Important Lighting Network reading- for everyone!

[dinofelis]

The only argument was that someone said that I didn't understand the principles.  "you're wrong because he said you're wrong".

You really should go back and read the answers you've been given in this thread again. You seem to have missed all the times you have been corrected.

I haven't been.  There has not been a single technical argument here, where mine is taken step by step and shown how things work differently than what I say.  In fact, the onus of proof is on the claim that, contrary to what Satoshi said, contrary to what Gavin said, contrary to what I'm saying, non-mining nodes "do keep miners in check".  

In as far as an argument has been presented, it goes even against itself: the so-called UASF threat.  

What needs to be demonstrated, in order to deny my claim "non-mining nodes don't influence the functioning of the system" ?  One needs to consider two different cases, one where non-mining nodes WANT something, and act, and one, all else equal, they DON'T act, and show that it makes a difference.

First example: "non mining nodes keep miners in check".  Note that we are NOT arguing how "exchanges keep miners in check"  or how "other miners keep miners in check".  

So we agree that all miners, and all exchanges, act together, and that it is the sole presence of a lot of non-mining nodes, that keeps them in check.  If this can be argued, you won.  Non-mining nodes keep miners in check in that case.

A: there are not many non-mining nodes.  All miners, and all exchanges, have decided upon a protocol change.  They do so.  The protocol change happens.

B: a lot of non-mining full nodes don't want this protocol change.  Tell me how they prevent it ?  Suppose that out of the 10 000 non-mining nodes, 9000 of them are opposed to this protocol change.  What happens ?  Miners apply the protocol change.  9000 nodes do not agree, and don't accept the N+1 block.  They wait for ever.  The "good" N+1 block never arrives.   They don't transmit the "bad" N+x blocks.
Users, initially connecting to these nodes, don't see their transactions.  They look for other nodes, until they stumble on one of the 1000 agreeing nodes, on an exchange node, or on a miner node.  They see that the chain is way further now, and they can see that the other nodes fell behind and stopped at N.  They disconnect from them, and connect to the updating minority of nodes (from miners, exchanges, and a few enthusiasts).

==> the large majority of non mining nodes, not agreeing with the protocol change, didn't keep the miners in check, did they ?

B-bis: suppose that 9990 nodes are opposed, but suppose that miners and exchanges, agreeing on the protocol change, "sybil" and install 200000 new nodes.  Now, the "node count" in favour of the protocol change is huge.  What is that small minority complaining ?  They are disconnected from the network, because they fall behind.

==> the large initial majority of non mining nodes can be sybiled away.  They didn't, after all, keep the miners in check, did they ?

Conclusion case 1: whatever the non-mining nodes do, if miners and exchanges have agreed upon a protocol change, that protocol change happens, all else equal.


Second example: nodes want a protocol change, miners and exchanges want to keep the old protocol

This is the UASF.

A) only a small minority of non-mining nodes wants the protocol change.  No miner makes their blocks, so they stop.  

B) 9000 out of 10 000 non mining nodes want the protocol change.  They stop their old client (so they remove themselves from the network) and they install the new client, that doesn't find new blocks according to their desires.  They fall behind while the miners continue to make the old chain.   ==> same scenario as 1 B.

But suppose that somehow, I'm wrong here.  Suppose that a large majority of non-mining nodes COULD impose a protocol change.

C) now, imagine that none of the honest non-mining nodes wants a protocol change, but evil Joe does.  He makes a UASF node, and launches 200000 of them.  He has now clear UASF majority on the node network.  In as much as UASF could work (it doesn't, see 2.B, but suppose), then just any evil Joe can impose a protocol change with a sybil attack with UASF nodes.

QED.

[dinofelis]

Deception often mimicks as explanation.  There's not much of "explanatory power" in this analogy.  The only real message a was not one of "understanding" but of associating the phenomenal success of TCP/IP to the LN, in the same way that one associates "buying cleaning products" to "be a successful housewife and have great husband and kids" in TV commercials.

This analogy is used correctly to explain that the only way to scale a blockchain is to add an additional layer. Much in the same way as you can increase the bandwidth of an Ethernet segment from 10Mb to 100Mb to 1Gb but it needs routing to making scale globally.

