Does Lighting Netowork really scale and for what cost?

[gizmo123]

Ok I understand that inside LN we can send cheap transactions instantly, but assume we have global adoption, so BTC price is then very very high, it is obvious that happen due to full deflation nature of Bitcoin. So we need pay for create/close/deposit channel on-chain in BTC, with 1MB block size fees will be very high, several dozen or even several hundred $ per transaction, so to be worth do something we need send a lot of money to channel, or buy for cash from someone face2face/online that send as directly through LN.

Next problem is that LN need use large HUBs to works most efficient, so owners of that HUBs probably will be exchange, financial institutes, just guys with a lot of money, is that not short way to KYC by this HUBs?

[hv_]

LN does not help. It harms original Bitcoin

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5080565.msg48966290#msg48966290

[franky1]

imagine it this way.
im not going to talk about 7billion users..
ill just talk about 189million americans.. why.. well im just going to use the 189m americans that use VISAUSA.. yep im not going unrealistic with big numbers of 900million VISAGLOBAL. im just using realistic numbers

189m people. imagine they all want to deposit and vault up funds.

lets take the average transactions per block
https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions
~250k a day
it would take 756days to just get 189m users into LN
and thats before counting all the users that want to get out move funds, refresh channels.

people within LN will not want to exit LN back to bitcoin in such a situation. they would end up atomic swapping to other payments and exiting to liteoin and other coins that have more scope.

this is why bitcoin needs to expand bitcoin and not just push people into LN as a way to avoid expanding bitcoin. because once on LN people wont want to return to bitcoin

[dewildance]

Ok I understand that inside LN we can send cheap transactions instantly, but assume we have global adoption, so BTC price is then very very high, it is obvious that happen due to full deflation nature of Bitcoin. So we need pay for create/close/deposit channel on-chain in BTC, with 1MB block size fees will be very high, several dozen or even several hundred $ per transaction, so to be worth do something we need send a lot of money to channel, or buy for cash from someone face2face/online that send as directly through LN.

Next problem is that LN need use large HUBs to works most efficient, so owners of that HUBs probably will be exchange, financial institutes, just guys with a lot of money, is that not short way to KYC by this HUBs?

Truely, I think there is nobody who knows what to do with Lighting. Nowadays, when decentral and open source technologies are widespread, Lighting developers are moving completely in a non-transparent manner.

[Yeahpro]

people within LN will not want to exit LN back to bitcoin in such a situation. they would end up atomic swapping to other payments and exiting to liteoin and other coins that have more scope.

this is why bitcoin needs to expand bitcoin and not just push people into LN as a way to avoid expanding bitcoin. because once on LN people wont want to return to bitcoin

Is there any working prototype for atomic swap as at now? Is it possible for me to transfer from one blockchain to another?

Also what do you propose that can expand the Bitcoin network now to accommodate more transactions and increase the scalability beyond the current BIPs?

[franky1]

people within LN will not want to exit LN back to bitcoin in such a situation. they would end up atomic swapping to other payments and exiting to liteoin and other coins that have more scope.

this is why bitcoin needs to expand bitcoin and not just push people into LN as a way to avoid expanding bitcoin. because once on LN people wont want to return to bitcoin

Is there any working prototype for atomic swap as at now? Is it possible for me to transfer from one blockchain to another?

Also what do you propose that can expand the Bitcoin network now to accommodate more transactions and increase the scalability beyond the current BIPs?

because LN is not involved with blockchains for the actual LN payments. its pretty much just human agreement.
humans can agree on receiving coin A for coin B. by just signing LN payments of such.

