VISA vs Lightning Network

[EriksonPartners]

Since the big news of Pompliano's suggestion for Kroger to implement Lighting Network in its stores after announcing that it's Smith's Food & Drug stores won't be accepting VISA cards due to the high fees, it's brought up a lot of discussions of what is next. So many other big companies have stopped accepting Visa and therefore it just makes sense, for lightning network to be the future. What do you guys think, will the process actually go through?

[anu1908]

ln is already used by some stores. i think if the implementation is user friendly enough, then it is possible ln will be used as an alternative to visa for merchants. it entirely depends on how far the development will go and the demand for such services. if we're being positive here, demand will always be high so it mostly depends on developers to provide the software. i'm quite optimistic there will be more merchant that will use ln if the implementation is secure, fast and friendly enough.

[mocacinno]

Actually, i've been testing and accepting LN payments on my demo site for quite a while already...
I personally find eclair mobile pretty user friendly. Offcourse, there's still a learning curve that's far bigger if you compare it with visa. Afterall, everybody has seen their grandparents, parents,... using VISA since they were born, so the visa-learning curve started allmost at birth. This offcourse isn't the case with BTC/LN.

Basically, you have to incentivise your clients to:

• 1) Install a decent desktop wallet on their pc
• 2) fund their desktop wallet with a couple hundred bucks worth of BTC
• 3) install a LN client on their mobile phone, create a new address, fund the address with "spending money"
• 4) open a channel between the client and the store's node, fund it

After these 4 steps, a store can generate a lightning invoice (QR) and let the customer scan and pay straight away... Works flawlessly, but still, i don't see my mother performing these steps...
Also, the fact that you'd have to close the current channel if you wish to open a new one (when you have insufficient funds in your current channel for planned expenses) is a drawback.

You can actually skip step 1, and switch step 2 and 3 (create a LN wallet right away, create a deposit addy and fund it straight from the exchange), but i would discourage anybody to keep a lot of funds on a mobile wallet.

The biggest "drawbacks" would probably be to get somebody to visit an exchange or some other seller to exchange FIAT to BTC...

[avikz]

Actually, i've been testing and accepting LN payments on my demo site for quite a while already...
I personally find eclair mobile pretty user friendly. Offcourse, there's still a learning curve that's far bigger if you compare it with visa. Afterall, everybody has seen their grandparents, parents,... using VISA since they were born, so the visa-learning curve started allmost at birth. This offcourse isn't the case with BTC/LN.

It's actually one of the major challenges that is hindering the adoption of cryptos in general. The technical complexities are not very easy to understand for the old age people who are comfortable with old school banking system. I have seen my late Grandfather using hard cold cash for every purchases because he was not comfortable with card payment. So whenever he needed some cash, he used to go to bank, stand in the queue, sign on a slip and get the cash from the counter. That's how he was comfortable with.

But that's the initial hiccups every new technology faces and bitcoin and LN is no exception. Our upcoming generations are using iphones and tabs flawlessly. The 4 year old  daughter of my cousin sister watches Youtube videos like a pro. When we were 4 years old, we didn't even thought of these technologies. Slowly we have learned and adopted that! Same thing will happen with the current generation as well. They will learn and adopt slowly! It will take some time and support from people like us but that's how we will overcome such technical roadblocks! LN is one more step closer to mainstream adoption!

[Shenzou]

Since the big news of Pompliano's suggestion for Kroger to implement Lighting Network in its stores after announcing that it's Smith's Food & Drug stores won't be accepting VISA cards due to the high fees, it's brought up a lot of discussions of what is next. So many other big companies have stopped accepting Visa and therefore it just makes sense, for lightning network to be the future. What do you guys think, will the process actually go through?

Having Ln be a part of our daily lives is a great concept and will make things much easier, at least for us because we know how it works and we know its potential, so accepting as a payment method would make sense, but most of the current generation of shops and owners are not yet aware of that, they either accept cash or credit cards and having them start accepting LN as a payment method will take some time, as there is no support for the system by the governments, and the number of people who actually use it today in their businesses who use it in their own incentive is very small, therefor its gonna take some time for it to grow and have a strong foothold in the market.

[Carlton Banks]

Basically, you have to incentivise your clients to:

• 1) Install a decent desktop wallet on their pc
• 2) fund their desktop wallet with a couple hundred bucks worth of BTC
• 3) install a LN client on their mobile phone, create a new address, fund the address with "spending money"
• 4) open a channel between the client and the store's node, fund it

After these 4 steps, a store can generate a lightning invoice (QR) and let the customer scan and pay straight away... Works flawlessly, but still, i don't see my mother performing these steps...
Also, the fact that you'd have to close the current channel if you wish to open a new one (when you have insufficient funds in your current channel for planned expenses) is a drawback.

