I guess it all depends on the use the network will have. Right now we have low fees again, because there are no spam attacks going, and most users don't really do anything with their coins. The fees problem was greatly caused by exchanges like coinbase and gemini, but they seem to be finally correcting the problem by adoptiing segwit and batching their transactions.
I don’t think the current fee decrease is due to exchanges adopting Segwit and batching transactions.
1) Segwit adoption has not increased.
http://segwit.party/charts/2) Num transactions has been going down but transaction value is also going down.
https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volumeIf more transactions were batches shouldn’ t transaction value being going up?
I believe it’s just lower transaction volume.
But isn't transaction batching basically lowering the amount of transactions? so this could be part of that too.
Segwit penetration is still slow, and will remain slow until we have Core 0.16 and all major exchanges are supporting it. We are closer to that. So I would give a year after Coinbase finally accepts segwit to estimate if segwit adoption is being a failure or not.
We'll have to evaluate impact of LN now that it's on the mainnet.
And like Andreas A said... scaling is a never ending battle. And sometimes not scaling is a better move than rushing things and fucking things up.
What do you mean, that LN will hold back segwit adoption?
How could that be possible, if one of segiwt main reasons, if not the mot important, was to allow for the lightning network to be implemented with no issues. Not an expert, but it was something related to the network malleability. So I think that the LN will never hold back segwit adoption. Anyway, since segwit is not implemented by default on the latest core wallet release, I think it's adoption will only grow from now. As for the question in this thread, "is it capable of solving the fees problems alone"? I don't think so, since that's the reason LN is being implemented.
I do have some doubts regarding the LN and segwit. Will exchanges use the LN for trading transactions? Wouldn't they need to run very "large" channels, and be the target of hacks? I know the channel needs to be funded, so where does the coins stay? Will they be able to hold the majority of their funds on cold storage, as they should?
There are and should be doubts. There will be adversaries again probing for weakness and faults in the bitcoin, and now the LN protocols.
Meanwhile there is a huge and increasing lack of education and understanding on the protocol and the LN layer. In spite of the apparent slowness that we see in the implementation of LN, it seems that public understanding is not tracking with our technology but falls further behind.
Thus while we discuss issues with LN, BTC has just barely became something most or some people have heard of. Something that's vaguely like a stock. Maybe it's some magical internet money.
Is that gap between common understanding, and these technologies, increasing? Where does that lead?
Does it lead to some moment in which the common guy realizes there's a way he uses that bitcoin stuff to buy things with?
If so where is the technology by then?
