Lightning Network Discussion Thread

[Anon136]

When I make a new channel it says I can only receive the amount on a channel that I have spent down. So how did the first address get spent down enough to receive the first lightning tokens?

When you open a channel you are essentially giving your money to someone else while making certain arrangements that ensure that they can't spend it themselves without your permission (think of it like a wad of cash that you hand to someone else with a string attached that you can yank if you see them doing anything fishy ).

No, not it is not "giving away your money" to someone else. It is more like sending your money for safe keeping in a multisig address that you can get anytime you want. "Giving away" implies you already "lost" control over your money, but what stops it is the "rules".

I was trying to make a relatable analogy. He can go read the white paper if he wants to understand technical specifics. I was giving an explanation that didn't require him to understand multisig addresses. I was explaining it like I would explain it to my mother and your "corrections" would confuse my mother.

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[Wind_FURY]

Sorry. I only thought that there was a better simplification than the term "given away" because there is nothing "given away" in the Lightning Network.

Telling people that it was like giving away something to a third party would give them the wrong idea.

[Anon136]

Sorry. I only thought that there was a better simplification than the term "given away" because there is nothing "given away" in the Lightning Network.

Telling people that it was like giving away something to a third party would give them the wrong idea.

Well the analogy was that they hold your bundle of cash that you have a string tied to and a lightning transaction is when you untie the string from the whole bundle and retie it on only part of the bundle. It's giving it to them in the sense that they are holding the bundle not that they are the owner of it. /shrug it's the best non technical analogy I can think of.

[Spendulus]

It would be pretty darn nice to have a hardware lightning channel that could be bought, plugged in, connected, and loaded with 1/10 BTC.

[Wind_FURY]

Sorry. I only thought that there was a better simplification than the term "given away" because there is nothing "given away" in the Lightning Network.

Telling people that it was like giving away something to a third party would give them the wrong idea.

Well the analogy was that they hold your bundle of cash that you have a string tied to and a lightning transaction is when you untie the string from the whole bundle and retie it on only part of the bundle. It's giving it to them in the sense that they are holding the bundle not that they are the owner of it. /shrug it's the best non technical analogy I can think of.

Hahaha yes. Except the string has a lock that only you have one of the keys to open it to make a transaction. Plus, you can also pull your end of the string to get your money or what is left of your money if you spent some of it.

[d5000]

The "money tied to a string" analogy isn't that bad, actually

In the most popular LN concept, both parties that open a payment channel are normally equal to each other in the sense that both have to lock money. So both are "giving away" the money in some sense, it's not only one of them.

I prefer an analogy using the concept of a "shared account", where both parties can use the money they put into to transact to other parties - the parties the other party is connected to. This could be explained to beginners mentioning the "money as a payment network" concept (everybody has relations where he spends money, and others where he receives money). It's like a "bilateral prepaid card". And if one of both cheats and uses money of the other party, the victim is entitled to take the whole money as a punishment, for a certain time. (Well, that would be LN-Penalty, in eltoo it would be slightly different).

(Just installing neutrino to try out the "Lightning light client." If there's interest I report my experiences, although I'll only transact on testnet I guess.)

[Rath_]

BitMEX has just become the first cryptocurrency exchange with their own Lightning Network node. As they stated on their Twitter, withdrawals and deposits through the Lightning Network won't arrive anytime soon but it's definitely a huge step forward. I'd be interested to know how much exchanges will charge for the Lightning Network withdrawals.

(Just installing neutrino to try out the "Lightning light client." If there's interest I report my experiences, although I'll only transact on testnet I guess.)

Any update on this? You mentioned in the other thread that you had some problems with setting it up.

