Lightning Network Discussion Thread

[infofront]

I stopped reading anonymint's blog when I saw that he posted this image, comparing the "transaction speeds" of different blockchains.



It's easy to trick the newbies to believe that the other "blockchains", Ripple for example, is faster without context. He is full of shit.

Anonymint responded:

Tangentially Note: the above chart isn’t cited as an endorsement nor comparison of the security and any attributes other than transactions-per-second (TPS) of the listed distributed ledgers. For example, I wrote (https://twitter.com/iamnotback/status/1081238488421285889) on Twitter, “XRP is a joke. None of the experts respect the algorithm […] Ripple is dog shit. I will cite myself as an expert on decentralized consensus ledgers.”

[infofront]

Unique takes on Lightning Network, Segregated Witness, or basically anything related (or remotely related) to Bitcoin aren't hard to find

Anonymint responded:
Really? Links please for unique takes which explain why LN will not scale as on-chain transaction fees rise due to increased demand and limited block size?

[Wind_FURY]

I stopped reading anonymint's blog when I saw that he posted this image, comparing the "transaction speeds" of different blockchains.



It's easy to trick the newbies to believe that the other "blockchains", Ripple for example, is faster without context. He is full of shit.

Anonymint responded:

Tangentially Note: the above chart isn’t cited as an endorsement nor comparison of the security and any attributes other than transactions-per-second (TPS) of the listed distributed ledgers. For example, I wrote (https://twitter.com/iamnotback/status/1081238488421285889) on Twitter, “XRP is a joke. None of the experts respect the algorithm […] Ripple is dog shit. I will cite myself as an expert on decentralized consensus ledgers.”

The he should remove it, or label it as "not a great comparison". The newbies who follow that blog will surely take it out of context, in my opinion.

[Wind_FURY]

Where can we find Lightning's transaction success rate for varying amounts? I saw franky1 attacking Lightning again. But if he's right, then ok. But I want it backed by facts.

If Lightning transactions has a 10% success rate to purchase one whole pizza from Domino's, then I will be the first person to post it.

[Rath_]

I would appreciate if any of you could take a look at this thread created by me in the project development section.

Where can we find Lightning's transaction success rate for varying amounts?

It's impossible to obtain accurate data since channels do not announce how much of their balance is available for routing.

If Lightning transactions has a 10% success rate to purchase one whole pizza from Domino's, then I will be the first person to post it.

If you live in the US then you can test it out and get additional 5% off for using the LN - ln.pizza

[Rath_]

Eclair mobile testnet now supports receiving funds over the Lightning Network! Once you enable receiving, the default refund delay will change from 144 to 2016 blocks (~2 weeks). The wallet informs user how much he can receive (the current state of liquidity of each channel). Mainnet version is going to be released in a few weeks. More information can be found here.

[Wind_FURY]

Given the right context, is the report saying that there were 1,500 attempts to use Lightning to buy pizza, and that only 150 orders went through?

I believe franky1's gaslighting must have affected me that much if I start questioning the facts as reported. Hahaha.

https://www.coindesk.com/pizza-lightning-bitcoin

Reeves said Fold currently serves 1,500 monthly users, facilitating roughly 35,000 total bitcoin transactions since launching the first version of the app in 2014. Until now, the largely bootstrapped project was funded by a small seed round from Boost VC. Looking forward, Reeves said the plan is to partner with crypto wallet startups for direct integrations.

“The largest barrier to conversion was setting up a new lightning wallet,” Reeves said, adding there were roughly 1,500 orders but only a 10 percent conversion rate because people struggled to use lightning-enabled bitcoin wallets.

“We’ve learned a lesson that in order to grow the lightning ecosystem we not only need the best products, but the best education as well,” Reeves said. “We will incorporate that into our plan going forward.”

