[2018-1-19] ‘UNFAIRLY CHEAP’ LIGHTNING NETWORK MAINNET HITS 40 NODES, 60 CHANNEL

[casparthefriendly]

The Lightning Network now has over 40 nodes and 60 channels running as the long-awaited technology continues to take new strides.

A $9500 LIGHTNING NETWORK
Data reported on Reddit Thursday shows the propagation of Lightning nodes, which are just beginning to take foot after the so-called ‘layer two’ technology debuted on the Bitcoin mainnet.

“I only paid a 0.0003515 BTC (~$4) fee to open the channel! I can’t seem to find those $100+ fees I’ve been hearing so much about,” announced LN developer Jack Mallers on Twitter, which Blockstream CSO Samson Mow jokingly described as “unfairly cheap.”

On Wednesday, Bitcoinist reported that Blockstream had launched its merchandise store with immediate Lightning payment support, a gesture in what developers described as helping the concept gain mainstream trust and adoption.



At current count, there are 38 nodes and 58 open channels processing transactions, with total capacity of 82533470 satoshis (approximately $9535).

The Lightning Network is one of the most anxiously-awaited improvements for the Bitcoin protocol, with significant advances expected in security and privacy in addition to vastly reduced transaction fees and confirmation times.

As Bitcoin recovers from its most recent fall this week, which saw some exchanges offer coins at 40% ‘discounts’ versus last week below $9400, expectations are again growing of a fresh wall of investor cash flowing into the market.

‘YOU’LL REMEMBER WHEN LN HELD LESS THAN $10K’
This new round of attention and adoption will place additional stress on a Bitcoin network struggling to cope with demand. Transaction fees hit over 1000 satoshis per byte before the new year, a trend which continues despite the availability of SegWit technology which many businesses have been slow to implement.

A petition to force major US exchange and wallet provider Coinbase to upgrade to SegWit and thus save users considerable time and money has now gathered almost 12,000 signatures since its launch two weeks ago.

Testnet use of Lightning meanwhile also continues apace, Bitcoin technology developer David R. Sterry uploading progress which now includes 1500 nodes and 2900 channels.

#LightningNetwork testnet passes 1,500 nodes. {"channels": 2898, "nodes": 1501, "generated": "2018-01-18 06:10:03"} pic.twitter.com/VZkGENVbJZ

— David R. Sterry (@weex) January 18, 2018

“…(Y)ears from now you can say, ‘I remember when mainnet had less than $10k on it, total,’” he commented.


http://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-lightning-network-mainnet-nodes/

[Irvinn]

If the lightning network is so good that in addition to a significant reduction in the commission fee, transactions will be carried out very quickly and, in addition, there will be an improvement in the security and confidentiality of bitcoin, why is the work on implementing this network so slow? Now, because of these problems, bitcoin is steadily losing its popularity.

[richardsNY]

why is the work on implementing this network so slow? Now, because of these problems, bitcoin is steadily losing its popularity.

The main problem is that you can't just activate lightning network without it being test through thoroughly. If lightning network gets rushed so that people can make use of it, and there happens to be a flaw or bug that may result in major coin loss, it's pretty damaging for Bitcoin's reputation. With altcoins it's not that big of a deal, but Bitcoin isn't something you can just implement something because people think it's needed asap. Don't get me wrong, we need lightning network, but only if it is tested through thoroughly. And no, Bitcoin isn't losing popularity. Don't look at the market cap to say that Bitcoin is losing popularity, because it's simply not true.

[Carlton Banks]

Don't look at the market cap to say that Bitcoin is losing popularity, because it's simply not true.

Exactly. Bitcoin wouldn't have transaction scaling problems if it wasn't popular.


Complete this sentence everyone: other cryptocurrencies don't have transaction scaling problems because ________________

[Coin-Keeper]

All good points.  Once/when lightning becomes proven (mathematically) it will help address one of my largest concerns from 2017.  I am a holder and for multi coin holders a significant fee once and awhile on a coin sale or transfer is OK.  My big concern is for public acceptance and daily use on buying and selling items.  The slow speed and transaction fees are "killing" BTC with the general user audience.  Wasn't the point back in BTC's inception that it would someday earn general use status and be the go to "currency" globally?  Remember, decentralized, semi-anonymous, not tied to any Gov, etc...........  We as a community have to solve the "daily use" enigma for this whole thing to blast off to levels we only dream about.