And that's exactly where the "analogy" doesn't apply, as I showed, just to get a reply that "of course, an analogy doesn't fit althe l the aspects".

I cannot tell you how amusing it is that rather than address that you first start by trying to push the analogy past what it intended to explain in order to try and discredit it and now you're trying to discredit the use of analogies altogether. One might come to the conclusion that you're trying to distract attention from the fact it is correct and avoid the debate being on the subject originally intended in this thread.

On the contrary.  First of all, there is no scaling problem in the actual structure of bitcoin, because, exactly, it is a client/multi-server system, and not a P2P system.  So there is no scaling problem to be solved.

But next, the routing problem in TCP/IP is an entirely different problem than the common consensus problem in bitcoin.  TCP/IP is concerned with moving data between users, bitcoin is concerned with everyone agreeing upon a data set.

On top of that, the big success of TCP/IP routing lies in the ease by which connections can be set up and broken.  This is what allows routing to be so efficient in TCP/IP.  However, in the LN, setting up a link is costly, and stops you from setting up another link, because you lock in funds.  In TCP/IP you can set up as many links as you want, and if some break down. that's at almost no cost.  In the LN, if your channel is dead, it takes fees and a waiting period to unlock them and to set up another link.

So many of the elements that made the success of TCP/IP are not applicable in this analogy.   Both solve different problems to start with, and the great success of TCP/IP comes from the easiness of re-routing, while exactly that is costly and slow on the LN network.

Unless, unless, your LN partner is a very reliable, trustworthy partner, who has very reliable, trustworthy partners and so on.

[TheQuin]

tl:dr

Back from the shops after stocking up with beer and food.

At a quick glance, you've gone back to attacking the analogy, making whatever points it is you have against LN again and all sorts of other irrelevant stuff.

Let's try it this way.

Proposition:
The only way to scale a blockchain is to add an additional layer that allows off-chain transactions.

Explain to me in less than 500 words why that statement is false. I'm not interested in what you think is wrong with LN but why another layer isn't the solution. That is the topic of this thread.

[dinofelis]

Let's try it this way.

Proposition:
The only way to scale a blockchain is to add an additional layer that allows off-chain transactions.

Explain to me in less than 500 words why that statement is false. I'm not interested in what you think is wrong with LN but why another layer isn't the solution. That is the topic of this thread.

Answer: http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/

I didn't count Satoshi's words, I hope it is less than 500.

Satoshi proposed a client/multi-server network ; we observe that bitcoin BECAME a client/multi-server network.  A client/multi-server network can perfectly scale, as Satoshi explained above.

BTW, I'm not AGAINST the LN network, and I can clearly say that Carliton Banks has induced me to clear up a misunderstanding I had about it, which I recognized without problems, and makes me see the LN as way more useful than I thought.  But I think that the LN is not a payment network, and that payment is not a good application (like payment is not a good application for bitcoin either).   The LN network is a good thing to make a fast high-frequency multi-asset speculative market.  I'm quite bullish on that.  I think that if it takes off (and I think it will), it can be much more destructive than classical speculative finance has ever been (even making the 1929 crisis, and its consequence, WWII, look like small beer).  I'm really keen on that idea.

[pebwindkraft]

Thx to dinofelis, I got a learning session  appreciated.
As non native I got a bit lost in the discussion. I reviewed the links, and to my surprise found Schopenhauer and Kant. For sure well known authors and text for me, but at no level can I compete in a foreign language (whereas I am more in French, not English). I now understand, what the link is to win in front of an audience with arguments. But here in the forum we have open minded discussions, and liberty to speak. I can't see the necessity for "winning"... The only winner I can see is Bitcoin (and LN), maybe this whole new crypto eco-system. Fascinating.

What I observe (too) often, is that a statement is made, and others are asked to show that this statement is wrong. It is easy to make such statements (god is existent, Elvis is still alive, aliens brought live to earth, ...). And there is no way to proof the opposite. So from my point of view, this belongs in the area of metaphysics (having read Kant  ), and I feel the same is true for arguments like "LN is centralized banking hubs" or "non-mining nodes (without exchanges) keep miners in check" or "nodes want a protocol change, miners and exchanges want to keep the old protocol". (btw: this was not UASF. UASF was, at last from what I can recall, a response to a very very small team behind closed doors in NY, representing vast majority of centralized miners, which wanted Segshit2x failing dramatically).