[gentlemand]

https://twitter.com/jack/status/1098255550129655809

Looks like Lightning on Twitter will be an increasing thing. I'm not sure whether there's going to be an official implementation, I guess that might be a bit of nightmare for them, but here's Jack Dorsey endorsing a third party iteration.

Combine that with his Cash app and you'd squirt your way into a giant new audience.

[jubalix]

So, I still don't see how you can a have a record of transactions with the lightning network.

You only get a total put to the blockchain of a closed channel.

So all the interim transactions, what record of them do you have that cannot be changed.

So the LN becomes a payment system, not a records system.

How then does this make access to the the records aspect of BTC open easy use, does it not become prohibitively expensive?

What is the philosophy here?

Footnote

I am still waiting for the argument why the blocksize can't be increased as some sort of S curve to make access cheaper?

[jubalix]

So, I still don't see how you can a have a record of transactions with the lightning network.

You only get a total put to the blockchain of a closed channel.

So all the interim transactions, what record of them do you have that cannot be changed.

So the LN becomes a payment system, not a records system.

You just realized the point of LN, to make fast and cheap transaction. All transaction made on LN intentionally not recorded on blockchain so it will reduce burden on on-chain network and improve user privacy.

No. I stated this ages ago and rather than a straight answer I was told to look at the white paper.

How then does this make access to the the records aspect of BTC open easy use, does it not become prohibitively expensive?

I don't really understand this question, but i don't see correlation between LN and makes using bitcoin/running nodes become expensive.

[/quote]



And in this lays the problem. The need for a ledger that proves the transaction occurred allows the trust in the system to 100%. Every sale in fiat comes with a receipt, well 99%. You just dont know when you needed to prove that transaction.

Without the onchain records function a central plank of btc is weakened. the "Distributed ledger" part.

What is the philosophy here?

IMO it's "fast and cheap micro-transaction"

I am still waiting for the argument why the blocksize can't be increased as some sort of S curve to make access cheaper?

Blocksize/blockweight can be increased, but at cost making run full-nodes more expensive whether it's linear or S curve function growth.

[/quote]

My concern is given, userbase has gone up, hardware is more powerful, the exceptind the one of bump of segwit, blocksize is effectively decreasing.

There is no extra cost to running full nodes where hd space/$ increases and bandwidth /$ cost decreases. Rather EFFECTIVE blocksize is decreasing.

The on chain records are a low price are essential inmho.

I feel core is wedded to muh 1MB, as an article of faith. Eg they don't want to make it bigger as this would in their view vindicate BCH or give BCH something to crow about.

Maybe it would. Thats not the issue. The issue is you need access to the blockspace. Without it you centralise actors, eg who can afford 50$ a transaction? Except early adopters

[Wind_FURY]

Big blocks are inherently centralizing, and scaling Bitcoin shouldn't sacrifice decentralization for throughput. To have both, the only solution is to have a 2nd layer.

Plus just because people can upgrade their bandwidth, and hardware to maintain their  nodes doesn't automatically mean that they will do the upgrades.

[DooMAD]

So, I still don't see how you can a have a record of transactions with the lightning network.

You only get a total put to the blockchain of a closed channel.

So all the interim transactions, what record of them do you have that cannot be changed.

So the LN becomes a payment system, not a records system.

You just realized the point of LN, to make fast and cheap transaction. All transaction made on LN intentionally not recorded on blockchain so it will reduce burden on on-chain network and improve user privacy.

No. I stated this ages ago and rather than a straight answer I was told to look at the white paper.

A Lightning channel is opened and closed with an entry on the blockchain, so there is no "weakening".  While the channel is open, the two parties within the channel are each responsible for keeping the commitment state updated, which is why both participants ideally need to be online.  If you need to understand the underlying rationale behind how you can maintain the authenticity of each user's balance while not recording to the blockchain each time, have a look at this post.  

It's undoubtedly a different trust model than you might be accustomed to, plus the model might change in future with "eltoo".  But, for the moment, that's how it works.

