Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[xyzzy099]

We're possibly rewarded with back door centralisation by expecting places like Coinbase to route channels for us. It's all conjecture. Let's see it running before deciding how it's going to work.

You might find these links interesting:

https://medium.com/@rusty_lightning/lightning-routing-rough-background-dbac930abbad#.6k920aqm5

http://bitfury.com/content/5-white-papers-research/whitepaper_flare_an_approach_to_routing_in_lightning_network_7_7_2016.pdf

[savetherainforest]

When it encourages between 7-9 trillion people to clog every channel with faucet dicking then what? We're all DOOMED.

You do know they are launching 10 nano-meter technology on large scale soon... and then 5 or 7 nano-meters! ... Now we have the 14nm chips on the market and you can give custom designs pre-orders.
But the thing is that when those 5 - 7 nano-meter chips hit the market like in 2020 ... The next thing after that is quatum computing!
But there is another "but" ...  I have read in some article that there is already a way for quantum computing, but not at room temperature, meaning you would need a special cooler in a special room.

So.. have about that! You worry too much...


*Edit: All I can say is that "Moore's Law" was right!

[kobilica]

Approaching 666$ again 

[JimboToronto]

Good morning Bitcoinland.

Sideways 'r' us.



This can't go on forever, or can it?

[adamstgBit]

[edited out]

good job buying as the sky was falling.

Look at you?  seeming to not be able to resist getting in a kind of non-substantive ad hominem attack.  You don't even explain what was wrong with my approach.  Are you saying (in retrospect monday morning quarterbacking) that there was something fundamentally wrong with my approach?  Do you know enough about my approach?   I don't really want to get caught up on this, except to suggest that you really don't have anything here, except some desire to get in a bit of a digg, for some reason?

you read sarcasm when there was none.
your approach which seems to be focused around the idea that you simply cannot predict price movements, there for you dont try, you simply let the price movements dictate your actions based on your     avg price / % in / desired % in
Is the best possible approach as an investor.

[jertsy]

That test might result in a price jump despite whether anyone supports the lightning network or fights it. A jump might go above $700 once and for all. There's been a few weeks of calm but some news like that might start the high volume violent price moves again.

Since when did your average trader react to news other than the bad? I can't really think of anything. The unfortunate thing about bad news is that it's usually instant whereas good news always adds to a future just beyond reach.

Was news of the Brexit bad news? It depends on your point of view, but Bitcoin soared back up to $700 as soon as the news was out. I'm certain the fiat market traders who lost a fortune betting on no Brexit viewed it as bad news, and I'm also certain many Bitcoin holders viewed it as good news.

[Tzupy]

So far there's not enough fiat on exchanges to push up fast. But if 630$ holds, a rally is still possible.

[AlexGR]

https://twitter.com/bencxr/status/755241138756448256
LN test:  20 payments in 100ms > 17+million per day, per channel.

This is getting interesting.

Indeed. You know, there are prominent people in the Bitcoin community that I admire and still support, but I'm baffled by their opposition to LN being a separate thing from the core Bitcoin network.

Anyone who knows anything about technology, networks, and programming knows the valid reason why databases are completely separate from the transactional layers of any application.  Or how bank clearing houses work.  It's really the only way to scale it properly.

Bitcoin, unsettling as this may sound, is very much unlike a bank. It was designed to be both a currency and a payment processor, i.e. A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Lightning is not a p2p cash system, but a p2p gift card system. One opens a "channel" and funds it with BTC.  Think credit card that, instead of letting you buy now and pay later, requires you to pre-fund it every month, and then allows you buy up to the pre-funded amount. Why "gift card" instead of credit card, you ask? Because you can only use it to transact with a single entity, just like you can only spend your Starbucks gift card at Starbucks.

Perhaps LN can be viewed as the aggregating mechanism that makes micro-txs possible:

Bitcoin isn't currently practical for very small micropayments.  Not for things like pay per search or per page view without an aggregating mechanism, not things needing to pay less than 0.01.  The dust spam limit is a first try at intentionally trying to prevent overly small micropayments like that.

Bitcoin is practical for smaller transactions than are practical with existing payment methods.  Small enough to include what you might call the top of the micropayment range.  But it doesn't claim to be practical for arbitrarily small micropayments.

