a cautious one) to the blocksize as demand increases.

Thanks for posting that. The sooner we can get gambling, faucets and ponzis off the main blockstream, the better it will be for all of us.

[franky1]

Wrong. There is no "database owner" in LN.

??

LN hub

imagine it

customer A channels to starbucks
customer B channels to starbucks
customer C channels to starbucks

for customer A to pay customer C, .. STARBUCKS becomes the middleman and starbucks has to organise the hops. starbucks then has to manage the customers funds and penalise (CSV revoke/ realworld chargeback) if customer A or C broadcasts outside the agreement starbucks makes.

transactions of A and C all become dependant on meeting starbucks requirements and fee arrangements
yes customer A holds A->starbucks
yes customer B holds B->starbucks
yes customer C holds C->starbucks
but
customer A does not hold customer C IOU for instance .. even if A paid C

meaning customers only hold copies of their own transaction IOU.. but starbucks HOLDS ALL OF THEM
the only person holding ALL the data is starbucks.. starbucks 'mempool' becomes the combined database of everyone, due to how the hops works things become more reliant on starbucks T&C's as they set the fee/penalty arragements.

due to starbucks holding all the IOU collectively. and starbucks can revoke its customers funds if one person messes around.. starbucks becomes paypal 2.0 in essence