I think there simply isn't a possibility to show that this postulation is false. And as such it must not be proofed to be wrong.

[dinofelis]

But here in the forum we have open minded discussions, and liberty to speak. I can't see the necessity for "winning"... The only winner I can see is Bitcoin (and LN), maybe this whole new crypto eco-system. Fascinating.

Indeed, that's also why I'm here, I'm fascinated too.  My agenda here is to pump up my own understanding, that's grossly all.  It is also very entertaining.  Even dangerously entertaining, I spend too much time here.  My main problem is that I'm an extremely fast typographer.  I type as fast as I talk.  I learned that in high school, I followed typing lessons (back then still on mechanical typewriters ).  The exercise was to be able to type a heard-over discourse at "on-line" speed.   This explains my "walls of text".  It's not practical, but it would take me 5 times the time to go over it and write it in a better way.  I try to bring some relief by going over it and putting in bold, but unfortunately, when I do that, I get new ideas I want to say, and I edit and make the texts even longer.  

Apart from entertainment, as I said, my main goal here is understanding.  As I said, I'm fascinated too, but in a much less "enthusiastic" way.  I think it is a dark, evil and deceiving world, and I think nothing "good" (in standard human understanding) is going to come out of this.  But I firmly believe in its destructive success.  You can compare me to an astronomer that is studying the meteorite that is on collision course with earth.  That's fascinating in a dark kind of way.  To try to see exactly how the impact will be, what will be destroyed first, by what process.  Not scary, just dark and evil, and I have some fascination for dark and evil.

This is why I want to understand it - the only true pleasure in life before one dies.  My core idea is that the Singularity is unavoidable, but I never figured out how machines would do it.  I think crypto is the answer.

[dinofelis]

"LN is centralized banking hubs"

In fact, I changed my mind somewhat on that.  I thought it was a network necessity, because I made the error of thinking that with the LN network, it was impossible for "money to continue to go around in circles", somewhat akin, in electrical engineering, to push a DC current through a network of capacitors.  As channels can be pushed all the way, and cannot transmit in the same direction any more, I erroneously thought that this would kill every circular, steady motion of money.  I thought that the only way out was a central hub.  But in fact, Carliton Banks made me see my error.  So that argument doesn't count any more.

There may still be a centralizing dynamics in LN, nevertheless, like in every system with stakes and rewards.  But there's no theoretical necessity any more as I thought there was.   I see the main application of the LN, however, not in paying.  In my mind, crypto has nothing to do with currencies, but all with speculation.  Speculation, to me, is the art of extracting honest value produced by others in return for illusions, and leave them stripped.  Speculation is necessary to build evil empires.  LN channels seem like a great way to have "funds on an exchange".  It would be a first step to HF trading.  In that case, however, the natural way to pay through LN, would be to use your exchange as your "bank".  

[TheQuin]

Answer: http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/

I didn't count Satoshi's words, I hope it is less than 500.

370 which was enough for him to get across his thoughts. You could learn a lot by his example.

Satoshi proposed a client/multi-server network ; we observe that bitcoin BECAME a client/multi-server network.  A client/multi-server network can perfectly scale, as Satoshi explained above.

It would be interesting to know if he still holds this view now or whether his thoughts have evolved along the same lines as those he handed the project over to.

But I think that the LN is not a payment network, and that payment is not a good application (like payment is not a good application for bitcoin either).

I would be surprised though if he had changed his mind as to why he created Bitcoin.

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.

[dinofelis]

Answer: http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/

I didn't count Satoshi's words, I hope it is less than 500.

370 which was enough for him to get across his thoughts. You could learn a lot by his example.

I already told people: the long version is free, for the short version, you'll have to pay.  I didn't have time to be short.

Satoshi proposed a client/multi-server network ; we observe that bitcoin BECAME a client/multi-server network.  A client/multi-server network can perfectly scale, as Satoshi explained above.

It would be interesting to know if he still holds this view now or whether his thoughts have evolved along the same lines as those he handed the project over to.

