The Lightning Network FAQ

[PrimeNumber7]

Plus if they are willing to accept the trade-off. I believe exchanges that want large transfers between them should join the federation of BTC-issued tokens in the Liquid sidechain.

The other side of that is that can cause exchanges to become more "bank like"
All you need is of of them to start.
There will be no BTC transferred till certain limits have been hit or till the end of the day everything else would just be a journal entry.

Think about it. If I am going to send from a to b all they have to do is note it in their database someplace.
Then if you send from b to a it's just notes BTC going the other way and deducts from the total owed.
Overnight they settle up, and send in one tx.
Unless the amount goes over over a certain level, then they trigger a settlement.

You now have Chase and CitiBank but with BTC instead of $.

Others want to join in. Look banking 2.0 same as 1.0 just with BTC.

OK it's a worst case scenario and probably not going to happen but.....

-Dave

Exchanges are generally profitable, and should have assets in excess of their customer deposits if their business is run well. If an exchange has 10,000BTC in their various wallets, but their customers have a total of 9,500BTC on deposit, would you be concerned if the exchange accepted up to, say 400BTC from another exchange that was not actually received until the end of the day? The exchange would be able to process all customer withdrawals if everyone withdrew all of their bitcoin.

I would be more concerned if exchanges did what you describe and it resulted in fractional reserves.

IMO, exchanges should use large LN channels amongst each other to facilitate transfers between exchanges. Exchange A could allow their customers to send coin to their accounts at Exchange B instantly, and the two exchanges could instantly settle the transaction via their open LN channel. There would be no need for the customer to generate/provide a LN invoice, only their account details of their other exchange account.

[DaveF]

Plus if they are willing to accept the trade-off. I believe exchanges that want large transfers between them should join the federation of BTC-issued tokens in the Liquid sidechain.

The other side of that is that can cause exchanges to become more "bank like"
All you need is of of them to start.
There will be no BTC transferred till certain limits have been hit or till the end of the day everything else would just be a journal entry.

Think about it. If I am going to send from a to b all they have to do is note it in their database someplace.
Then if you send from b to a it's just notes BTC going the other way and deducts from the total owed.
Overnight they settle up, and send in one tx.
Unless the amount goes over over a certain level, then they trigger a settlement.

You now have Chase and CitiBank but with BTC instead of $.

Others want to join in. Look banking 2.0 same as 1.0 just with BTC.

OK it's a worst case scenario and probably not going to happen but.....

-Dave

Exchanges are generally profitable, and should have assets in excess of their customer deposits if their business is run well. If an exchange has 10,000BTC in their various wallets, but their customers have a total of 9,500BTC on deposit, would you be concerned if the exchange accepted up to, say 400BTC from another exchange that was not actually received until the end of the day? The exchange would be able to process all customer withdrawals if everyone withdrew all of their bitcoin.

I would be more concerned if exchanges did what you describe and it resulted in fractional reserves.

IMO, exchanges should use large LN channels amongst each other to facilitate transfers between exchanges. Exchange A could allow their customers to send coin to their accounts at Exchange B instantly, and the two exchanges could instantly settle the transaction via their open LN channel. There would be no need for the customer to generate/provide a LN invoice, only their account details of their other exchange account.

Because in the case of exchanges it starts to tie up more funds.
If 2 exchanges have large channels open between them then they can't use those funds for regular on-chain withdraws.
Then you add on a 3rd and 4th and you tie up even more funds.

Lets say exchange 5 opens, but does not have lightning. But it has a price higher enough or lower enough to make a lot of people want to move. Do you start closing channels. That makes for more TX fees. And I see a logistical nightmare.

And....for security a majority of the exchanges funds should be in cold or multi-sig wallets. Lightning by definition is a hot wallet.

-Dave

[PrimeNumber7]

Because in the case of exchanges it starts to tie up more funds.
If 2 exchanges have large channels open between them then they can't use those funds for regular on-chain withdraws.
Then you add on a 3rd and 4th and you tie up even more funds.

Lets say exchange 5 opens, but does not have lightning. But it has a price higher enough or lower enough to make a lot of people want to move. Do you start closing channels. That makes for more TX fees. And I see a logistical nightmare.

