Bitcoin Lightning Network

[focmere]

I read about Bitcoin Lightning Network  and i need some clarifications..
I understand that it will kill the high fees we see today and make it cheap and fast like altcoins.

1. Is it going to be 100% sure or just speculations ?
2. Launching date ? weeks/ months/ years ?
3. is it work on a third party service or it will work on and from every wallet (blockchain.innfo , exodus, electrum etc ? )

1. It'll be available. That's 100%.
2. There isn't an official launch date since there are various dev groups working on different implementations of LN. I can tell they are about to release it.
3. Adoption depends on you and me. If you start using segwit and prefer segwit ready companies with your transactions, the other companies which don't use segwit/LN will have to implement those protocols or else they'll go out of business.

Since LN creates an almost zero fee network, it just makes more sense to use it over the onchain transactions. Especially if you are transferring small amounts, buying coffee etc.

Companies can't ignore these developments. If they do, send them to the trash basket. We made them big its not the other way around.

Damn! That's a huge step forward for Bitcoin! We will see major prices increases for Bitcoin and Altcoins alike! I can't wait.

[Darin2]

High fees are killing our ass. They will need to do something for sure.
The price is gonna rise again so the fees too, well maybe not today lol
It is so red out there today.

[bug.lady]

Since LN creates an almost zero fee network,

It is only a zero fee network in the beginning.  Since it is owned, operated and controlled by a private company they can put the fees to whatever they want once everyone adopts and starts using it.  They took over Bitcoin.  They own Bitcoin now.  Trust me, it is not 'free'.  You will only see this after about 2 years when everyone is fully integrated and it is too late to turn back.  Suckers.

Why should we trust you, what are your credentials, really? Kidding aside, everyone who won't be quite satisfied with LN can still use the good old onchain transactions with no LN involved. So your point is effectively meaningless, null and void. These options (I refer to onchain and offchain transactions here) will necessarily make the fees lower. Any way you look at it, ordinary people will have to pay less even if LN hubs will start to charge a fee in the future. In other words, don't make it look like LN is evil because it is not.

Hell-raiser is right. Whatever the real price of using the LN, just by taking some transactions out off main chain will lead to main chain transaction fee decrease: miners will not have that many high fee transactions to choose from so they will have to include the low fee transactions in the blocks they mine too

[OmegaStarScream]

It is only a zero fee network in the beginning.  Since it is owned, operated and controlled by a private company they can put the fees to whatever they want once everyone adopts and starts using it.  They took over Bitcoin.  They own Bitcoin now.  Trust me, it is not 'free'.  You will only see this after about 2 years when everyone is fully integrated and it is too late to turn back.  Suckers.

I'm going to assume you're referring to Blockstream. Even if that's true, unlike running a full node, Lightning network shouldn't cost much resources to run so anyone could do it.

[Manyara]

LN will bring good news to some of the issues ailing the network.

[Selenites]

How will this system going to be implement in the network? Does the exchange or website need to had to their code or buy it, rent it?
I really hope it will save bitcoin

[BitcoinPanther]

I have been waiting for the big news about the Lightning network implementation because this will definitely bring a huge push to Bitcoin.  Imagine sending Bitcoin with 0 fee and instant confirmation?  This solves the scalability problem that had been an issue of bitcoin for so many years, but of course development does not please everyone especially those who will be affected if this upgrade is implemented.  Though I hope this will be done soon!

[CroDam]

I really want LN to come live.

[angelcoins20]

The real problem is on the acceptance of this development just like the segwit and segwit2x. Miners, Mining pools, crytpoexchanges are hesistant with this kind of changes.

[Hell-raiser]

I have been waiting for the big news about the Lightning network implementation because this will definitely bring a huge push to Bitcoin.  Imagine sending Bitcoin with 0 fee and instant confirmation?  This solves the scalability problem that had been an issue of bitcoin for so many years, but of course development does not please everyone especially those who will be affected if this upgrade is implemented.  Though I hope this will be done soon!

I'm impatiently waiting for Lightning Network activation myself but I still have my scruples about its long-term effects. I have no doubt that the price will surge to the sky once LN gets activated and established but will it contribute to real adoption in any meaningful way? Let's assume that we now have free and near-instant transactions, will that make people spend their precious coins on everyday things? Isn't Bitcoin used mostly for speculation today?

You don't pay for a cup of tea with gold, so why should you pay with Bitcoin? That question bugs me constantly. It kinda looks that hassle-free transactions aren't enough to make Bitcoin into what it was conceived to be, that is a universal means of exchange, a full-fledged currency in its own right.

[bug.lady]

I have been waiting for the big news about the Lightning network implementation because this will definitely bring a huge push to Bitcoin.  Imagine sending Bitcoin with 0 fee and instant confirmation?  This solves the scalability problem that had been an issue of bitcoin for so many years, but of course development does not please everyone especially those who will be affected if this upgrade is implemented.  Though I hope this will be done soon!