[DooMAD]

OP:  I can see that's how Bitcoinist lay out their articles, but maybe lay off the all caps for the subject lines here on the boards?

why is the work on implementing this network so slow? Now, because of these problems, bitcoin is steadily losing its popularity.

The main problem is that you can't just activate lightning network without it being test through thoroughly. If lightning network gets rushed so that people can make use of it, and there happens to be a flaw or bug that may result in major coin loss, it's pretty damaging for Bitcoin's reputation.

Precisely.  Particularly when considering current fractures in the community.  Certain people would attempt to capitalise on the situation if anything goes wrong and would likely kick up more fuss about it than necessary to score cheap political points.  Then again, the same would be true for the opposite corners if anything went wrong with Bitcoin Cash, heh.  That's just how it seems to be these days.  But the Lightning rollout all seems nice and sensible so far while it's still in beta and there are limitations on the amounts that can be transacted and an overall cap on the amount each channel can hold.  Slow and steady is best, not just because of how polarised the community already is, but also how the mainstream would look upon it.  I'm eager to see cross-chain transactions up and running as soon as possible, which means I'm skipping way ahead in my dreams, but that doesn't mean I'd want to reach that stage at the expense of stability and security.  It all has to be built on solid foundations and that takes time.

[InvoKing]

The main problem is that you can't just activate lightning network without it being test through thoroughly. If lightning network gets rushed so that people can make use of it, and there happens to be a flaw or bug that may result in major coin loss, it's pretty damaging for Bitcoin's reputation. With altcoins it's not that big of a deal, but Bitcoin isn't something you can just implement something because people think it's needed asap. Don't get me wrong, we need lightning network, but only if it is tested through thoroughly. And no, Bitcoin isn't losing popularity. Don't look at the market cap to say that Bitcoin is losing popularity, because it's simply not true.

[ELI5] : I didn't take a deep look on the lightning network to be honest but from what I understood, it is fast and can reduce the transaction fees. But after all it uses the blockchain technology, so will the miners accept it? Will they accept to have way less fees?

[richardsNY]

But after all it uses the blockchain technology, so will the miners accept it? Will they accept to have way less fees?

Miners have basically no choice other than to accept it if they want to keep mining a solid and only increasing coin. If they don't agree with this off chain scaling solution, they are free to leave or to fork off. As we speak, miners don't need the transaction fees as long as the price remains at least close to current levels. Best of all is that lightning network isn't something you are forced to use. If you don't want to, you can just keep transacting like you always have been doing -- you can see it as an optional feature. On top of that, opening and closing channels require fees too, so it's not that miners won't get any fee income anymore. Combine that with people transacting in the non lightning way, and the miners likely won't even notice much of a difference.

[btcton]

But after all it uses the blockchain technology, so will the miners accept it? Will they accept to have way less fees?

Miners have basically no choice other than to accept it if they want to keep mining a solid and only increasing coin. If they don't agree with this off chain scaling solution, they are free to leave or to fork off. As we speak, miners don't need the transaction fees as long as the price remains at least close to current levels. Best of all is that lightning network isn't something you are forced to use. If you don't want to, you can just keep transacting like you always have been doing -- you can see it as an optional feature. On top of that, opening and closing channels require fees too, so it's not that miners won't get any fee income anymore. Combine that with people transacting in the non lightning way, and the miners likely won't even notice much of a difference.

Besides, mining should not be the primary objective of the Bitcoin system. Miners are simply a means to an end. Ideally, they would participate if and only if the current fees are enough to offset the costs required of them to mine given the cost of the hardware, the cost of the electricity, and the value of Bitcoin itself. If mining ever becomes not profitable for any one miner causing them to stop, the difficulty will decrease and other miners will benefit more. If at any point there is a majority group of miners, it most likely means that the difficulty is too low and that mining is very profitable, causing more miners to come and compete. It is quite a well designed system with ties to supply and demand theory. Those who can profit from it should do it and those who cannot should not.