[respawn2]

https://twitter.com/bencxr/status/755241138756448256
LN test:  20 payments in 100ms > 17+million per day, per channel.

This is getting interesting.

Indeed. You know, there are prominent people in the Bitcoin community that I admire and still support, but I'm baffled by their opposition to LN being a separate thing from the core Bitcoin network.

Anyone who knows anything about technology, networks, and programming knows the valid reason why databases are completely separate from the transactional layers of any application.  Or how bank clearing houses work.  It's really the only way to scale it properly.

Bitcoin, unsettling as this may sound, is very much unlike a bank. It was designed to be both a currency and a payment processor, i.e. A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Lightning is not a p2p cash system, but a p2p gift card system. One opens a "channel" and funds it with BTC.  Think credit card that, instead of letting you buy now and pay later, requires you to pre-fund it every month, and then allows you buy up to the pre-funded amount. Why "gift card" instead of credit card, you ask? Because you can only use it to transact with a single entity, just like you can only spend your Starbucks gift card at Starbucks.

Perhaps LN can be viewed as the aggregating mechanism that makes micro-txs possible:

Bitcoin isn't currently practical for very small micropayments.  Not for things like pay per search or per page view without an aggregating mechanism, not things needing to pay less than 0.01.  The dust spam limit is a first try at intentionally trying to prevent overly small micropayments like that.

Bitcoin is practical for smaller transactions than are practical with existing payment methods.  Small enough to include what you might call the top of the micropayment range.  But it doesn't claim to be practical for arbitrarily small micropayments.

I can see LN being useful, but it's not a scaling solution.
Let's take micropayments (assuming that by "arbitrarily small," you mean sub-$2 now, sub $4 when the tx fees double, etc., but that's a different topic).

Why are micropayments useful? Let's say Google is charging me per search: there's absolutely no reason for Google not to tally the number of searches I do on their own database, and then bill me by the month. Is there?
So micropayments aren't needed for sites that I use often, but LN is utterly useless to me if I need to make a micropayment to a site I never visited - I'd need to create a channel first.

In short, give me some compelling use cases for micropayments which couldn't be handled simpler without LN. I'm sure there are many, but just can't think of them offhand.

[AlexGR]

https://twitter.com/bencxr/status/755241138756448256
LN test:  20 payments in 100ms > 17+million per day, per channel.

This is getting interesting.

Indeed. You know, there are prominent people in the Bitcoin community that I admire and still support, but I'm baffled by their opposition to LN being a separate thing from the core Bitcoin network.

Anyone who knows anything about technology, networks, and programming knows the valid reason why databases are completely separate from the transactional layers of any application.  Or how bank clearing houses work.  It's really the only way to scale it properly.

Bitcoin, unsettling as this may sound, is very much unlike a bank. It was designed to be both a currency and a payment processor, i.e. A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Lightning is not a p2p cash system, but a p2p gift card system. One opens a "channel" and funds it with BTC.  Think credit card that, instead of letting you buy now and pay later, requires you to pre-fund it every month, and then allows you buy up to the pre-funded amount. Why "gift card" instead of credit card, you ask? Because you can only use it to transact with a single entity, just like you can only spend your Starbucks gift card at Starbucks.

Perhaps LN can be viewed as the aggregating mechanism that makes micro-txs possible:

Bitcoin isn't currently practical for very small micropayments.  Not for things like pay per search or per page view without an aggregating mechanism, not things needing to pay less than 0.01.  The dust spam limit is a first try at intentionally trying to prevent overly small micropayments like that.

Bitcoin is practical for smaller transactions than are practical with existing payment methods.  Small enough to include what you might call the top of the micropayment range.  But it doesn't claim to be practical for arbitrarily small micropayments.

I can see LN being useful, but it's not a scaling solution.
Let's take micropayments (assuming that by "arbitrarily small," you mean sub-$2 now, sub $4 when the tx fees double, etc., but that's a different topic).

Why are micropayments useful? Let's say Google is charging me per search: there's absolutely no reason for Google not to tally the number of searches I do on their own database, and then bill me by the month. Is there?
So micropayments aren't needed for sites that I use often, but LN is utterly useless to me if I need to make a micropayment to a site I never visited - I'd need to create a channel first.