And....for security a majority of the exchanges funds should be in cold or multi-sig wallets. Lightning by definition is a hot wallet.

-Dave

There could be reasons other than arbitrage that exchange customers will want to move their coin between exchanges. For example, one exchange might offer particular trading pairs that another exchange does not, one exchange may have different lending markets, or betting lending terms than another, one exchange may allow for fiat withdrawals under better terms, among other reasons.

Exchanges charge for withdrawal fees today, and they may charge transfer fees when transferring via LN that are in line with what the exchange will anticipate paying for closing tx fees divided by the number of transactions the LN expects to be able to make before having to close the channel.

Exchanges should keep most of their coin in cold storage, and you are correct coin in an open LN channel is part of a hot wallet. They could have the closing transactions go to their cold storage wallet, even if this will add minimal additional security. Having open LN channels will be something exchanges would have to manage.

[Wind_FURY]

Plus if they are willing to accept the trade-off. I believe exchanges that want large transfers between them should join the federation of BTC-issued tokens in the Liquid sidechain.

The other side of that is that can cause exchanges to become more "bank like"
All you need is of of them to start.
There will be no BTC transferred till certain limits have been hit or till the end of the day everything else would just be a journal entry.

Think about it. If I am going to send from a to b all they have to do is note it in their database someplace.
Then if you send from b to a it's just notes BTC going the other way and deducts from the total owed.
Overnight they settle up, and send in one tx.
Unless the amount goes over over a certain level, then they trigger a settlement.

You now have Chase and CitiBank but with BTC instead of $.

Others want to join in. Look banking 2.0 same as 1.0 just with BTC.

OK it's a worst case scenario and probably not going to happen but.....

-Dave

But it is happening, https://blockstream.com/liquid/

There are more than 20 exchanges in the "federation". The trade-off is "OK" for exchange to exchange transfers if you ask me, doesn't need your Bitcoins to be traded to altcoins for "faster/cheaper transfers".

[hv_]

Plus if they are willing to accept the trade-off. I believe exchanges that want large transfers between them should join the federation of BTC-issued tokens in the Liquid sidechain.

The other side of that is that can cause exchanges to become more "bank like"
All you need is of of them to start.
There will be no BTC transferred till certain limits have been hit or till the end of the day everything else would just be a journal entry.

Think about it. If I am going to send from a to b all they have to do is note it in their database someplace.
Then if you send from b to a it's just notes BTC going the other way and deducts from the total owed.
Overnight they settle up, and send in one tx.
Unless the amount goes over over a certain level, then they trigger a settlement.

You now have Chase and CitiBank but with BTC instead of $.

Others want to join in. Look banking 2.0 same as 1.0 just with BTC.

OK it's a worst case scenario and probably not going to happen but.....

-Dave

But it is happening, https://blockstream.com/liquid/

There are more than 20 exchanges in the "federation". The trade-off is "OK" for exchange to exchange transfers if you ask me, doesn't need your Bitcoins to be traded to altcoins for "faster/cheaper transfers".

Big player with proper (cyper-) risk & compliance ppl will never allow such - they ll go industrial central clearing / custody.  LN is a joke

[amishmanish]

But it is happening, https://blockstream.com/liquid/

There are more than 20 exchanges in the "federation". The trade-off is "OK" for exchange to exchange transfers if you ask me, doesn't need your Bitcoins to be traded to altcoins for "faster/cheaper transfers".

Liquid is a very enterprise kind of solution. Its between exchanges and the only thing you can trade L-BTC with is stablecoins and assets on their chain. For most people, other bitcoin pegs are becoming more of a norm. Like tBTC, renBTC etc.

Liquid is just something that Blockstream did because they can. If anybody else did that, they would have been denounced (and were so) by almost the whole bitcoin community as a centralized solution.

[hv_]

But it is happening, https://blockstream.com/liquid/

There are more than 20 exchanges in the "federation". The trade-off is "OK" for exchange to exchange transfers if you ask me, doesn't need your Bitcoins to be traded to altcoins for "faster/cheaper transfers".

Liquid is a very enterprise kind of solution. Its between exchanges and the only thing you can trade L-BTC with is stablecoins and assets on their chain. For most people, other bitcoin pegs are becoming more of a norm. Like tBTC, renBTC etc.