infact you can do that now without LN. without vaulting up coins

heres the funny part. some say bitcoin has issues and needs LN because bitcoin full nodes dont like the blockchain..
but guess what. LN will start having fullnodes (for factories) that monitor multiple coins. its funny because if a node is supposedly unable to handle 1 chain, but suddenly able to handle 2-4 chains... then obviously the argument against the 1 chain is an empty argument

its not about jumping blocksize from small to large over night.
its not about taking a decade to convince a dev to implement just a small teaser amount
its about progressive growth over time without needing devs to decide when
EG the block mining difficulty shifts depending on block events. without needing devs to decide what the difficulty should shift to

also leaning transactions down. some devs want to blot up transactions with lots of features and even have it where a block can be allowed to be filled with just 5 bloated transactions. bitcoin should be made more simplified.
if users want complicated privacy contract stuff, then they can use other networks but if bitcoin wants to be a straight forward digital cash, then keep it as simple as digital cash

[Tytanowy Janusz]

LN wont help that much to allow using bitcoin as normal currency. But we have at liest 1000 coins made only for transactions. For sure there are dozen with code that is scalable enough. Will that destroy oryginal bitcoin?
well we can use this coin for everyday usage and bitcoin as store of value (like gold) and main crypto exchange coin that every other coin is pared with.

[franky1]

Firstly, maximum block size isn't 1MB, but uses 4 million weight unit instead. Basically it means current maximum block size are between 1-4MB, even though the average is about 2-2.5MB.

actually
maximum weight is 4mb but there is a secondary limit of maximum weight / witness scalefactor(4)
meaning there is a limit within the code of 1mb

this 1mb limit is a pre-requisite for transactions
it is where legacy transactions have been restricted to only be within.
and segwit transactions are semi restricted to being within.

segwit transactions do not get full free reign of 4mb. part of a segwit transaction is restricted to the 1mb limit
its only the signatures of a segwit transaction that get to sit outside the 1mb limit
so an average segwit transaction where signatures = half the data of a transaction would result in ~2mb blocks
but this is in a usecase of if every transaction in the 1mb base limit was segwit and where half the transaction data was its signature
EG
if the majority of transactions were legacy then only a few segwits would have their signatures outside the 1mb area
meaning expect less than 2x

so dont expect transactions to fill up the 4mb weight as a 'norm' .. as the 1mb area is still a pre-requisite and restricts full utility.

[smartbitcoininvestor]

Lightning network will help to increase transaction speeds.

[cuenzy]

Ok I understand that inside LN we can send cheap transactions instantly, but assume we have global adoption, so BTC price is then very very high, it is obvious that happen due to full deflation nature of Bitcoin. So we need pay for create/close/deposit channel on-chain in BTC, with 1MB block size fees will be very high, several dozen or even several hundred $ per transaction, so to be worth do something we need send a lot of money to channel, or buy for cash from someone face2face/online that send as directly through LN.

Next problem is that LN need use large HUBs to works most efficient, so owners of that HUBs probably will be exchange, financial institutes, just guys with a lot of money, is that not short way to KYC by this HUBs?

I think it does. Though i havent tried and saw only in theory it can be possible to be more scalable than the current or applied system. Ofcourse this has to be tested more often and in many scenario. Its still better than to stick to the slower ones.

[franky1]

Lightning network will help to increase transaction speeds.

of a pegged token thats 12 decimals, on a different network, that can take over a year to get just america to vault up, to then get into ln
oh and by the way, america will want to get out, move things around. and shake things up.

so before over selling LN realise its limitations.
here are the devs themselves talk about its issues
https://youtu.be/8lMLo-7yF5k?t=570

and dont even try to say its a bitcoin transaction.. thats soo 2016
latest concepts of 2018 are factories. and channels using 12 decimal unconfirmed, non blockchain contracts that can cycle around without needing to broadcast back to the blockchain.