You can actually skip step 1, and switch step 2 and 3 (create a LN wallet right away, create a deposit addy and fund it straight from the exchange), but i would discourage anybody to keep a lot of funds on a mobile wallet.

The biggest "drawbacks" would probably be to get somebody to visit an exchange or some other seller to exchange FIAT to BTC...

There's no need to open a channel with the store. As a user, the minimum setup is 1 channel, to any well connected node. The software and the network takes care of the rest.

That doesn't mean you can't do all the configuration yourself, as you describe. But the idea is to simplify the process, what you've written is the most complicated way, and in the case of the channel with the store, unnecessary.

[mocacinno]

There's no need to open a channel with the store. As a user, the minimum setup is 1 channel, to any well connected node. The software and the network takes care of the rest.

That doesn't mean you can't do all the configuration yourself, as you describe. But the idea is to simplify the process, what you've written is the most complicated way, and in the case of the channel with the store, unnecessary.

That's true... But in reality, if a store tells their customers to just create 1 channel to 1 node and fund it, they'll have to offer support if a route does not exist... They'll have a customer standing in front of their cash register trying to scan a QR code and getting an error message telling them (and the clerck) nothing at all...  If a store just tells their customers to open a channel directly to their node, it would cut back on support questions immensely.

But, once again, in theory, you are 100% correct and if everything works and grows as expected, my version of the facts might be a tad to complex.

I'm running a LN for many months now, and i've accepted over 70 LN payments (not an impressive number, i know), but all of the payments came from customers that opened a direct channel between their client and my node...

[Carlton Banks]

I'm running a LN for many months now, and i've accepted over 70 LN payments (not an impressive number, i know), but all of the payments came from customers that opened a direct channel between their client and my node...

Are you suggesting as such on your site (opening a channel to your node)? That's a pretty good way of making your node well connected and routing alot of payments

This demonstrates the lightning model; any regular business can encourage their clientele to open channels direct to them, which makes financial sense for regular clients. You're basically your own mini-payments service, VISA can't compete with that.

[mocacinno]

Are you suggesting as such on your site (opening a channel to your node)? That's a pretty good way of making your node well connected and routing alot of payments

This demonstrates the lightning model; any regular business can encourage their clientele to open channels direct to them, which makes financial sense for regular clients. You're basically your own mini-payments service, VISA can't compete with that.

Suggesting is a broad concept   But yes, i've published a walktrough, and offcourse the walktrough include steps to make a channel with my node (it does contain a part for longtime LN users telling them that if they already have opened channels, they can try if there's a route before opening a channel to me directly)... It wouldn't make sense to let a customer that's new to the LN make a connection to a different node and then hope there'll be a route between the node they made a channel to and mine... But that's actually my point: in theory, you are 100% correct, and your statements make more sense than mine, but in reality it's easyer to just spoonfeed your customer and let them make a channel with your node directly to cut back on support calls... This also saves on routing fees (eventough they are really small)

As for the remark that my node it well connected:

Code:

lightning-cli listfunds | grep short_channel_id | wc -l
35

[TheCoinGrabber]

I don't even knew about the steps required if I hadn't read mocaccino's posts but I'm willing to give it a try once it's been proven that the system is free of bugs and there's enough sellers in my area using LN.

Would be nice to see these payment giants have competition and lower their fees. I've already cut my AmEx, might eventually do the same with Visa.

[Nadziratel]

Since the big news of Pompliano's suggestion for Kroger to implement Lighting Network in its stores after announcing that it's Smith's Food & Drug stores won't be accepting VISA cards due to the high fees, it's brought up a lot of discussions of what is next. So many other big companies have stopped accepting Visa and therefore it just makes sense, for lightning network to be the future. What do you guys think, will the process actually go through?

Lighting network is very nice and useful in theory. But in practice we could not see what it would bring to work. Let's see this first, then we'll talk about it.

[Carlton Banks]

It wouldn't make sense to let a customer that's new to the LN make a connection to a different node and then hope there'll be a route between the node they made a channel to and mine

That's true, it's 100% routable if it's a direct channel

I don't even knew about the steps required if I hadn't read mocaccino's posts

Those steps are only needed if you want more control. By default, lightning wallets will use an autopilot mode that handles the detailed setup

[audaciousbeing]

Actually, i've been testing and accepting LN payments on my demo site for quite a while already...
I personally find eclair mobile pretty user friendly. Offcourse, there's still a learning curve that's far bigger if you compare it with visa. Afterall, everybody has seen their grandparents, parents,... using VISA since they were born, so the visa-learning curve started allmost at birth. This offcourse isn't the case with BTC/LN.