Liquid is just something that Blockstream did because they can. If anybody else did that, they would have been denounced (and were so) by almost the whole bitcoin community as a centralized solution.

.. they 'can'. Whatever they to, 100% SEC / CFTC et al will shut it down, even after 7 + years. No way doing such (bigger) without engagment with regs

Tech doesnt solve  that - get real

[DooMAD]

.. they 'can'. Whatever they to, 100% SEC / CFTC et al will shut it down, even after 7 + years. No way doing such (bigger) without engagment with regs

Tech doesnt solve  that - get real

Oh, that's right, you believe that only the fervent followers of your worthless clonecoin understand what regulations are.  

News flash, zealot, Liquid has been developed with regulatory conformity in mind:

businesses can quickly issue Liquid-based security tokens with the click of a button, and establish sophisticated rulesets to conform with their regulatory requirements with no software engineering experience required.

token rules do not have to be written at the smart contract level–as is the case with other blockchain platforms–and can be easily adjusted via the Liquid Securities control panel to allow issuers to adapt to fast-evolving digital asset regulations.

Looks like tech does, in fact, solve that.

Now kindly go away with your regurgitated faketoshi propaganda.

[DaveF]

I know I asked something similar before and never got an answer, is there any software out there that monitors your Lightning Node and lets you know if it's unreachable?

I now have the server itself monitored along with the bitcoind / lnd / etc. But I would like to know if there is a way to know that for some reason it can't be seen by the outside world. Happened the other day, server was up and running fine along with all the services, BUT for some reason it could not see the outside world, or at least the outside world could not see it. A quick reboot fixed it, but a little warning would have been nice. Honestly if I had not tried to send a payment I never would have know that nothing could route to it.

-Dave

[AdolfinWolf]

I know I asked something similar before and never got an answer, is there any software out there that monitors your Lightning Node and lets you know if it's unreachable?

I now have the server itself monitored along with the bitcoind / lnd / etc. But I would like to know if there is a way to know that for some reason it can't be seen by the outside world. Happened the other day, server was up and running fine along with all the services, BUT for some reason it could not see the outside world, or at least the outside world could not see it. A quick reboot fixed it, but a little warning would have been nice. Honestly if I had not tried to send a payment I never would have know that nothing could route to it.

-Dave

Can't you just ping or telnet from a different machine?

Code:

telnet <ip> <port> 

Should connect.

so BFX's node would be 

Code:

telnet 34.65.85.39 9745

which seems to work.

if you want to see if your lighnting functionality actually works, you'll probably need to set up a second node and try a HTLC every so many minutes...?

[DaveF]

I know I asked something similar before and never got an answer, is there any software out there that monitors your Lightning Node and lets you know if it's unreachable?

I now have the server itself monitored along with the bitcoind / lnd / etc. But I would like to know if there is a way to know that for some reason it can't be seen by the outside world. Happened the other day, server was up and running fine along with all the services, BUT for some reason it could not see the outside world, or at least the outside world could not see it. A quick reboot fixed it, but a little warning would have been nice. Honestly if I had not tried to send a payment I never would have know that nothing could route to it.

-Dave

Can't you just ping or telnet from a different machine?

Code:

telnet <ip> <port> 

Should connect.

so BFX's node would be something like  

Code:

telnet 34.65.85.39 9745

which seems to work.

if you want to see if your lighnting functionality actually works, you'll probably need to set up a second node and try a HTLC every n minutes...?

That's what I figured. I have the processes monitored, and an external ping running, but was looking for an automated thing that someone already wrote to do the actual connection to LND to see if it actually responds as opposed to just sitting there running but not working.

Guess I'll hack something together and set it to run every 5 minutes. Surprised nobody has written anything to do it yet.

-Dave

[bitmover]

I have a question.

Looking at a transaction in the blockchain. How can I know if that transaction created or closed a Lightning Network channel?

I would like to try to find those transactions and make some stats with them.

[jackg]

I have a question.

Looking at a transaction in the blockchain. How can I know if that transaction created or closed a Lightning Network channel?

I would like to try to find those transactions and make some stats with them.