It demonstrates that there's no scaling problem in the original vision.  That original vision is much less decentralized than what the "religion" would like, but it was/is a perfectly functional vision.   As I outlined several times, the whole story that has been sold afterwards, with the need for a lot of poor Joe's running non-mining nodes in their basement, hitting the problem Satoshi already solved with SPV in 2008, rendering the system non-scalable, and on top of that, not adding any form of real decentralization to it, is an amazing feat of deception and/or stupidity.  I don't know if Satoshi would have fallen for it, even though he was at the origin of the technicality on which this story latched: his famous introduction of a 1MB limit.  There's another thread where I give my opinions on that.

But I think that the LN is not a payment network, and that payment is not a good application (like payment is not a good application for bitcoin either).

I would be surprised though if he had changed his mind as to why he created Bitcoin.

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.

Yes, and it was pointed out to him that his economic system wouldn't work as a currency, and he wavered that away with some economic mumbo jumbo that turned out to be wrong.

This post was simply brilliant:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57.msg390#msg390

I wasn't aware of this until recently, but I also thought of it as obvious.

As to what Satoshi really thought, as where Satoshi really made mistakes, and in what way Satoshi was having different goals than what he indicated (in other words, in how much he was lying through his teeth), is hard to say.  Some inconsistencies would actually make more sense if "Satoshi" were different people at different instances, having slightly different visions.

[TheQuin]

I already told people: the long version is free, for the short version, you'll have to pay.  I didn't have time to be short.

Your inability to concisely convey anything severely reduces the number of people reading it. I usually get halfway through the first paragraph of your posts before coming to the conclusion that my time would be better spent elsewhere. Forums are a place for discussions not monologues. Have you considered blogging? It seems more suited to your style.

[dinofelis]

I already told people: the long version is free, for the short version, you'll have to pay.  I didn't have time to be short.

Your inability to concisely convey anything severely reduces the number of people reading it. I usually get halfway through the first paragraph of your posts before coming to the conclusion that my time would be better spent elsewhere. Forums are a place for discussions not monologues. Have you considered blogging? It seems more suited to your style.

It is not my "inability".  It is my lack of desire to waste time on being succinct.  I can be, but it takes time and effort I don't want to spend on a forum.  I already spend too much time on it, I cannot spend 2 or 3 times more.  I don't want to be "read".  I don't want to tell the world.  I want to find out if my thinking is correct, if there are intelligent counter arguments to my thinking.  For that, I want to give all elements that led to my argument.  That takes room.  It would take less room if I reworked it, but that's too much of an effort.  If someone doesn't have the attention span to read me, he probably won't be able to give me a counter argument either that is valuable to me.  I may of course push off the true expert that could point out an error by the walls of text I produce.  But a true expert may not be put off to read a page of text.  But the casual reader that is put off by long arguments, won't be useful to me, so I don't care he doesn't read.  

I certainly don't want to blog, because I have nothing to "tell the world", and certainly not for free.  I want to learn from the world.  My walls of text, spread all over the place in a disorganized fashion will also make it essentially impossible to steal anything useful from it, if ever I decided to sell something of it.

[TheQuin]

I certainly don't want to blog, because I have nothing to "tell the world"

You couldn't come across as someone trying to do that more if you were trying.

On the contrary to the rest of your statement, I think many of the most knowledgeable people here have got far more important things to do with there time than trying to decipher your "text walls" to see if there is anything vaguely resembling coherent thinking hidden in there somewhere.

[dinofelis]

On the contrary to the rest of your statement, I think many of the most knowledgeable people here have got far more important things to do with there time than trying to decipher your "text walls" to see if there is anything vaguely resembling coherent thinking hidden in there somewhere.

Have you ever read, say, an exposition of general relativity ?  How many pages do you have to acquire, follow explanations, fill in gaps the author left, think through what the author is saying, not being quite sure that you're with him, before you actually start understanding the argument ?  Compared to that level of difficulty, "working through my walls of text" is leisure in a blink of an eye.  People not capable of doing this, can probably not reason on a sophisticated enough level to even start being useful.  Usually, in texts like that, the problem is rather that the text is too concise, and that one has to fill in too many gaps.  I err probably on the other side, I'm too verbose, too explicit, too much in simple details that could be filled in, in what I say.

