When will the lightning network activate?

[User365]

This is no FUD or advertisement for BCH, but I think we need a solution for the scaling problem now. (not because of the BCH pump and dump, but in general, just look at the mempool)

I had not much time in the past two months to follow up with the news and post in the forum, and my quick searches through the forum and google brought me no answer.

How far is the lightning network away from being activated?


I completely agree with this article:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/lightning-must-strike-soon-bitcoin-facing-backlogs-as-scalability-solution-awaited

[haltingprobability]

This is no FUD or advertisement for BCH, but I think we need a solution for the scaling problem now. (not because of the BCH pump and dump, but in general, just look at the mempool)

I had not much time in the past two months to follow up with the news and post in the forum, and my quick searches through the forum and google brought me no answer.

How far is the lightning network away from being activated?


I completely agree with this article:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/lightning-must-strike-soon-bitcoin-facing-backlogs-as-scalability-solution-awaited

I hope the Core devs will put other "blue sky" stuff on pause for the time being and just roll out a well-tested LN reference library ASAP. A reference library will allow independent developers to build their own LN apps/businesses. I think a lot of the crypto capital is getting sucked into ICOs right now but it only takes one visionary to see that a LN payment processor + secure LN client has virtually unlimited demand (hence, massive ROI).

[Matias]

I have the same question: is there any timeline for Lightning network? It is strange, that there is much discussion about the network and how great it will be, but no timeline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCE2OzKIab8&feature=youtu.be&t=5h42m40s

Here you can hear 6 months, one year, 18 months..

[aleksej996]

To be fair it is not like they are building something that was done before. It might be hard to estimate how long it will take to test all the bugs and everything.
All I know is that these guys have been developing a client for it https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd and that they updated the ReadMe file to check the last box for "Lightning Network Specification Compliance". I hope it comes soon, but there really isn't any information out there. Your best bet would be to go to one of the developers twitter and ask him there.

[kernighan]

I do believe BTC, but challenges from altcoin is coming these years.
I not worry about BCH, but others.

[Carlton Banks]

Someone asked a similar question on the lightning-dev mailing list, apparently the different teams independently implementing their own software based on the Lightning protocol are now at a fairly late stage of their development paths: testing the interoperation of their separate Lightning implementations. How long that takes is down to them though. Maybe someone will do a launch in Q1 2018? Not sure tbh.

[achow101]

I hope the Core devs will put other "blue sky" stuff on pause for the time being and just roll out a well-tested LN reference library ASAP. A reference library will allow independent developers to build their own LN apps/businesses. I think a lot of the crypto capital is getting sucked into ICOs right now but it only takes one visionary to see that a LN payment processor + secure LN client has virtually unlimited demand (hence, massive ROI).

The Bitcoin Core developers are not the same people who work on the Lightning Network. Those working on the Lightning Network are a completely separate group of people, and there are several different groups of developers within the Lightning Network developers. Each group has their own implementation.

All of the people working on the Lightning Network are in the final stages of implementing everything. The lightning specification is still being finalized, and as that changes, so do the implementations. The implementations are usable and are actively being tested on testnet by many people, not just the developers. We are probably only a few months away from having LN on the mainnet as the developers are really just working on interoperability of clients and ease of use.

[haltingprobability]

I hope the Core devs will put other "blue sky" stuff on pause for the time being and just roll out a well-tested LN reference library ASAP. A reference library will allow independent developers to build their own LN apps/businesses. I think a lot of the crypto capital is getting sucked into ICOs right now but it only takes one visionary to see that a LN payment processor + secure LN client has virtually unlimited demand (hence, massive ROI).

The Bitcoin Core developers are not the same people who work on the Lightning Network. Those working on the Lightning Network are a completely separate group of people, and there are several different groups of developers within the Lightning Network developers. Each group has their own implementation.

All of the people working on the Lightning Network are in the final stages of implementing everything. The lightning specification is still being finalized, and as that changes, so do the implementations. The implementations are usable and are actively being tested on testnet by many people, not just the developers. We are probably only a few months away from having LN on the mainnet as the developers are really just working on interoperability of clients and ease of use.

Thanks for that info.

