I want to know real world use cases of segwit, it seems like segwit is similar to 3D Tv technology which though is improvement in TV technology but in reality very few users will actually use it.

Most bitcoin transactions are generally one time like: User withdraws money from any exchange/website or User buys something using bitcoin online or user buys a service using bitcoin. I dont understand how segwit/lightening can be used in this general usecase. Some services are paid monthly but is the lightening network developed for such cases to keep the payment channel open for a month?

Thus it seems segwit/lightening  is not useful in most transactions, so though theoretically it should reduce the number of bitcoin transactions but in reality it will not make much difference to the actual number of transactions because it does not cover most common bitcoin use-cases and completely useless for average bitcoin user.   

What is that reduce the number of transactions? you can't stop people from transacting, segwit does it by reducing the size of the data included in each block. who opens channels in LN?

But then what is the point of using bitcoin ?
The normal payment processors like visa provide the exact same service , what extra will I as a bitcoin user get using a lightening payment processor.

In case if you missed it, bitcoin miners are mining LTC ever since 2011 and now they need to sell their stash, we need to wait a bit longer for them to come back to the bitcoin table.

While every one debating about the current issue I'm more concerned about alts pumping I'm afraid it becoming a habit for people/ investors to start thinking investing on alt coins has potentially more profit than bitcoin.
Who said users should have a saying in current situation?
Bitcoin is the revolution to change the world not being kept busy with talks about a few satoshi here and there, fees, bla bla, etc, etc.

Allow me to describe the image that I see when I step back from it watching from outside;

I can see a vast network of miners with hundreds of billions invested on mining farms, getting much powerful that even governments start competing to increase their hash power.
After seeing that image suddenly I realized I'm missing on thousands of bitcoins because I could be a major player potentially in the future if I just hold 1000 coins.

How will they gather this information, if you are running this node? You provide your own payment channel without having to store or share information with anybody? The way I understand this, anyone can host a node, not just specific companies or certain individuals.

We are totally open to the same thing, if miners are owned and run by huge corporate entities and/or financial institutions. Who says these mining farms are not funded by the Chinese government for instance? ^hmmmmm^

Yes that is my original question, everyone can open a payment channel but those channels are useless as most bitcoin transactions are one time type of transactions unlike lightening requirement of multiple small transactions between same parties where it can help reduce the network load.

If segwit will be implemented to bitcoin then it will be a huge help for bitcoin because the block size will be bigger and the stuck transactions will be lessen and the flow of the transaction in the blockchain network will be faster because of the bigger sizes of blocks which is very important for us because we love fast transactions.

Does lightning network can make transaction much faster and can it really lower the transaction fees. There are many claims that the lightning network can solve the slow confirmation and its name suggests that it has the power to do so. But it is too early to say those things we can only tell if we are already using lightning network. After which we can claim if it is fast or slow, if it is cheap or not.

to explain LN channels(hop)..

firstly ill display this image and then explain it


first some people think anyone can set up a channel with a click and remain permissionless(#1).. wrong!
 you have to set it up WITH ANOTHER PARTY (#2) !! permissioned as you need their signature to sign off on payments !!

next you cant just instantly pay anyone. for instance A cant just pay E,
you  need to have to find a route to the intended 'anyone' by finding a path of channels that can link you to the intended party.

this involves some parties having more than one channel open (#3) as you can see B has 2, C has 2, D has 2..

next is the funding..
A doesnt just fund E.. A has to pass funds to B(plus a fee) in the A_B channel... B then needs to use a separate channel B_C with separate funding to fund C, and so on. (#4)
this means with a cap per channel of lets say 0.1btc
B needs to deposit 0.1 into 2 channels
C needs to deposit 0.1 into 2 channels and so on

now, with many channels available and channels having funds, this then allows a path (route)(#5) to be established from A to E

---

now lets say A wants to pay E
we will start with the blank slate(#6)
imagine A wants to pay E 0.01btc... and each 'hop' cost 0.001 fee to thank each person of the route for participating.
(dont knit pick the fee or take it literally. i chose 0.001 randomly for demo purposes only, i simply couldnt be arsed to do lengthy decimals to show a very small fee)

as you can see in(#7) A has worked out it would cost him 0.003 in fee's to get to E and so A passed 0.013 to B
B in A_B is where B's 0.001 fee remains.

in (#8) B using the separate stash knows its going to cost him 0.002 in fee's to get to E and so B passed 0.012 to C
C in B_C is where C's 0.001 fee remains.

in (#9) C using the separate stash knows its going to cost him 0.001 in fee's to get to E and so C passed 0.011 to D
D in B_C is where C's 0.001 fee remains.

in (#10) D using the separate stash passes 0.011 to E
D in D_D is where D's 0.001 fee remains.


which when if they all closed channels and totalled up their holdings
(#11) A=0.087 B=0.101 C=0.101 D=0.101  E=0.110
which means the guys in the middle are 0.001(fee) in profit from acting as routes(hops) and E has the 0.01 which indirectly came from A
because A is down by 0.01... (and down by 0.003 for the fee's)

---

all that the mainnet chain see's to set up the channels is the 8 transactions (into a channel) to set up the 4 channels (2 tx per channel)
as shown by the arrows in (#5)
A(0.1)->A_B               B(0.1)->A_B               B(0.1)->B_C                C(0.1)->B_C  
C(0.1)->C_D               D(0.1)->C_D              D(0.1)->D_E                E(0.1)->D_E

and 4 final transactions when closing the channels
A_B(0.2)->A(0.087)B(0.103)                  B_C(0.2)->B(0.088)C(0.102)    
C_D(0.2)->C(0.089)B(0.101)                  D_E(0.2)->B(0.09)C(0.110)  

which when if they all closed channels and totalled up their holdings
(#11) A=0.087 B=0.101 C=0.101 D=0.101  E=0.110

which means the guys in the middle are 0.001(fee) in profit from acting as routes(hops) and E has the 0.01 which indirectly came from A
because A is down by 0.01... (and down by 0.003 for the fee's)

---

the steps #7 to #10 are funds moved all off chain.. never seen by the mainnet chain
and funds can move back and forth as many times as possible off chain as long as:
the channels have enough funds to work as a route for the particular payment
and
there are enough channels to link/create a route

Wow - Very Nice. Like the Diagram.. ^^

And a great description of the inner workings.

Thanks.

..

BUT - it is NOT permissioned..

You can cash at AT ANY TIME without the permission of the HUB. The whole point is that you both hold valid TXNs that you can publish at any time should you wish to.

This is called 'Closing the Channel'.

It's not a new concept - it's just like a payment channel.

Stop scaring people Franky..  

...

I would imagine ALL the crypto exchanges run LN Hubs.

BlockChain.info would run a hub.

CoinBase would run a hub.

Any 'social group' could run it's own hub..  and Cafe's, Restaurant, Bars, Casinos! etc etc.. ( So any txn between any of these participants would be LN based )

Now ( I reckon.. ) MOST of the current BTC traffic would be off-chain, instant, and for as little as a satoshi.. ( it's all of us moving money in and out of exchanges that really clogs things up.. ).. Seriously - like 90%.

THIS IS WHY THE BLOCK SIZE WON'T MATTER. We may find 1MB is PLENTY. (For now..)

(..or in SegWit's case 1+3MB..)