[franky1]

I think it does. Though i havent tried and saw only in theory it can be possible to be more scalable than the current or applied system. Ofcourse this has to be tested more often and in many scenario. Its still better than to stick to the slower ones.

to use LN is atleast 1 deposit to vault funds up on the bitcoin network before even getting to play with LN and atleast one to unvault funds when finished playing around on LN(vaulting up with a factory to let the factory then handle the channel open/close management)
if you only plan on budgeting your money for 2 payments then its not worth it.

if you plan to avoid factories. you will end up needing to spread funds over multiple channels manually yourself. this can end up being more than 2 transactions onchain (atleast one(with multiple outputs) to vault up.. or.. multiple transactions of single outputs if opening channels at different times) and then multiple transactions to unvault the funds.

they say average users end up needing atleast 5 channels that have their funds spread out to atleast have a relatively good chance to spend some of the funds when needed) so thats like a minimum of 6 transactions onchain.

so if you are only budgeting to use LN for 6 payments.. its not worth it.

VISAUSA statistics have people that only use visa cards ~42 times a month (~1.5 tx a day) but bitcoin is not as widly available as visa. so people wont be spending as often. so lets say only 2 times a week.
so unless your planning ahead your spending habits for the next 3 weeks. again not worth it

LN's niche are for the spammers (day traders, mixers and those who do make regular payments to certain recipients)
it wont really have good utility for those that only want to buy groceries once a week or pay a monthly bill.. (unless they plan to vault up enough funds for 2-6months..

but as my previous posts suggest unless bitcoins network expands the transactions per day restrictions. expect to have to preplan funding a LN deposit for upto a years worth, once things get busier (which not many would want to do)

..
as for saying its instant..
thats if:
1. everyone on the route is online to agree
2. everyone on the route is funded enough
3. others havnt raided your channel of said route before you got to spend it yourself

[squatter]

People put too much emphasis on commitment/settlement/funding transactions. The point is that you can make one on-chain transaction that enables you to make many LN transactions. That's what scalability is about -- improving throughput capacity without sacrificing performance. It's not perfect and it doesn't allow endless transactions at no cost. Decentralized systems that don't require trust cannot possibly offer that.

One way LN can be leveraged cheaply is for merchants to automatically open LN channels with customers who send Bitcoin transactions from LN-compatible wallets. Thereafter, the customer can use cheap and instant LN transactions. And since the merchant is likely to have channel liquidity with major hubs, the customer can then use that channel to pay wherever LN is accepted.

[franky1]

Why act like we need to adapt for an extreme use case instead of small increases that make sense at the time, or we could all just jump ship and make stupid decisions and end up being bcash. The idea that everyone will jump at once is silly.

im not the one who shouts out LN can handle visa global levels.
i actually downplayed the numbers to be just visa USA as a more plausable usecase for if its popular

imagine it this way.
im not going to talk about 7billion users..
ill just talk about 189million americans.. why.. well im just going to use the 189m americans that use VISAUSA.. yep im not going unrealistic with big numbers of 900million VISAGLOBAL. im just using realistic numbers
189m people. imagine they all want to deposit and vault up funds.

so you have to start playing the numbers that if in lets say 5 years there becomes 189m(not drastic numbers) that before that 5th year we need to have progressed step by step up to that number. which means not waiting for 5 years and then suddenly reacting. (so far devs have made us wait 3 year and tx counts are not much better than 3 years ago (200k a day december 2015))

but one thing to take into account is that even if you think next month only 100,000 vault up. then the following month 200,000 vault up, you actually find out 100,000 from first month are unvaulting and revaulting. so thats 400,000 at month 2
then at third month 300,000 new users.. along with the 300.000 of previous months unvaulting and revaulting.. is 600.000
and so on.
its either going to hit a snag of bottleneck delays if things dont start progressing on the bitcoin main net. or people just dont bother with bitcoin because others might progress because bitcoin devs prefer slowing down bitcoin mainnet utility while raising cost

any to answer thee other point
also im not the one that shouts "gigabytes by midnight" in regards to bitcoins utility.

its not about jumping blocksize from small to large over night.
its not about taking a decade to convince a dev to implement just a small teaser amount
its about progressive growth over time without needing devs to decide when
EG the block mining difficulty shifts depending on block events. without needing devs to decide what the difficulty should shift to

i am the on that is actually saying lets grow the onchain transaction count limitation progressively.. but the thing that infuriates many people is that a certain dev team want to be a decision maker of when and how..
it could be done so easily (like how difficulty adjusts based on certain parameters of blocks automatically, without needing dev intervention/delay/stall tactics
the network could grow more naturally and automatically without the "dev control" frustration

[jjjfff]

What's the incentive for folks to run LN nodes? Lock up their BTC in exchange for what? Is it worth it?