The reason for my post is that I have stumbled across quotes from key Bitcoin people along the lines that "payment processing is just one part of Bitcoin, so people are freaking out for no good reason." I hope this is not a widespread view within Bitcoin devs (whether Core or others). While Bitcoin can and will do more than just payment processing, payment processing is, indeed, Bitcoin's killer app today. Reading between the lines, I think that Satoshi envisioned a potentially long runway for Bitcoin but adoption is growing much faster than I think anyone could have realistically anticipated in 2009. That means that the key people who are guiding development of key features of Bitcoin need to think more like a finance startup and less like a space research agency - get it done yesterday and the customer is always right! The risk of being non-competitive is that Bitcoin could get swamped out of the market by an inferior (as measured in terms of Bitcoin's core principles) but more heavily capitalized competitor. While BCH is not yet a serious threat in this regard, it is a living demonstration of the dynamic that is at play, here. With growing adoption, Bitcoin is no longer just a technology, it is a social/economic phenomenon. It is in the nature of market competition that only the fittest survive, no matter how good the technology the non-fittest were using.

[-ck]

Lightening is when the head engages during pregnancy, positioning the baby lower and relieving the pressure on the lower rib cage. It usually happens around week 36.

But I guess you mean the lightning network. You know, as in thunder and lightning. Not sure why everyone misspells this.

[J. Cooper]

I hope the Core devs will put other "blue sky" stuff on pause for the time being and just roll out a well-tested LN reference library ASAP. A reference library will allow independent developers to build their own LN apps/businesses. I think a lot of the crypto capital is getting sucked into ICOs right now but it only takes one visionary to see that a LN payment processor + secure LN client has virtually unlimited demand (hence, massive ROI).

The Bitcoin Core developers are not the same people who work on the Lightning Network. Those working on the Lightning Network are a completely separate group of people, and there are several different groups of developers within the Lightning Network developers. Each group has their own implementation.

All of the people working on the Lightning Network are in the final stages of implementing everything. The lightning specification is still being finalized, and as that changes, so do the implementations. The implementations are usable and are actively being tested on testnet by many people, not just the developers. We are probably only a few months away from having LN on the mainnet as the developers are really just working on interoperability of clients and ease of use.

Good to hear that things are coming along nicely. We have segwit now (since august) so in theory we would be able to implement Lightning network in a couple of months when it's completely finished and tested. Now that's great but in order to get it locked in and activated we would need consensus right? So would we have to go through a similar process like the process with segwit (1x)? Surely it can't be implemented straight away before getting approvement from miners, nodes and the community in general.

Lightening is when the head engages during pregnancy, positioning the baby lower and relieving the pressure on the lower rib cage. It usually happens around week 36.

But I guess you mean the lightning network. You know, as in thunder and lightning. Not sure why everyone misspells this.

LOL.

[aleksej996]

Good to hear that things are coming along nicely. We have segwit now (since august) so in theory we would be able to implement Lightning network in a couple of months when it's completely finished and tested. Now that's great but in order to get it locked in and activated we would need consensus right? So would we have to go through a similar process like the process with segwit (1x)? Surely it can't be implemented straight away before getting approvement from miners, nodes and the community in general.

You are wrong
There is no consensus needed for LN as there is no change to the protocol, not even a soft fork.
It is a second layer protocol that works on top of Bitcoin by using Bitcoin blockchain for security of it's transactions, but without need to place every single one on the blockchain. Just the opening of the channel and closing will have to be on the blockchain and they are valid Bitcoin transactions.

You can read more about it here https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/understanding-the-lightning-network-part-building-a-bidirectional-payment-channel-1464710791/

[User365]

Lightening is when the head engages during pregnancy, positioning the baby lower and relieving the pressure on the lower rib cage. It usually happens around week 36.

But I guess you mean the lightning network. You know, as in thunder and lightning. Not sure why everyone misspells this.

Thank you, I edited my post 

[Rahar02]

I hope the Core devs will put other "blue sky" stuff on pause for the time being and just roll out a well-tested LN reference library ASAP. A reference library will allow independent developers to build their own LN apps/businesses. I think a lot of the crypto capital is getting sucked into ICOs right now but it only takes one visionary to see that a LN payment processor + secure LN client has virtually unlimited demand (hence, massive ROI).

The Bitcoin Core developers are not the same people who work on the Lightning Network. Those working on the Lightning Network are a completely separate group of people, and there are several different groups of developers within the Lightning Network developers. Each group has their own implementation.