I'm impatiently waiting for Lightning Network activation myself but I still have my scruples about its long-term effects. I have no doubt that the price will surge to the sky once LN gets activated and established but will it contribute to real adoption in any meaningful way? Let's assume that we now have free and near-instant transactions, will that make people spend their precious coins on everyday things? Isn't Bitcoin used mostly for speculation today?

You don't pay for a cup of tea with gold, so why should you pay with Bitcoin? That question bugs me constantly. It kinda looks that hassle-free transactions aren't enough to make Bitcoin into what it was conceived to be, that is a universal means of exchange, a full-fledged currency in its own right.

on one hand you are right, you don't pay for your coffee with gold. But there are people (i know a few myself) who keep all their savings in gold and treat the gold holdings as a kind of ATM. When they need fiat money, they go out, exchange an ounce or a few ounces (a bar or coin) to A LOT OF fiat and buy things. Now imagine that this exchange is made infinitely easier - you can go out, pay with your gold and get what you wanted to buy - be it coffee, some service, petrol, whatever.

The same applies to bitcoin. Currently, to exchange bitcoin to fiat, you need to do it in large chunks, so the percentage fee consumes is kept low.

And with LN? Say you want to save bitcoins. Say, you want to save it to the point, you keep all your savings in bitcoin. You have no free money. And LN with its fee free transactions would exactly enable that - you could virtually go out with your hardware wallet full of bitcoins and be paying your everyday needs with bitcoin. And the moment your salary arrives, you could exchange it all to bitcoin knowing, that it is going to be quite easy to spend it later.

[onnz423]

I read about Bitcoin Lightning Network  and i need some clarifications..
I understand that it will kill the high fees we see today and make it cheap and fast like altcoins.

1. Is it going to be 100% sure or just speculations ?
2. Launching date ? weeks/ months/ years ?
3. is it work on a third party service or it will work on and from every wallet (blockchain.innfo , exodus, electrum etc ? )

1. There are currently multiple groups working on LN, here is a reddit with some insight you may appreciate: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7q3iw9/this_is_how_btcs_lightning_network_is_supposed_to/

2. The current consensus is that it will be available this year, you can currently test a LN transaction now
http://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-lightning-network-is-coming-test-a-transaction-now/

3. It will require implementation by all third parties.

[Hell-raiser]

I have been waiting for the big news about the Lightning network implementation because this will definitely bring a huge push to Bitcoin.  Imagine sending Bitcoin with 0 fee and instant confirmation?  This solves the scalability problem that had been an issue of bitcoin for so many years, but of course development does not please everyone especially those who will be affected if this upgrade is implemented.  Though I hope this will be done soon!

I'm impatiently waiting for Lightning Network activation myself but I still have my scruples about its long-term effects. I have no doubt that the price will surge to the sky once LN gets activated and established but will it contribute to real adoption in any meaningful way? Let's assume that we now have free and near-instant transactions, will that make people spend their precious coins on everyday things? Isn't Bitcoin used mostly for speculation today?

You don't pay for a cup of tea with gold, so why should you pay with Bitcoin? That question bugs me constantly. It kinda looks that hassle-free transactions aren't enough to make Bitcoin into what it was conceived to be, that is a universal means of exchange, a full-fledged currency in its own right.

on one hand you are right, you don't pay for your coffee with gold. But there are people (i know a few myself) who keep all their savings in gold and treat the gold holdings as a kind of ATM. When they need fiat money, they go out, exchange an ounce or a few ounces (a bar or coin) to A LOT OF fiat and buy things. Now imagine that this exchange is made infinitely easier - you can go out, pay with your gold and get what you wanted to buy - be it coffee, some service, petrol, whatever.

The same applies to bitcoin. Currently, to exchange bitcoin to fiat, you need to do it in large chunks, so the percentage fee consumes is kept low.

And with LN? Say you want to save bitcoins. Say, you want to save it to the point, you keep all your savings in bitcoin. You have no free money. And LN with its fee free transactions would exactly enable that - you could virtually go out with your hardware wallet full of bitcoins and be paying your everyday needs with bitcoin. And the moment your salary arrives, you could exchange it all to bitcoin knowing, that it is going to be quite easy to spend it later.

I definitely see your point and I'm not arguing with it. In fact, these dudes you are talking about have a pretty decent strategy. But this is not what I meant with my example. To tell the truth, gold was a bad choice for it because gold is mostly used as a store of value and not so much for multiplying your wealth. I just wanted to say that it is not very wise overall to spend or rather waste your capital on trivial things. People use bitcoins to earn money, and it makes sense to spend fiat thus earned, not bitcoins themselves with which you earn this fiat. It is like a woodworker selling his tools to provide sustenance to his family when he should actually sell his woodwork.