[jubalix]

A Lightning channel is opened and closed with an entry on the blockchain, so there is no "weakening".  While the channel is open, the two parties within the channel are each responsible for keeping the commitment state updated, which is why both participants ideally need to be online.  If you need to understand the underlying rationale behind how you can maintain the authenticity of each user's balance while not recording to the blockchain each time, have a look at this post.  

It's undoubtedly a different trust model than you might be accustomed to, plus the model might change in future with "eltoo".  But, for the moment, that's how it works.

Though once the chancel closes, all the records are lost. Only the total remains.

[HeRetiK]

A Lightning channel is opened and closed with an entry on the blockchain, so there is no "weakening".  While the channel is open, the two parties within the channel are each responsible for keeping the commitment state updated, which is why both participants ideally need to be online.  If you need to understand the underlying rationale behind how you can maintain the authenticity of each user's balance while not recording to the blockchain each time, have a look at this post.  

It's undoubtedly a different trust model than you might be accustomed to, plus the model might change in future with "eltoo".  But, for the moment, that's how it works.

Though once the chancel closes, all the records are lost. Only the total remains.

Why should these records be lost? Sure, the individual transactions are not stored on the blockchain, but the history of lightning transactions is still available to each respective counterparty. It's not like clients "forget" their history of lightning transactions just because a channel has been closed.

[Rath_]

1: on the Specific Lightning Hubs that are a part of the transactions

Note that nodes which route a payment don't know by who and to whom the transaction was sent. They only know the previous and the next node which will handle the payment. LND allows to view details of routed payments by typing in ./lncli fwdinghistory

[HeRetiK]

[...]

So anyone using LN , needs to follow standard backup procedures on the personal client to protect their LN transactions history , because their are really no guarantees the individual transactions will be accessible from other sources.
Verses
Bitcoin Onchain transactions are stored by the blockchain and easily accessible at any time if you know the public address.

About Sum it up or are their differences of opinion on the above?  

Yep, precisely. And the way I see it there's no need to have every single transaction publicly viewable on the network as long as no coins get lost or are generated out of thin air. To this extend using LN transactions also supports individual privacy.

[buwaytress]

This lightning project is kind of cool and funny 

https://pollofeed.com

I remotely fed chickens for 1000 satoshis with almost no fees using the bitcoin lightning network. What did your Shitcoin do today? 

I'm sorry I should apologise but I actually find this much more useful than any use case I've seen presented this entire month. And god knows I've actually wasted quite a bit of time testing all kinds of interesting platforms.

Quirky maybe, but until other shitcoins begin to grasp that they must succeed first at the mundane before shooting for the stars, Bitcoin will always be the one actually doing things.

Nice find!

[msdjaw]

Would you please share your monthly income from LN here if you are running the node?

[Rath_]

Would you please share your monthly income from LN here if you are running the node?

Here's an interesting article from July on Alex Bosworth's earnings. Recently, he posted on Twitter that he routes about $10.000 worth of BTC per month and gets paid 0.25% for routing (source). I remember that someone was posting his routing earnings in this thread at the beginning. Check the first few pages.

Table from the article mentioned above. July 2018

[ajas]

At the current status of lightning (experimental) you cannot expect to make money with your lightning node
because lightning is rarely used for real world transactions (the only useful application for me so far is bitrefill)
but mainly for testing (playing roulette for a few satoshis).

Indeed recently I have downgraded the fee I require for relaying transactions via my lightning node to zero in
order to see if a moderate size lightning node will relay any transactions at all. (There are some).

I recognized that currently there is a relatively small number of nodes with a large number of open channels
(> 50 or > 100 up to 1000) which probably do most of the routing.  Of course this is not in the spirit of
decentralization.
  
In order to support decentralization I have now stopped to use the 'autopilot' of lnd to open channels to other
nodes but use a script of my own which only accepts nodes which have less than 50 open channels.
Lets see there that will lead to.