In short, give me some compelling use cases for micropayments which couldn't be handled simpler without LN. I'm sure there are many, but just can't think of them offhand.

Online games could use micropayments. E-commerce on cheap items or services too.

I'm of the opinion that the long-term goal of BTC+technology should be to ...eliminate the need for things like LN - but work with them while they are needed.

[adamstgBit]

https://twitter.com/bencxr/status/755241138756448256
LN test:  20 payments in 100ms > 17+million per day, per channel.

This is getting interesting.

Indeed. You know, there are prominent people in the Bitcoin community that I admire and still support, but I'm baffled by their opposition to LN being a separate thing from the core Bitcoin network.

Anyone who knows anything about technology, networks, and programming knows the valid reason why databases are completely separate from the transactional layers of any application.  Or how bank clearing houses work.  It's really the only way to scale it properly.

Bitcoin, unsettling as this may sound, is very much unlike a bank. It was designed to be both a currency and a payment processor, i.e. A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Lightning is not a p2p cash system, but a p2p gift card system. One opens a "channel" and funds it with BTC.  Think credit card that, instead of letting you buy now and pay later, requires you to pre-fund it every month, and then allows you buy up to the pre-funded amount. Why "gift card" instead of credit card, you ask? Because you can only use it to transact with a single entity, just like you can only spend your Starbucks gift card at Starbucks.

Perhaps LN can be viewed as the aggregating mechanism that makes micro-txs possible:

Bitcoin isn't currently practical for very small micropayments.  Not for things like pay per search or per page view without an aggregating mechanism, not things needing to pay less than 0.01.  The dust spam limit is a first try at intentionally trying to prevent overly small micropayments like that.

Bitcoin is practical for smaller transactions than are practical with existing payment methods.  Small enough to include what you might call the top of the micropayment range.  But it doesn't claim to be practical for arbitrarily small micropayments.

I can see LN being useful, but it's not a scaling solution.
Let's take micropayments (assuming that by "arbitrarily small," you mean sub-$2 now, sub $4 when the tx fees double, etc., but that's a different topic).

Why are micropayments useful? Let's say Google is charging me per search: there's absolutely no reason for Google not to tally the number of searches I do on their own database, and then bill me by the month. Is there?
So micropayments aren't needed for sites that I use often, but LN is utterly useless to me if I need to make a micropayment to a site I never visited - I'd need to create a channel first.

In short, give me some compelling use cases for micropayments which couldn't be handled simpler without LN. I'm sure there are many, but just can't think of them offhand.

LN is most useful for lager entities which hold users bitcoins, and move them on there behalf.

bitpay, bitfinex, changetip, etc..

will all be connected together via LN and allow users to move funds among these large site, in a cheap / instant / trustless manner.

[respawn2]

Online games could use micropayments. E-commerce on cheap items or services too.

Let's walk this through. I run across an online game that I want to play. I have to open a payment channel, and prefund it with as much BTC as I think I'm likely to spend playing this game.
What's to prevent me from simply sending this macro-payment straight to the game site? Why involve LN?

[respawn2]

LN is most useful for lager entities which hold users bitcoins, and move them on there behalf.

bitpay, bitfinex, changetip, etc..

will all be connected together via LN and allow users to move funds among these large site, in a cheap / instant / trustless manner.

I'm not sure I follow. If I want to pay Bob for a hamburger with BitPay, how would LN play into this? I have an open, pre-funded channel with BitPay, and BitPay has open, pre-funded channels with everyone I want to do business with? That's a *huge* sum of BTC to tie up.
If not clear, before using BitPay, I'd have to open a payment channel with BitPay, and fund it with as much BTC as I'm likely to spend with BitPay in, let's say, a month. That's a big chunk of change, but that's not all. BitPay has to keep a huge number of open channels with all of its users, and those channels all have to be funded. That's a huge chunk of change squared.

[AlexGR]

Online games could use micropayments. E-commerce on cheap items or services too.

Let's walk this through. I run across an online game that I want to play. I have to open a payment channel, and prefund it with as much BTC as I think I'm likely to spend playing this game.
What's to prevent me from simply sending this macro-payment straight to the game site? Why involve LN?