[wonderful8]

Hope the lightning network technology will be applied to Bitcoin soon, so the fee will be largely reduced.

[Stegobit]

I hope ACINQ Eclair Wallet will release mainnet version soon!
We need easy to use apps to make LN adoption fast!

[InvoKing]

But after all it uses the blockchain technology, so will the miners accept it? Will they accept to have way less fees?

Miners have basically no choice other than to accept it if they want to keep mining a solid and only increasing coin. If they don't agree with this off chain scaling solution, they are free to leave or to fork off. As we speak, miners don't need the transaction fees as long as the price remains at least close to current levels. Best of all is that lightning network isn't something you are forced to use. If you don't want to, you can just keep transacting like you always have been doing -- you can see it as an optional feature. On top of that, opening and closing channels require fees too, so it's not that miners won't get any fee income anymore. Combine that with people transacting in the non lightning way, and the miners likely won't even notice much of a difference.

Besides, mining should not be the primary objective of the Bitcoin system. Miners are simply a means to an end. Ideally, they would participate if and only if the current fees are enough to offset the costs required of them to mine given the cost of the hardware, the cost of the electricity, and the value of Bitcoin itself. If mining ever becomes not profitable for any one miner causing them to stop, the difficulty will decrease and other miners will benefit more. If at any point there is a majority group of miners, it most likely means that the difficulty is too low and that mining is very profitable, causing more miners to come and compete. It is quite a well designed system with ties to supply and demand theory. Those who can profit from it should do it and those who cannot should not.

Fair enough, thanks richardsNY and btcton for the answers. Having more users could help also the system and having low fees is essential for micro-transactions and daily usage 

[Carlton Banks]

But after all it uses the blockchain technology, so will the miners accept it? Will they accept to have way less fees?

Miners should be equally interested in a high BTC exchange rate. Lightning will add orders of magnitude to potential BTC value, as it permits orders of magnitude increases in transaction rates, plus all Lightning transactions occur faster as there is often no block confirmation to wait for. This means vastly higher velocity of money for Bitcoin than would be possible otherwise, and so commensurately higher value to the BTC units on the network.

Will miners care about a 50% reduction in fees if the Bitcoin price increases to $50,000 or $0.5 million? They shouldn't.

[Lucius]

But after all it uses the blockchain technology, so will the miners accept it? Will they accept to have way less fees?

Miners should be equally interested in a high BTC exchange rate. Lightning will add orders of magnitude to potential BTC value, as it permits orders of magnitude increases in transaction rates, plus all Lightning transactions occur faster as there is often no block confirmation to wait for. This means vastly higher velocity of money for Bitcoin than would be possible otherwise, and so commensurately higher value to the BTC units on the network.

Will miners care about a 50% reduction in fees if the Bitcoin price increases to $50,000 or $0.5 million? They shouldn't.

I agree that miners should be interested for implementation of LN just for the reason you mentioned,but somehow it seems to me that things will not go so easy in that direction if we see how SegWit progress goes slow.But this is not culpability of miners,exchanges like Coinbase or Blockchain.info slow down the whole process of progress.But when time is come and LN become available to everyone in combination with SegWit,price should explode and BTC can become not only commodity-but also a very cheap way of paying goods and services.

[BitHodler]

Complete this sentence everyone: other cryptocurrencies don't have transaction scaling problems because ________________

Because of their empty networks. No usage means no scaling problems, which directly translates into very cheap to even free transactions. People however don't seem to understand that yet.

That's why I constantly keep laughing when Roger Ver talks about how cheap his shitcoin is. If that isn't even enough, he is looking to further increase the block size while there is no justifiable reason for that.

The block space usage of his shitcoin varies from 30KB to occasional peaks that happen to be over 200KB. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there is some transaction inflation going on to make their blocks look a bit fuller.

[1Referee]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there is some transaction inflation going on to make their blocks look a bit fuller.