Realistically you're probably only going to be able to work out its a lightning channel on the blockchain once it's been closed. It may be possible to send htlcs incomplete down channels that are active to see the available balance they might have for transferring - but then you'd lock their funds in a htlc potentially and it'll depend on the node as to how long that is.

For a channel that had been closed you're looking for a multisig 2 of 2 script to be highlighted in whatever you're using for the analysis (eg the bitcoin core daemon). And for the multisig address to only have 2 transactions - channel opening and channel closure.

[LoyceV]

For a channel that had been closed you're looking for a multisig 2 of 2 script

If you bitmover can find them in for instance blockchair_bitcoin_inputs_20210103.tsv.gz (45 minutes download): I should have all ~350 GB data available somewhere next month.

[bitmover]

For a channel that had been closed you're looking for a multisig 2 of 2 script

If you bitmover can find them in for instance blockchair_bitcoin_inputs_20210103.tsv.gz (45 minutes download): I should have all ~350 GB data available somewhere next month.

Yes, my idea was really to look for them into your data, as it is organized in CSV and I am already used to it.

But I don't know if I can find those transactions. I will take a look into it when your data is ready

[LoyceV]

But I don't know if I can find those transactions. I will take a look into it when your data is ready

I wasn't planning on doing anything with "inputs", unless there is a specific request. I'm basically just mirroring Blockchair.
I can do data extractions, but I'll need to know what you need. And it will take a while because there's a lot of data.

[jackg]

But I don't know if I can find those transactions. I will take a look into it when your data is ready

I wasn't planning on doing anything with "inputs", unless there is a specific request. I'm basically just mirroring Blockchair.
I can do data extractions, but I'll need to know what you need. And it will take a while because there's a lot of data.

I think most datasets already available should have all the info necessary AFAIK. You can either check the script type or the public keys used for signing it from what I can remember.

Full human readable data would be HUGE.

[DaveF]

So was looking at my node just now and saw this:



Just dozens of 2sat (3 with fee) transactions.
Any idea why someone would be doing it? Just seems real odd.
Never saw it before, so I don't know if its something odd or I just never noticed.

-Dave

[jackg]

Just putting it out therre: could that be used to check if your node is online by sending a transaction every 30 mins worth 2 sats and getting a notification from it? That's my best guess atm...

[DaveF]

Just putting it out therre: could that be used to check if your node is online by sending a transaction every 30 mins worth 2 sats and getting a notification from it? That's my best guess atm...

Why would anyone care and it's not a regular interval:

Code:

12/JAN/2021 13:35
12/JAN/2021 13:04
12/JAN/2021 13:00
12/JAN/2021 13:00
12/JAN/2021 12:58
12/JAN/2021 12:57
12/JAN/2021 12:55
12/JAN/2021 12:53
12/JAN/2021 12:49
12/JAN/2021 12:46
12/JAN/2021 12:42
12/JAN/2021 12:41
12/JAN/2021 12:40
12/JAN/2021 12:40
12/JAN/2021 12:39
12/JAN/2021 12:38
12/JAN/2021 12:34
12/JAN/2021 12:34
12/JAN/2021 12:33
12/JAN/2021 12:29
12/JAN/2021 12:27
12/JAN/2021 12:26
12/JAN/2021 12:26
12/JAN/2021 12:21
12/JAN/2021 12:17
12/JAN/2021 12:16
12/JAN/2021 12:13
12/JAN/2021 12:10
12/JAN/2021 12:09
12/JAN/2021 12:02
12/JAN/2021 12:02
12/JAN/2021 11:51
12/JAN/2021 11:49
12/JAN/2021 11:47
12/JAN/2021 11:46
12/JAN/2021 11:45
12/JAN/2021 11:45
12/JAN/2021 11:44
12/JAN/2021 11:42
12/JAN/2021 10:49
12/JAN/2021 05:37
12/JAN/2021 05:20
12/JAN/2021 05:19

And unless it was someone at WalletOfSatoshi.com I don't think there would be anyway to force it to use my node. According to 1ML WalletOfSatoshi.com [6] has 128 channels open.
Don't get me wrong I'll take the 1 sat per transaction all day long, but it makes you wonder what else is going on out there that nobody sees.

-Dave