All of the people working on the Lightning Network are in the final stages of implementing everything. The lightning specification is still being finalized, and as that changes, so do the implementations. The implementations are usable and are actively being tested on testnet by many people, not just the developers. We are probably only a few months away from having LN on the mainnet as the developers are really just working on interoperability of clients and ease of use.

I knew about core developers and lightning network developers are different group of people, but which one of those groups has the best testnet? As there are several groups of developers. The implementation of lightning network software uses an off-chain protocol. So, it's called off-chain because people can transact bitcoin among themselves in private channels, but only the final outcome of the transaction will be broadcasted to the Blockchain and processed by miners, right? I'm not sure about how we will use lightning network which seems strange for now, as segwit has been implemented for 2 months but has not been fully utilized.

[HeRetiK]

[...]

That means that the key people who are guiding development of key features of Bitcoin need to think more like a finance startup and less like a space research agency - get it done yesterday and the customer is always right!

[...]

Please no.

Leave "move fast and break things" to the snapchats and instagrams of the world. You don't want to apply these principles to an immutable ledger that moves billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency each day. Any competitive edge that is gained by accumulating technical debt will break your neck sooner or later, even moreso with technologies such as Bitcoin.

It's a community effort, not an attempt to make a quick buck by burning venture capital just to get bought up by Google or Facebook further down the road.

[RDDRocket]

I was really hoping to see @roasbeef's version of btcd pulled in for this 0.15.1 release. It didn't make it to this new build and I really hope it makes it into the next 0.15.2 Bitcoin Core wallet. Currently, to run LIghtning Networks "lnd" daemon it has to use roasbeef's btcd. Would be nice if LIghtning Network team members could stop by the forums here and let people know approximately how much time is left on this. We really need to start using SegWit and Lightning!

[9kek]

Hope it'll have a gui.

[User365]

Reviving this because this: https://blockchain.info/de/tx/4777bde78c0d0aeefe76115857414efdec71bc239ecf0a6f1886691575909716 is a joke and I read the LN is already tested on the test chain.

I really like the ideology and concept of BTC and I am definitely no BCH supporter, BUT btc needs scaling. I know BTC has died a lot of times but now I think it could get serious.

Why do I think so?

Amazon and eBay are both seriously considering adding cryptos (not bitcoin, cryptos) as payment.

At the moment I think BTC would be a really bad solution (won´t pay 10$ for some X-mas present and buy 20$ fee on Amazon).

--> If Amazon and/or eBay adds some crypto I think at the moment the best solution would be ripple. 1500 tx/sec vs 3 tx/sec AND if ripple would be accepted by one of those, it would go to the moon and leave BTC behind, end of story 

OR LN finally comes to us and BTC might be again a currency.

Pls share your thoughts and share if you have knowledge of the current state of the LN

[hopeAo]

This is no FUD or advertisement for BCH, but I think we need a solution for the scaling problem now. (not because of the BCH pump and dump, but in general, just look at the mempool)

I had not much time in the past two months to follow up with the news and post in the forum, and my quick searches through the forum and google brought me no answer.

How far is the lightning network away from being activated?


I completely agree with this article:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/lightning-must-strike-soon-bitcoin-facing-backlogs-as-scalability-solution-awaited

The public alpha release Daemon which is a full implementation of Lightning, capable of opening channels with peers, closing channels, completely handling all cooperative and non-cooperative channel states, maintaining a fully authenticated and validated channel graph, performing path finding within the network, passively forwarding incoming payments, and sending outgoing onion-encrypted payments through the network was made on 10 January 2017.

In December 2017 three different entities were working on creating software implementations, ACINQ, Lightning Labs, and Blockstream and in the same month test transactions had been made on the testnet.

[Kakmakr]

You know, when something is rushed, it usually end up in failure. Just look at Bitcoin Gold and previous attempts at forking Bitcoin.

The LN developers know the risk and they are putting their reputation on the line, to put a secure solution on the table. < There are Billions of Dollars invested in Bitcoin, so this is a huge risk, not only for them >

People are blinded by the current situation that are being exploited to promote BCash and other Alt coins. <If the miners and the merchants did their jobs, we would not have had this situation>

The army of BCash shills are doing a good job of distorting the real cause of the current situation. <They simply focus on the problem and not the cause> 

[9kek]

18 months ^TM