I'll ask you: how many lines of explanation would you need to understand, from scratch, say, Pollard's rho attack on a Diffie-Hellman key exchange ?  Suppose that this was an unknown thing, and that someone posted this here for the first time, somewhat hesitant maybe in the fluidity of his wordings.  Would you also complain that there are "walls of text" if someone would try to give an argument explaining how it could be done in a page or two ?  Do you think that your comments would be of any use ?

If you tell me that the few people capable of seeing that, are elsewhere, then one must conclude that the amount of brain power here is too low to be of any sensible use in the development of any form of advanced argument.  That's also a possibility of course.

[TheQuin]

Have you ever read, say, an exposition of general relativity ?.......

You seem to have misunderstood the function of a forum. It is a place to meet and discuss issues not to publish a thesis.

If you tell me that the few people capable of seeing that, are elsewhere, then one must conclude that the amount of brain power here is too low to be of any sensible use in the development of any form of advanced argument.  That's also a possibility of course.

You also don't seem to understand the shortcomings of your writings. It's not that the brain power here is too low to understand them it is that they ramble on and on and rarely actually get to a point. I'm trying to help you get more out of the forum by being clear and concise. That way you will actually interact far more.

I want to find out if my thinking is correct, if there are intelligent counter arguments to my thinking.

If this is your aim I am sure that would be a far better way to proceed.

It is not my "inability".  It is my lack of desire to waste time on being succinct.  I can be, but it takes time and effort I don't want to spend on a forum.

I understand it can be difficult for some people, writing clearly, concisely and debating are skills that have to be learned. With practice, it will come much more easily to you. In the long run, you will benefit greatly from making the effort to acquire this skill and you'll find it eventually will save you much more time as once you get the hang of it writing concisely is far less time consuming than rambling on the way you do now.

[nullius]

My core idea is that the Singularity is unavoidable, but I never figured out how machines would do it.  I think crypto is the answer.

I already told people: the long version is free, for the short version, you'll have to pay.  I didn't have time to be short.

It is not my "inability".  It is my lack of desire to waste time on being succinct.  I can be, but it takes time and effort I don't want to spend on a forum.  I already spend too much time on it, I cannot spend 2 or 3 times more.

Have you ever read, say, an exposition of general relativity ?  How many pages do you have to acquire, follow explanations, fill in gaps the author left, think through what the author is saying, not being quite sure that you're with him, before you actually start understanding the argument ?  Compared to that level of difficulty, "working through my walls of text" is leisure in a blink of an eye.  People not capable of doing this, can probably not reason on a sophisticated enough level to even start being useful.

[...]

If you tell me that the few people capable of seeing that, are elsewhere, then one must conclude that the amount of brain power here is too low to be of any sensible use in the development of any form of advanced argument.  That's also a possibility of course.

Ynqvrf naq tragyrzra, jr unir n trahvar xbbx.

dinofelis, I admit that my brain is no match for your “advanced argument”.  Indeed, I am certain that none of the regulars on this forum has a brain capable of operating on the level of yours.  I grant you all thanks you are owed for your having been so magnanimous as to grace us with your presence.  Please, do not waste further time here.  Go forth to seek the company of like-brained people.  Just remember to give us a wave (a particular wave) when you are accepting the award to you of the Fields Medal, or whatever; and please tell the Singularity to go easy on poor, be(k)nighted old nullius, nobody’s man.

Now, this started as a most excellent thread on the topic of the Lightning Network.  I know, I admit, it is a characteristic of our brains that we need thoughts concisely organized and focused.  Be that as it may.  Does anybody have anything further to say about the Lightning Network and the metaphor of unicast networking?

I will make explicit a specific question I earlier implied:  Are the Lightning engineers availing themselves of the fine research literature on network routing protocols and routing algorithms?  If that could be answered off-hand by anybody who’s been following Lightning development much more closely than I have, I’d be much obliged.

Thanks.

[ismart1]

Even to someone with limited knowledge of network engineering and specs, it seems very simple to understand and informative. Based on what was explained it definitely is in a long way to advance o better system of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The way it is designed now is falling the real purpose of the crypto ideal that was having a decentralized, secure way of fast and cheap transactions on the peer to peer basis. Definitely, there is ample space for evolution and so we should head for a better world community based on the blockchain.