[tententen]

At present its only in paper but surely they will implement it. But it will take some time to implement it and the launching date is not yet announced . If that comes into reality then no will be able to predict the price of bitcoin because implementation of lightening network is going to solve all its drawback. When its launched definitely third party wallets will launch an updated version which is compatible with lightening network for sure.

This is not the case.  LN is not only on paper.  There have been mainnet txs that used LN and the testnet is widely used.  #bitcoin IRC and #lnd are good places to learn more about it. Joeseph Poon is basically the face of the project as far as I can tell.

[Invester]

I read about Bitcoin Lightning Network  and i need some clarifications..
I understand that it will kill the high fees we see today and make it cheap and fast like altcoins.

1. Is it going to be 100% sure or just speculations ?
2. Launching date ? weeks/ months/ years ?
3. is it work on a third party service or it will work on and from every wallet (blockchain.innfo , exodus, electrum etc ? )

I have also heard about this Bitcoin Lightning Network news. As a matter of fact, if I am not mistaken with the dates, this news about Bitcoin upgrade came out even before Litecoin introduced its own version of Lightning Network. But I am zero when it comes to the latest updates about it. I hope this will be implemented pretty soon so that Bitcoin will gain more trust.

[bug.lady]

I have been waiting for the big news about the Lightning network implementation because this will definitely bring a huge push to Bitcoin.  Imagine sending Bitcoin with 0 fee and instant confirmation?  This solves the scalability problem that had been an issue of bitcoin for so many years, but of course development does not please everyone especially those who will be affected if this upgrade is implemented.  Though I hope this will be done soon!

I'm impatiently waiting for Lightning Network activation myself but I still have my scruples about its long-term effects. I have no doubt that the price will surge to the sky once LN gets activated and established but will it contribute to real adoption in any meaningful way? Let's assume that we now have free and near-instant transactions, will that make people spend their precious coins on everyday things? Isn't Bitcoin used mostly for speculation today?

You don't pay for a cup of tea with gold, so why should you pay with Bitcoin? That question bugs me constantly. It kinda looks that hassle-free transactions aren't enough to make Bitcoin into what it was conceived to be, that is a universal means of exchange, a full-fledged currency in its own right.

on one hand you are right, you don't pay for your coffee with gold. But there are people (i know a few myself) who keep all their savings in gold and treat the gold holdings as a kind of ATM. When they need fiat money, they go out, exchange an ounce or a few ounces (a bar or coin) to A LOT OF fiat and buy things. Now imagine that this exchange is made infinitely easier - you can go out, pay with your gold and get what you wanted to buy - be it coffee, some service, petrol, whatever.

The same applies to bitcoin. Currently, to exchange bitcoin to fiat, you need to do it in large chunks, so the percentage fee consumes is kept low.

And with LN? Say you want to save bitcoins. Say, you want to save it to the point, you keep all your savings in bitcoin. You have no free money. And LN with its fee free transactions would exactly enable that - you could virtually go out with your hardware wallet full of bitcoins and be paying your everyday needs with bitcoin. And the moment your salary arrives, you could exchange it all to bitcoin knowing, that it is going to be quite easy to spend it later.

I definitely see your point and I'm not arguing with it. In fact, these dudes you are talking about have a pretty decent strategy. But this is not what I meant with my example. To tell the truth, gold was a bad choice for it because gold is mostly used as a store of value and not so much for multiplying your wealth. I just wanted to say that it is not very wise overall to spend or rather waste your capital on trivial things. People use bitcoins to earn money, and it makes sense to spend fiat thus earned, not bitcoins themselves with which you earn this fiat. It is like a woodworker selling his tools to provide sustenance to his family when he should actually sell his woodwork.

Yes I can see your point too and I am not arguing with it either I think that many people just hodl their bitcoin and it comes with great pain when they have to depart with it. But still, you need to spend some money each month to survive. What I wanted to say is that if LN brings what it promises, than you can do BOTH: hodl whatever you can save from spending, and spend what you must, at the same time.

I would like to stress one additional thought: that with a deflational currency (bitcoin) it makes much more sense to save it than to spend it immediately. And this behaviour (saving money) whould get promotted. I think it is socially beneficial. It is in contrast with fiat: it makes much more sense to spend fiat as soon as possible, because with time it becomes less and less valuable.

The woodworker from your example will do well to provide woodwork for his family, instead of selling it and later buying the same or similar stuff (maybe made of metal) with earned money. On the second thought I am not sure if the reworked woodworker example proves or disproves my line of thinking, but here it is anyway

[angelcoins20]

I think now is the proper time to implement this changes. We can see that there are many investors that have been losing trust to bitcoins capabilities. We cannot totally argue with them because there is really a major problem.