[Zin-Zang]

At least Lightning Network can reduce the slowness of Bitcoin transactions. Faster and cheaper, of course this is why Lightning networks are needed.

Lightning Network Compared to any Exchange that allows offchain Swaps

LN                                                                Exchange
Time Delay on Withdrawal to blockchain          FAST Withdrawal to blockchain
Requires Complex LN setups                           No additional setup required
Price increases per hop                                   Low Price if any
Multiple LN hubs needed                                 No additional exchanges required
Only works with Segwit coins                          Works with Any Coin on Exchange
Limited Transaction Amounts                          Unlimited Transaction Amounts
Must use LN hubs                                           Can be used by any exchange user

LN network was never needed as it is nothing more than a 3rd party service, that works with multiple segwit coins.
The nonsense that increasing blocksize or a faster block speed would not increase scaling , is a myth used to pacify fools. 
In any event , exchanges can outperform LN offchain processing and do it cheaper than LN weak design requiring multiple hops.


  

[Kakmakr]

What choice do we have? The math has shown that Block size upgrades are surely not the solution for the scaling problems, when Bitcoin goes mainstream. The LN is surely a better off-chain second layer solution for all these micro transactions that are clogging the Blockchain. 

The on-chain solutions will be a good temporary solution, but once this goes mainstream, it will all fall apart. We saw this happening in 2017 and we were not even close to mainstream adoption then. 

[hv_]

What choice do we have? The math has shown that Block size upgrades are surely not the solution for the scaling problems, when Bitcoin goes mainstream. The LN is surely a better off-chain second layer solution for all these micro transactions that are clogging the Blockchain. 

The on-chain solutions will be a good temporary solution, but once this goes mainstream, it will all fall apart. We saw this happening in 2017 and we were not even close to mainstream adoption then. 

Sure. This is due to the poor change and expectation management done in core that just does not fit to global fin tech standards and only loves the store of value / speculation feature left.

[squatter]

What choice do we have? The math has shown that Block size upgrades are surely not the solution for the scaling problems, when Bitcoin goes mainstream. The LN is surely a better off-chain second layer solution for all these micro transactions that are clogging the Blockchain. 

The on-chain solutions will be a good temporary solution, but once this goes mainstream, it will all fall apart. We saw this happening in 2017 and we were not even close to mainstream adoption then. 

Sure. This is due to the poor change and expectation management done in core that just does not fit to global fin tech standards and only loves the store of value / speculation feature left.

People had unrealistic expectations about "cheap/free and instant transactions." I really wish that narrative -- spread by companies like Blockchain and Coinbase -- had never caught on. It was never part of the design. Low fees just implies low transaction demand.

It's not that the store-of-value aspect is all that matters. It's that perpetually increasing block size drives fee revenues down, which threatens the mining incentive as the block reward gets lower and lower. That's a threat to the entire security model of Bitcoin.

LN isn't perfect but it's the best candidate we have to get the best of both worlds -- scalability and cheap/instant transactions.

[Red-Apple]

to answer this question you have to go ahead and start using lightning network yourself and see how it is doing considering scaling. just ignore the hardness of using it for the first time since it is new and you will get your answer.

i have a feeling that it is the same as when we all heard about bitcoin. at first there were two groups, one hyping it up a lot saying it will replace fiat and another group saying it is a scam pyramid scheme. as soon as we started opening up our own eyes and seeing facts we saw how awesome bitcoin is and saw what it offers and what it doesn't offer.