[user_]

Hi, everyone.
Can anyone recommend a good reference book or description of the LN (comprehensive technical description)? I tried to read the original Whitepaper several times, but in my view the description of the LN in the Whitepapes is not that good and difficult to understand.
And the second question, is there any standardization work on the LN integration with other ecosystems? LN is said to be an overlay network, so I assume it could be used for example in the Litecoin ecosystem and others. For that I believe such altcoin ecosystems should offer some specific API/interfaces without which LN will not function.
Thank you,

[Rath_]

Can anyone recommend a good reference book or description of the LN (comprehensive technical description)? I tried to read the original Whitepaper several times, but in my view the description of the LN in the Whitepapes is not that good and difficult to understand.

I don't think if there are any good books yet, but I have written two threads which you might find helpful (Basics of the Lightning Network and Lightning Network FAQ). Feel free to ask us any questions in any of these threads.

And the second question, is there any standardization work on the LN integration with other ecosystems?

Yes, there is (Lightning Network Specifications). Lightning Network can be easily implemented in every Bitcoin hardfork which supports SegWit. There have been a few tests on Litecoin and everything was working fine. You might ask if there is any point in implementing LN in any other cryptocurrency. Yes, atomic swaps require at least one altcoin to work with the Lightning Network and they are very likely to replace escrow in some cases.

[Zin-Zang]

Can anyone recommend a good reference book or description of the LN (comprehensive technical description)? I tried to read the original Whitepaper several times, but in my view the description of the LN in the Whitepapes is not that good and difficult to understand.

I don't think if there are any good books yet, but I have written two threads which you might find helpful (Basics of the Lightning Network and Lightning Network FAQ). Feel free to ask us any questions in any of these threads.

And the second question, is there any standardization work on the LN integration with other ecosystems?

Yes, there is (Lightning Network Specifications). Lightning Network can be easily implemented in every Bitcoin hardfork which supports SegWit. There have been a few tests on Litecoin and everything was working fine. You might ask if there is any point in implementing LN in any other cryptocurrency. Yes, atomic swaps require at least one altcoin to work with the Lightning Network and they are very likely to replace escrow in some cases.

Groestlcoin also implemented segwit, they were the only one to actually use a hard fork instead of a soft fork like btc & ltc.

 

[mindrust]

BitMEX has just become the first cryptocurrency exchange with their own Lightning Network node. As they stated on their Twitter, withdrawals and deposits through the Lightning Network won't arrive anytime soon but it's definitely a huge step forward. I'd be interested to know how much exchanges will charge for the Lightning Network withdrawals.

(Just installing neutrino to try out the "Lightning light client." If there's interest I report my experiences, although I'll only transact on testnet I guess.)

Any update on this? You mentioned in the other thread that you had some problems with setting it up.

Somebody on reddit was asking if it is possible to buy bitcoins without touching on-chain but directly from a lightning exchange. If this stuff becomes real and gets adopted, not many people will be using on-chain in the future. Now we know why big blockers&miners hated LN&Segwit so much.

This is a game changer.

[ForceOfSS]

Just read this Blockstream blog, and I am excited to see growing research on scaling solution and how things would really different (read awesome) down the line.

eltoo: A Simplified Update Mechanism for Lightning and Off-Chain Contracts

https://blockstream.com/2018/04/30/eltoo-next-lightning.html

Would love to discuss more/ what do you guys think?

[d5000]

BitMEX has just become the first cryptocurrency exchange with their own Lightning Network node. As they stated on their Twitter, withdrawals and deposits through the Lightning Network won't arrive anytime soon but it's definitely a huge step forward. I'd be interested to know how much exchanges will charge for the Lightning Network withdrawals.

Interesting

(Just installing neutrino to try out the "Lightning light client." If there's interest I report my experiences, although I'll only transact on testnet I guess.)

Any update on this? You mentioned in the other thread that you had some problems with setting it up.

No, I hadn't much time these days to continue with the installation process, but I soon hope to do so soon. The problem I had was the lack of a guide to install the neutrino client alongside to lnd. I guess it has to be built and installed with a Go compiler?

@ForceOfSS (I hope the name is not related to what I think): Regarding eltoo, we discussed it a couple of pages ago. In my opinion, the design of the "penalty" for scammers is the biggest hurdle there as it looks like an additional security deposit would be needed, otherwise (without any penalty) it may become to easy to post earlier channel states.

