Topic: A critique on the Lightning Network from a regular poster. Long. (Read 961 times)

Well, on above statement I'm just talking about past event. Just hypothetical, if there is bigger block-size, core dev could develop LN without "pressure" and fees would still be low.
1. I'm merely a scholar who learning about btc. It's not just my personal opinion.

2. Yes, beta means unproven

They did, the limit is now 4x higher at 4MB.
Biggest ever Bitcoin block was 2.3 MB. That's bigger than the 2MB you're asking for.

Lightning testing has been conducted on the Bitcoin testnet for over 1 year, and increasingly large amounts of people are using it with the live Bitcoin blockchain (6000+ channels moving around 18 BTC right now).
Lightning payment channels are proven technology, by definition. It's been tested extensively now.

No-one can prevent forks in the code or any blockchain forks caused by forked code. The Bitcoin developers can only do their best to make sure that Bitcoin users stay on the Bitcoin chain, they cannot control the actions of people deliberately splitting the blockchain.

You get scared of leaving a computer online.

Core should've raised the blocksize at least 2MB while developing LN

because the tech is still unproven

and so many different concepts make it even more doubtful

I just don't get it, they could prevent bcash split and still developing LN. Oh whatever will be, will be...

I am all for decentralization and bitcoin. Few reason LN makes me scared:

It is too complex: I tried to read the paper multiple times and its very very complex. They have spent pages and pages on finding way to stop other party from stealing funds locked in channel. Compare with the bitcoin whitepaper - elegant and simple. I am not saying it won't work, but in 99% such a complex design is useless. Its like creating a mined blockhain to store a library database

Requirement of being always online: This is my biggest problem. In response I got the argument of watchtowers, which creates another layer of people to trust. Would rather use a online wallet service instead of this !

Prone to DDOS attacks - This was also mentioned by Peter Todd
Funds locked in channels - Seems like you have keep sending more BTC bitcoins to LN to be able to transact with more number of people. I don't frequently do transaction with one single party which seems to be where LN is useful. Don't want my funds locked up. No Thanks ![/li][/list]

Hard fork to 2mb blocks and risk Bitcoin to become the altcoin because you-1 believe the Lightning Network, which is still beta-2, "is still unproven and so many different concepts make it even more doubtful".
That must be one of the most stupid posts I have read lately.-3

Why me alone? It does not matter what I believe. Ask the whole community what they consider the altcoins are.
What about you? If I say I am going to give you .01 "Bitcoin" what do you expect to receive?
"As scary as centralized exchanges"? I used them to buy Bitcoins last week. It was not scary.

"anything not core gets sidelined as a altcoin."

Wonder what op expect people to call Bitcoin forks. Bitcoin 1, Bitcoin 2, Bitcoin 3...? Anyway sometimes I wonder why the name Altcoin was chosen for non Bitcoin coins. I think AlternativeBicoin(Altbitcoin?)is a more befitting name.

aleksej996:
"This does introduce some scary new things that we simply can't know how will work out in a long run."

Guess no amount of this potential problem would make Lightning Network as scary as Centralized Exchanges. What I like most about LN  is that people still have control of their Bitcoin unlike the toxic exchanges that exist today.

The major argument against the Lightning Network in my opinion is still the fact that
nobody really needs a Lightning Network when Bitcoin´s main use case is being a
store of value. If you want to preserve your wealth from inflation, confiscation and other
comparable threats you can buy Bitcoin. However, you probably won´t touch your Bitcoins
for years if that is your reason for buying Bitcoin and therefore you are not the target group for the
LN.  

Besides, nearly everyone, who bought something using his Bitcoins over the years has regretted
that after the fact, because BTC only goes up in the long-term. If you believe this will be the case
going forward it is pretty stupid to buy something using a Lightning Network transaction when
the opportunity costs of buying anything with your precious Bitcoins are so tremendous.

I´m a strong believer that Bitcoin´s biggest advantages are rather in its unique characteristics
that make it a form of "sound money" than in its use as a payment system for small value
purchases or transactions (which is the major use case of the Lightning Network).

The great thing about the Lightning Network is that it is non-mandatory and anyone can still
decide to use the main layer for his transactions even if the LN becomes a giant success (which
it will not become in my opinion). This is the beauty of 2nd layer solutions in general,
they can offer new features while maintaining the trust and integrity of the main layer.

I would suggest you to read here to fully understand.
https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf
this helped me a lot

Read this, https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/future-bitcoin-what-lightning-could-look/

There are good concepts to be developed, like channel factories, submarine swaps and more. But I believe channel factories and submarine swaps would make the Lightning Network more efficient but they might reduce trust minimalization.

Read this, https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/future-bitcoin-what-lightning-could-look/

Oh, perfect timing on this discussion. I'm currently researching about this topic.
From what i read, the major flaw about LN is the route will break if one node doesn't have enough BTC amount as seen in this video

That said if you have great amount of BTC, most likely many transaction will be routed to you (aka become Hub -> centralization)

However Antonopulos argue that the higher amount BTC in that "hub" the higher risk of attack. And he also mention about re-balancing channel which I have no idea about how that works.

Nothing.

There is no "official" bitcoin, and no owner of the name "Bitcoin" that can legally prevent others from using that same name.

Anyone can build anything they want and they can call it bitcoin if they want to.

Someone could build a completely new, completely separate, altcoin that uses proof-of-stake, with a limit if 210,000,000 coins, and a block time of 10 seconds, and they could call it Bitcoin if they want to.  Who would stop them?

The fact that the consensus rules enforced by Bitcoin Core are the consensus rules that are accepted as the "real bitcoin" is ONLY a result of the fact that an overwhelming majority of users ( merchants, wallet creators, exchanges, miners, etc) all currently choose to see it that way.

If the developers of Bitcoin Core were to make a change to their code that an overwhelming majority of users disagreed with, then rules enforced by Bitcoin Core would stop being called "Bitcoin" and whatever set of rules everyone used would become "Bitcoin".

What then makes "Bitcoin Core" the real Bitcoin?