It depends. If people start using BCASH for all sorts of transactions, things won't be as cheap anymore as he portrays them to be to the outside world. So, as long as these blocks remain empty for the major part, he will continue to be in a position where he can hammer down on Bitcoin's expensive fees. Also, he is lying to the entire world on his live streams when he talks about how a single Bitcoin transaction has cost him +$100 in fees, and that it still isn't confirmed. Standard fees will never cost you that much in fees, so he either just made that story up, or he bundled a bunch of transactions and refrains from including that crucial bit of information in his conversation. It definitely wouldn't surprise me.

[J. Cooper]

Complete this sentence everyone: other cryptocurrencies don't have transaction scaling problems because ________________

Because of their empty networks. No usage means no scaling problems, which directly translates into very cheap to even free transactions. People however don't seem to understand that yet.

Exactly, it's funny how Roger Ver was ( and he probably still preaching) pro-bigger blocks. But there's no point if those bigger blocks are practically EMPTY. I wonder if he will become desperate enough to pay people to use his ghost network.

[btcton]

Complete this sentence everyone: other cryptocurrencies don't have transaction scaling problems because ________________

Because of their empty networks. No usage means no scaling problems, which directly translates into very cheap to even free transactions. People however don't seem to understand that yet.

Exactly, it's funny how Roger Ver was ( and he probably still preaching) pro-bigger blocks. But there's no point if those bigger blocks are practically EMPTY. I wonder if he will become desperate enough to pay people to use his ghost network.

There is also the fact that even though Bitcoin Cash has had bigger maximum size blocks, they have not really been used at all. You could quite literally have the exact same block limit of 1 MB as regular Bitcoin does even with no one using SegWit and you would still have absolutely no problem with using low transactions fees. Why? Because Bitcoin Cash is not popular at all when compared to the transaction volume of Bitcoin. Their blocks are never going to fill up and the miners are simply going to accept any transaction with a decent fee without a hitch. On the other hand, if they blocks did end up getting filled, the bigger block size would be a temporary, non-scalable solution with an extremely heavy chain.

[InvoKing]

It depends. If people start using BCASH for all sorts of transactions, things won't be as cheap anymore as he portrays them to be to the outside world.
So, as long as these blocks remain empty for the major part, he will continue to be in a position where he can hammer down on Bitcoin's expensive fees.

True, just like Bitcoin in the beginning, i remember even sending 2 transactions with zero fees (which obviously isn't a good thing but just for testing)

Also, he is lying to the entire world on his live streams when he talks about how a single Bitcoin transaction has cost him +$100 in fees, and that it still isn't confirmed. Standard fees will never cost you that much in fees, so he either just made that story up, or he bundled a bunch of transactions and refrains from including that crucial bit of information in his conversation. It definitely wouldn't surprise me.

Many smallish outputs could cost a lot of money.

[tee-rex]

But after all it uses the blockchain technology, so will the miners accept it? Will they accept to have way less fees?

Miners have basically no choice other than to accept it if they want to keep mining a solid and only increasing coin. If they don't agree with this off chain scaling solution, they are free to leave or to fork off. As we speak, miners don't need the transaction fees as long as the price remains at least close to current levels. Best of all is that lightning network isn't something you are forced to use. If you don't want to, you can just keep transacting like you always have been doing -- you can see it as an optional feature. On top of that, opening and closing channels require fees too, so it's not that miners won't get any fee income anymore. Combine that with people transacting in the non lightning way, and the miners likely won't even notice much of a difference.

Besides, mining should not be the primary objective of the Bitcoin system. Miners are simply a means to an end. Ideally, they would participate if and only if the current fees are enough to offset the costs required of them to mine given the cost of the hardware, the cost of the electricity, and the value of Bitcoin itself. If mining ever becomes not profitable for any one miner causing them to stop, the difficulty will decrease and other miners will benefit more. If at any point there is a majority group of miners, it most likely means that the difficulty is too low and that mining is very profitable, causing more miners to come and compete. It is quite a well designed system with ties to supply and demand theory. Those who can profit from it should do it and those who cannot should not.

And it seems that for the last two years miners have been an obstacle to Bitcoin adoption and development. Instead of helping Bitcoin in every possible way, the miners have been actually hampering its progress. Their economic interests don't quite match the interests of the Bitcoin community and Bitcoin itself, so we shouldn't actually blame them for that. I guess anyone in their place would do the same, that is working the transactions fees up no matter what.