[Rath_]

No, I hadn't much time these days to continue with the installation process, but I soon hope to do so soon. The problem I had was the lack of a guide to install the neutrino client alongside to lnd. I guess it has to be built and installed with a Go compiler?

It looks like neutrino is already a part of LND. Running it doesn't require much setup.

To run lnd in neutrino mode, run lnd with the following arguments, (swapping in --bitcoin.simnet if needed), and also your own btcd node if available:
lnd --bitcoin.active --bitcoin.testnet --debuglevel=debug --bitcoin.node=neutrino --neutrino.connect=faucet.lightning.community

Keep in mind that the node you want to use has to support BIP 157 and BIP 158.

[Carlton Banks]

Keep in mind that the node you want to use has to support BIP 157 and BIP 158.

Which means compiling the beta 0.18 master branch for the Bitcoin client yourself at this moment in time. Strictly speaking the node only needs BIP157, (BIP157 is the server tech and BIP158 is the client tech) but the neutrino client is designed to use BIP158 anyway.

Edit: technically, 0.18 doesn't really exist. Compile the master branch from git://githb.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

[d5000]

It looks like neutrino is already a part of LND. Running it doesn't require much setup.

Thanks! That explains a lot. I had tried to compile neutrino with the go build /go install commands, and was a bit irritated that I didn't find a binary after that step in the $GOPATH/bin folder, also the LND command specifying neutrino as the Bitcoin client (the one you mentioned, which is the same one in the LND guide) gave me an error. I don't know exactly if it has something to do with it, but after the compiling step the LND command  finally worked.

So I can start testing now.

[Wind_FURY]

Can anyone recommend a good reference book or description of the LN (comprehensive technical description)? I tried to read the original Whitepaper several times, but in my view the description of the LN in the Whitepapes is not that good and difficult to understand.

I don't think if there are any good books yet, but I have written two threads which you might find helpful (Basics of the Lightning Network and Lightning Network FAQ). Feel free to ask us any questions in any of these threads.

And the second question, is there any standardization work on the LN integration with other ecosystems?

Yes, there is (Lightning Network Specifications). Lightning Network can be easily implemented in every Bitcoin hardfork which supports SegWit. There have been a few tests on Litecoin and everything was working fine. You might ask if there is any point in implementing LN in any other cryptocurrency. Yes, atomic swaps require at least one altcoin to work with the Lightning Network and they are very likely to replace escrow in some cases.

Groestlcoin also implemented segwit, they were the only one to actually use a hard fork instead of a soft fork like btc & ltc.

 

Groesticoin can do an exclusive hard fork whenever their developers like because their coin has no value and no users. Bitcoin's forks should be inclusive because the risk of isolating validating nodes, and the community, in the network is much bigger.

Plus the big reason why Bitmain was against Segwit as a soft fork was because it would kill AsicBoost.

[Rath_]

Another great news! The Lightning Network has surpassed 100 BTC capacity again. The most interesting thing is that SatoshiLabs, which is the company behind TREZOR, has created their own node whose capacity is over 12 BTC! That's more than 10% of the overall network capacity. I would like to know if they are going to accept Lightning Network payments for their devices anytime soon.

Source: https://twitter.com/hodlonaut/status/1036350887608942593

[Anon136]

Another great news! The Lightning Network has surpassed 100 BTC capacity again. The most interesting thing is that SatoshiLabs, which is the company behind TREZOR, has created their own node whose capacity is over 12 BTC! That's more than 10% of the overall network capacity. I would like to know if they are going to accept Lightning Network payments for their devices anytime soon.

Source: https://twitter.com/hodlonaut/status/1036350887608942593

Now that's a feature that would cause me to actually upgrade my trezor one.

[Flatulenters]

It would be pretty darn nice to have a hardware lightning channel that could be bought, plugged in, connected, and loaded with 1/10 BTC.

there is  one now, its called casa node


https://keys.casa/lightning-bitcoin-node/