[Hell-raiser]

I have been waiting for the big news about the Lightning network implementation because this will definitely bring a huge push to Bitcoin.  Imagine sending Bitcoin with 0 fee and instant confirmation?  This solves the scalability problem that had been an issue of bitcoin for so many years, but of course development does not please everyone especially those who will be affected if this upgrade is implemented.  Though I hope this will be done soon!

I'm impatiently waiting for Lightning Network activation myself but I still have my scruples about its long-term effects. I have no doubt that the price will surge to the sky once LN gets activated and established but will it contribute to real adoption in any meaningful way? Let's assume that we now have free and near-instant transactions, will that make people spend their precious coins on everyday things? Isn't Bitcoin used mostly for speculation today?

You don't pay for a cup of tea with gold, so why should you pay with Bitcoin? That question bugs me constantly. It kinda looks that hassle-free transactions aren't enough to make Bitcoin into what it was conceived to be, that is a universal means of exchange, a full-fledged currency in its own right.

on one hand you are right, you don't pay for your coffee with gold. But there are people (i know a few myself) who keep all their savings in gold and treat the gold holdings as a kind of ATM. When they need fiat money, they go out, exchange an ounce or a few ounces (a bar or coin) to A LOT OF fiat and buy things. Now imagine that this exchange is made infinitely easier - you can go out, pay with your gold and get what you wanted to buy - be it coffee, some service, petrol, whatever.

The same applies to bitcoin. Currently, to exchange bitcoin to fiat, you need to do it in large chunks, so the percentage fee consumes is kept low.

And with LN? Say you want to save bitcoins. Say, you want to save it to the point, you keep all your savings in bitcoin. You have no free money. And LN with its fee free transactions would exactly enable that - you could virtually go out with your hardware wallet full of bitcoins and be paying your everyday needs with bitcoin. And the moment your salary arrives, you could exchange it all to bitcoin knowing, that it is going to be quite easy to spend it later.

I definitely see your point and I'm not arguing with it. In fact, these dudes you are talking about have a pretty decent strategy. But this is not what I meant with my example. To tell the truth, gold was a bad choice for it because gold is mostly used as a store of value and not so much for multiplying your wealth. I just wanted to say that it is not very wise overall to spend or rather waste your capital on trivial things. People use bitcoins to earn money, and it makes sense to spend fiat thus earned, not bitcoins themselves with which you earn this fiat. It is like a woodworker selling his tools to provide sustenance to his family when he should actually sell his woodwork.

Yes I can see your point too and I am not arguing with it either I think that many people just hodl their bitcoin and it comes with great pain when they have to depart with it. But still, you need to spend some money each month to survive. What I wanted to say is that if LN brings what it promises, than you can do BOTH: hodl whatever you can save from spending, and spend what you must, at the same time.

Then let's agree to agree!

Basically, I agree that some people may be holding their coins without doing anything else with them, but they are losing a lot of profit opportunity to multiply their wealth and capitalize on Bitcoin's volatility. Moreover, I'm strongly inclined to think that the people who are idly sitting on their coins have regular jobs, and thus they don't need to sell their stash or some part of it to provide their sustenance. On the other hand, people who are living off their cryptocapital should trade their coins if they don't want to lose it, but in that case they should earn enough fiat both to spend and reinvest it.

I would like to stress one additional thought: that with a deflational currency (bitcoin) it makes much more sense to save it than to spend it immediately. And this behaviour (saving money) whould get promotted. I think it is socially beneficial. It is in contrast with fiat: it makes much more sense to spend fiat as soon as possible, because with time it becomes less and less valuable.

In fact, money is created to be spent, not to be saved. Saving comes about as an off-target effect of one particular quality that money should have. Money should preserve its value over longer terms, otherwise it can't function as money, and this makes saving possible.

The woodworker from your example will do well to provide woodwork for his family, instead of selling it and later buying the same or similar stuff (maybe made of metal) with earned money. On the second thought I am not sure if the reworked woodworker example proves or disproves my line of thinking, but here it is anyway

You are taking my example too literally. Bitcoins right now have no practical use apart from speculation, which would justify your line of thinking. So I don't really think it is possible to use Bitcoin in the way you described, though I certainly see your point and understand what you mean here.

[icanscript]

Lightning network grows and develops. Each user of the network bitcoin, at your own peril and risk, can join it. In the Internet, a dashboard appeared with a graph showing the parameters of the lightning network development.
https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1

[itsmeram]

There is a testnet running Lightning right now, search around and you'll find about it.

They just uploaded a video today, no one knows if that is real for sure, but it was tweeted by one of the developers so i think that this is a very nice progress. Let's see how it goes, maybe it will get implemented before May.