[pebwindkraft]

...
I will make explicit a specific question I earlier implied:  Are the Lightning engineers availing themselves of the fine research literature on network routing protocols and routing algorithms?  If that could be answered off-hand by anybody who’s been following Lightning development much more closely than I have, I’d be much obliged.

Thanks.

When following older threads, there is lot of discussion on onion routing. But here in the forum I haven‘t seen engineers discussing the research literature.

There has been a short discussion, but it did not get the desired attention it deserves... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2573055.msg26369895;topicseen#msg26369895

The routing itself is described here:
https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lightning-rfc/blob/master/04-onion-routing.md

And I read, Acinq/Eclair is using the flare routing engine. Haven‘t found the spec yet. If someone has?

[ChiBitCTy]

I have a lot of reading to catch up on.  Thanks for the discussions and ideas you are all sharing. I won't be able to understand half of it, but still great.

The good news - LN is in place and starting to do it's thing!! I paid .33 cents for a roughly $250 transaction.  Much better!

The bad new- we're all getting spanked right now.

However I see a great buying opp and the LN makes me that much more confident about it.  

[nullius]

...
I will make explicit a specific question I earlier implied:  Are the Lightning engineers availing themselves of the fine research literature on network routing protocols and routing algorithms?  If that could be answered off-hand by anybody who’s been following Lightning development much more closely than I have, I’d be much obliged.

Thanks.

When following older threads, there is lot of discussion on onion routing. But here in the forum I haven‘t seen engineers discussing the research literature.

There has been a short discussion, but it did not get the desired attention it deserves... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2573055.msg26369895;topicseen#msg26369895

The routing itself is described here:
https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lightning-rfc/blob/master/04-onion-routing.md

Thanks, pebwindkraft.  Of course, onion routing for privacy is a subject near and near and dear to my heart.  (The name of the Tor network started as an acronym for “The Onion Router”; it was later declard simply “Tor”.)  As a general concept, it is a source-routing method which conceals prior hops from each next-hop, including the destination; and I am glad to see the active development of an onion-routing implementation for Lightning Network.  But that’s not the type of routing problem I had in mind, when I thought about the IP network analogy.

Network routing is one of those arcane specialties filled with scary-smart people who know all the minutiae of complex systems which most developers are barely aware exist.  (How does the Internet really work?  How do all those little packets know where to go?  Magic!)  I am not in that specialty, and I’m not familiar with its research literature—but I know it has such a thing, and a quick search found some handy starting points:

https://www.caida.org/research/routing/
(CAIDA is an important site, by the way...)

https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Routing_protocols

When OP’s link launched a train of thought about Lightning and networking, what first occured to me was that Spanning Tree Protocol might somehow be applicable.  Of course, that’s not an Internet routing protocol; but it is the standard staple for organizing the network topology on LANs.  Then, I thought of Internet routing.  Also, self-organizing mesh networks.

The general question is:  Given a global set of nodes which form and remove links between each other unpredictably, how does each node organize its own view of potential routes and choose optimal paths?

I think there are a few network characteristics of Lightning which are sui generis:  The problem of optimal (or even possible) routes involves monetary calculations, both as to fees charged, and as to availability of funds on each channel which provides a potential hop.  Indeed, network “cost” is monetary, rather than usual measures of network bandwidth and latency.  Otherwise, however, it mostly sounds like just the sort of problem for which a network routing specialist would have applicable existing expertise.  Whence my question.  Lightning development must already encompass some answers to these questions; and I expect that routing optimization may be a significant area of evolution and improvement as Lightning grows and matures.

And I read, Acinq/Eclair is using the flare routing engine. Haven‘t found the spec yet. If someone has?

A quick search found only some PDFs pertaining to a financial order routing system, on a site which won’t load for me (probably blocks Tor).  I have no idea if those be relevant.  But come to think of it, there’s another pre-existing field which is likely to have applicable existing knowledge.

I have a lot of reading to catch up on.  Thanks for the discussions and ideas you are all sharing. I won't be able to understand half of it, but still great.

Hey, thanks for posting the link in OP!  That started an interesting discussion—one in which I myself have mostly questions, not answers.

[Ant2018]

So my question is it possible to make your own coin that can be traded that could be used on the lightning network and if so how would one go about doing this?