I'm making different assumptions I guess. You assume one-way payments, I was thinking of a more amphidromous relationship where the player does something and get paid, or where he wants to make a payment for something small, etc. Betting or casino games are also like that because you can win and lose all the time.

For now the problem (in games, not casinos) can be solved with use of ingame currency that is different from BTC, so that's the aggregation mechanism so to speak. But you can then make btc as the ingame currency.

[Torque]

Online games could use micropayments. E-commerce on cheap items or services too.

Let's walk this through. I run across an online game that I want to play. I have to open a payment channel, and prefund it with as much BTC as I think I'm likely to spend playing this game.
What's to prevent me from simply sending this macro-payment straight to the game site? Why involve LN?

Because you'll have to wait over an hour for your macro transaction to even confirm, that's why.

Or maybe you chose a poor example? LN is for buying coffees, fast food, and beers, not for micro-funding your silly online gambling addiction.  

[respawn2]

Online games could use micropayments. E-commerce on cheap items or services too.

Let's walk this through. I run across an online game that I want to play. I have to open a payment channel, and prefund it with as much BTC as I think I'm likely to spend playing this game.
What's to prevent me from simply sending this macro-payment straight to the game site? Why involve LN?

Because you'll have to wait over an hour for your macro transaction to even confirm, that's why.

But LN uses BTC as a settlement layer. So that macro-payment will still be on the blockchain when I fund the channel. If it takes an hour, using LN won't magically make it confirm faster.

Or maybe you chose a poor example? LN is for buy coffees, fast food, and beers, not for micro-funding your silly online gambling addiction.  

You mean, like Starbucks gift card, that I buy from Starbucks with a BTC macro-transaction?
Yeah, that's what I am comparing LN to, because that's what it basically is: a gift card layer.

[respawn2]

Online games could use micropayments. E-commerce on cheap items or services too.

Let's walk this through. I run across an online game that I want to play. I have to open a payment channel, and prefund it with as much BTC as I think I'm likely to spend playing this game.
What's to prevent me from simply sending this macro-payment straight to the game site? Why involve LN?

I'm making different assumptions I guess. You assume one-way payments, I was thinking of a more amphidromous relationship where the player does something and get paid, or where he wants to make a payment for something small, etc. Betting or casino games are also like that because you can win and lose all the time.

I don't gamble, but if I understand it correctly, you have a casino wallet, play from that wallet (off-chain, using the casino's internal ledger), and, if you win, you get more money in your casino wallet. Is this correct? Or do BTC casinos actually do everything on chain?
When you want to stop playing and cash out, you pull your BTC out of your casino wallet (macro-transaction), or leave it there for later. Alternately, you've lost all your money, and there's no need for another transaction.
How does LN help here?

[adamstgBit]

LN is most useful for lager entities which hold users bitcoins, and move them on there behalf.

bitpay, bitfinex, changetip, etc..

will all be connected together via LN and allow users to move funds among these large site, in a cheap / instant / trustless manner.

I'm not sure I follow. If I want to pay Bob for a hamburger with BitPay, how would LN play into this? I have an open, pre-funded channel with BitPay, and BitPay has open, pre-funded channels with everyone I want to do business with? That's a *huge* sum of BTC to tie up.
If not clear, before using BitPay, I'd have to open a payment channel with BitPay, and fund it with as much BTC as I'm likely to spend with BitPay in, let's say, a month. That's a big chunk of change, but that's not all. BitPay has to keep a huge number of open channels with all of its users, and those channels all have to be funded. That's a huge chunk of change squared.

imagine you want to move bitcoins from your TheRockTradingExhange account to your bitfinex account.
right now you only have the option of transferring the funds using the bitcoin network.
but with LN...
TheRockTradingExhange will send LN bitcoin to bitfinex, bitfinex doesn't need to trust TheRockTradingExhange and they can swap bitcoin back and forth all day long at no cost.

users dont open channels, they log into a website and request to send some bitcoin to some other website, instead of a BTC address you specify a site/account to send BTC to.

TheRockTradingExhange and bitfinex open 1 channel which they use to move ALL user funds back and forth.

[respawn2]

LN is most useful for lager entities which hold users bitcoins, and move them on there behalf.

bitpay, bitfinex, changetip, etc..

will all be connected together via LN and allow users to move funds among these large site, in a cheap / instant / trustless manner.