Basically, you have to incentivise your clients to:

• 1) Install a decent desktop wallet on their pc
• 2) fund their desktop wallet with a couple hundred bucks worth of BTC
• 3) install a LN client on their mobile phone, create a new address, fund the address with "spending money"
• 4) open a channel between the client and the store's node, fund it

After these 4 steps, a store can generate a lightning invoice (QR) and let the customer scan and pay straight away... Works flawlessly, but still, i don't see my mother performing these steps...
Also, the fact that you'd have to close the current channel if you wish to open a new one (when you have insufficient funds in your current channel for planned expenses) is a drawback.

You can actually skip step 1, and switch step 2 and 3 (create a LN wallet right away, create a deposit addy and fund it straight from the exchange), but i would discourage anybody to keep a lot of funds on a mobile wallet.

The biggest "drawbacks" would probably be to get somebody to visit an exchange or some other seller to exchange FIAT to BTC...

I want to believe as time goes by, this processes and steps to use the lighting network would be further simplified or seamless because if all these steps are not simplified as a result of further developments, the limitations would not only be applicable to parents and grandparents but also people who are young because in the real sense. Its more complicated just looking at it and the conditions attached of loading couple of bucks in other to use is another major turn off which would shift people to a more accommodating alternative.

[Beerwizzard]

• 1) Install a decent desktop wallet on their pc

It becomes a bit more complicated if you are making an offline payment.
If you are buying something online then the transaction time even now is not a really big deal. The other problem is that in the shop you have to pay and go.

• 2) fund their desktop wallet with a couple hundred bucks worth of BTC

That will be hard if your customer is not using BTC. THen you will have to convince him that he need to use it.

LN won't replace visa because visa customers are not using cryptocurrencies and vice versa.

[Carlton Banks]

I want to believe as time goes by, this processes and steps to use the lighting network would be further simplified or seamless because if all these steps are not simplified as a result of further developments

You don't need to "want to believe", it's already much simpler if you stick with wallet default settings.


The simplest, and default way to setup a Lightning wallet is like this:

1. Send some BTC to your wallet
2. Wait till the wallet finishes automatically opening some channels

[TheCoinGrabber]

 

I don't even knew about the steps required if I hadn't read mocaccino's posts

Those steps are only needed if you want more control. By default, lightning wallets will use an autopilot mode that handles the detailed setup

Good to hear. Bitcoin might be confusing enough for beginners, having additional steps to just use the lightning wallet might confuse them even more.

So far I have no use for a lightning wallet yet but what would you suggest? The top results on Google Play is the one by kumaigorodski and Eclair Mobile.

[jseverson]

LN won't replace visa because visa customers are not using cryptocurrencies and vice versa.

They could use both, and in some cases, ditch one for another. I don't think LN's goal is to replace Visa per se, but to be a better, or at least a workable alternative. That drives adoption.

If what you are saying is absolutely true, then Bitcoin is basically locked to enthusiasts and all we're doing is playing in a sandbox.

[mocacinno]

--snip--
So far I have no use for a lightning wallet yet but what would you suggest? The top results on Google Play is the one by kumaigorodski and Eclair Mobile.

I have c-lightning running on my server and eclair mobile on my phone. I'm pretty satisfied with eclair mobile, you just have to realise it's a mobile wallet intended to PAY for services, it's not intended to receive payments (in the case you want to receive payments, c-lightning or lnd might be needed)

[Herbert2020]

the  argument should not be about merchants accepting bitcoin through lightning network or through VISA. the argument should instead be about whether merchants should use the centralized services such as VISA or use decentralized currency/payment system called bitcoin. then how they use bitcoin is their choice. additionally any shop that implements lightning network to accept payments should also accept on chain transactions too. so again the argument is about bitcoin versus Visa.

the result is that any user who has a bitcoin wallet makes the payments easily and anyone who is more "advanced" and has LN wallets can pay with that instead.

[esetop01tryba]

Perhaps lightning network and the future for payments and transactions but people are very much accustomed to the payment systems Visa and MasterCard and need to have passed a lot of time that people began to learn something new.At the moment, the Visa processes transactions very quickly and takes a leading position.