I'm not sure I follow. If I want to pay Bob for a hamburger with BitPay, how would LN play into this? I have an open, pre-funded channel with BitPay, and BitPay has open, pre-funded channels with everyone I want to do business with? That's a *huge* sum of BTC to tie up.
If not clear, before using BitPay, I'd have to open a payment channel with BitPay, and fund it with as much BTC as I'm likely to spend with BitPay in, let's say, a month. That's a big chunk of change, but that's not all. BitPay has to keep a huge number of open channels with all of its users, and those channels all have to be funded. That's a huge chunk of change squared.

imagine you want to move bitcoins from your TheRockTradingExhange account to your bitfinex account.
right now you only have the option of transferring the funds using the bitcoin network.

Correct. One macro-transaction.

but with LN...
TheRockTradingExhange will send LN bitcoin to bitfinex, bitfinex doesn't need to trust TheRockTradingExhange and they can swap bitcoin back and forth all day long at no cost.

So TheRock has an open channel with BFX, prefunded with a humongous sum of BTC, as much as the biggest swap the two exchanges are likely to make, in, say, a month? How many thousands of BTC is that?

users dont open channels, they log into a website and request to send some bitcoin to some other website, instead of a BTC address you specify a site/account to send BTC to.

As long as TheRock has a channel with Hamburger Bob, open and funded, sounds like a plan. How much money did TheRock start out with, I mean before it funded all these channels? Are there enough bitcoins in the world for that?

TheRockTradingExhange and bitfinex open 1 channel which they use to move ALL user funds back and forth.

Or they can do it without involving Bitcoin at all, and just send numbers to each other, settle shit with macro-transactions on the first of the month, like every business in the world does.

You know that big businesses send each other bills, they sign contracts and, without any physical money changing hands, multi-billion-dollar construction projects are started and ...wait for it ... even finished!. On a signature.
But Bitcoin exchanges, they can't do accounting like every other company on the planet. They need to make trustless micropayments to each other by using LN.

[adamstgBit]

LN is most useful for lager entities which hold users bitcoins, and move them on there behalf.

bitpay, bitfinex, changetip, etc..

will all be connected together via LN and allow users to move funds among these large site, in a cheap / instant / trustless manner.

I'm not sure I follow. If I want to pay Bob for a hamburger with BitPay, how would LN play into this? I have an open, pre-funded channel with BitPay, and BitPay has open, pre-funded channels with everyone I want to do business with? That's a *huge* sum of BTC to tie up.
If not clear, before using BitPay, I'd have to open a payment channel with BitPay, and fund it with as much BTC as I'm likely to spend with BitPay in, let's say, a month. That's a big chunk of change, but that's not all. BitPay has to keep a huge number of open channels with all of its users, and those channels all have to be funded. That's a huge chunk of change squared.

imagine you want to move bitcoins from your TheRockTradingExhange account to your bitfinex account.
right now you only have the option of transferring the funds using the bitcoin network.

Correct. One macro-transaction.

but with LN...
TheRockTradingExhange will send LN bitcoin to bitfinex, bitfinex doesn't need to trust TheRockTradingExhange and they can swap bitcoin back and forth all day long at no cost.

So TheRock has an open channel with BFX, prefunded with a humongous sum of BTC, as much as the two exchanges are likely to swap, in, say, a month? How many million BTC is that?

users dont open channels, they log into a website and request to send some bitcoin to some other website, instead of a BTC address you specify a site/account to send BTC to.

As long as TheRock has a channel with Hamburger Bob, open and funded, sounds like a plan. How much money did TheRock start out with, I mean before it funded all these channels? Are there enough bitcoins in the world for that?

TheRockTradingExhange and bitfinex open 1 channel which they use to move ALL user funds back and forth.

Or they can do it without involving Bitcoin at all, and just send numbers to each other, settle shit with macro-transactions on the first of the month, like every business in the world does.

TheRock and BFX can choose to settle the channel every time the debit/credit balance is X number of BTC

if users tend to send BTC to and from TheRock and BFX such that the amount coming in / going out of BFX is always  balances out then they can keep the channel open with like 50BTC indefinitely.