Topic: Bitcoin Adoption and the Scalability Problem. What can normal users do to help? (Read 415 times)

Most of the bitcoin users don't care about the scalability of the bitcoin, they only care about its price, most of them use online wallets like blockchain and coinbase, and unless they start adapting segwit than the users won't bother sending their funds from there to a segwit supported wallet because they would have to pay for it, i don't think that even if we all start using segwit addresses the problem would be solved entierly, but LN might.

Be a part of the solution. Set up a Lightning node, open some channels with some other well connected nodes. But on testnet of course, mainnet Lightning is still only recommended for dedicated Bitcoin users that can afford to lose BTC in the event of unforeseen bugs.

I did


Some nodes would be well connected, but not in a hub & spoke fashion.


This is not hypothetical, Lightning network is currently running and already beginning to resemble my description. 

A well connected node is another word for hub and spoke...

Also, why don't you explain a topology that could exist in LN that would not result in LN payments failing due to LN peer node downtime? I don't think there is one.

There's some truth to this. It's one of the natural strengths of the fee market. When demand spikes, fees naturally force users and businesses to be more efficient -- batching transactions, etc.

In that vein, overpaying (because of bad fee estimation) probably has noticeable network effects during periods of congestion. People should consciously consider the urgency of their payments. Don't pay $5 when the toll costs 25 cents.


Topology aside, he's got a point regarding the security model of LN. Parties must be online and private keys are required to update settlement transactions. I guess it worries me to think about Mastercard/Amex-level scale on the back of hot wallets.

You're suggesting that only 2 possible patterns in node topology can exist. That's false.

And you've chosen 2 topological examples that might cause a certain rate of failure. You've painted an incredibly biased picture by assuming there are limits that don't exist.


If only handful of well connected nodes with high up-time were to open channels with each other, both your scenarios won't happen.

"A system of mini banks"? I do not understand. Can you first give us your definition of banks and apply that to why you think Lightning is a "system of mini banks"?

It is a system of payment channels on top of the Bitcoin network.


It will be officially released when it's ready. But there are beta releases out there from Blockstream and Elizabeth Stark's team.


"Scaleable on-block solution"? There will not be one. But if you propose a 10,000gb per block size then you are welcome to be on Roger Ver's Bitcoin Unlimited team. Hahaha.

Some of this is the result of things like SW adoption, batching withdrawal transactions (reducing privacy), and the spam attack stopping. However I think a large part of this is the result of many people moving their coins onto exchanges, and exchanges no longer subsidizing withdrawal tx fees. Evidence of higher balances on exchange accounts would include lower lending rates across multiple reputable exchanges.

This is unlikely.

If there are exactly 1 million participants in the LN network, in order for every participant to be able to make a payment to any other participant in the network using no more than 6 "hops" (the last hop being the person you are paying), then each participant must, on average have at least 6 open channels with distinct participants.

If Alice needs to pay Bob, and the shortest route between the two is 6 hops, then all 6 LN nodes must be online at the same time, and if any one of the LN nodes are not online (or otherwise fails to sign the necessary transactions), the payment will fail. If LN resembles anything close to a mesh network, the majority of the time participants will be unable to transact with the majority of the network if you assume each LN node has 67% uptime (each node is turned off for 8 hours per day -- a mesh network would mean that most LN nodes would be compromised of "home users").

If the LN network were to resemble something closer to a 'hub and spoke' network, the issue of LN nodes downtime would not be as prevalent, however there would be other issues. Each hub would have an outsized influence over the network, and would have the ability to wreck havoc on the network either by raising fees substantially, censoring transactions of those directly connected to each hub, and downtime of a small number of hubs would have the potential to fragment the entire LN network. Also, running a hub node would be incredibility risky because private keys would need to be kept effectively 100% online (on a computer connected to many other people), and the hub's private keys must control a large amount of bitcoin. If you assume that hubs collectively control 25% of bitcoin, then hubs must collectively keep ~$34 billion worth of bitcoin online.


What is a LN network with 7 billion people using it supposed to look like?

The less you use the network the less load you put on 

While i agree with setting up a lightning network as an 'input' towards scalability through testing, bug reports, etc.. is a good idea for an individual to help,
running a full node doesn't contribute at all towards adoption/scalability.

Using segwit wallets are a good way 'contributing' to the health of the network for standard users.
And definetely stop using web wallets. They are less network-friendly with their hot->cold storage (and vice versa) transactions, even if segwit.

Help your family and friends open a wallet and then send them a little crypto. Let them watch it over time. Also don't force it downtheir throte. Lead by example, get them interested, don't preach

Saw one or two of your other posts throughout the forum and you have this theme of Lightning Network consisting of banks... charging transaction fees and interest. At first I dismissed the "bank" term as your oversight, but now I am reading this, you're saying they're charging interest? So I have a few questions:

1. Where did you read about interest charges? I tried looking it up myself but perhaps I fail at research. Even the link hugeblack provides, which you say acknowledges this... doesn't?

If I understand you correctly, you mean to say that these hubs will charge people who connect it interest... I don't get the concept though. You put coins in a channel, why would you be charged interest? You pay interest on loans you take. As everyone's coin is in the LN channel, and any party can open a channel, who's the borrower/lender in LN?

2. Tx fees? Whomever makes the spend pays the fee. What's the issue you have here?

If you have the technical ability one of the best things you can do is set up a lightning network node. If not that just run a node on your laptop. Every little helps. It has a compounding effect

Yes they are banks, they charge transaction fees and interest on the BTC used by the bank to finance the ledger
and you admit this yourself in the link you provided.


One cent per transaction you say because the running costs of the hubs are so cheap so lets revers engineer maths
here and account for how miners were able to charge $55 per transaction two months ago if no one is out to make
profits that you ignore in the document.

$55 per 250 bytes, well lets call it $200 per K and this put the price of a gigabyte needed for a movie at about a billion squid !

I tend to get my information from the official white paper https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf or the
current network map https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/ of lightning and each fork is inflationary, doubles the money supply and Lightning
really turns the bitcoin block-chain into a central banks for the hubs and this is required for anyone to trust the hubs.

off-block single point of failure banking hubs is not the solution and we are being feed problem-reaction-solution here.  

Thanks, that's exactly what I was asking about.

Thanks for the good read. It's definitely going to be a new era for bitcoin if Lightning Network is as perfect as described in this article. I hope it's adoption won't take so long when it's out of beta, which I know will.

Let's assume the worst scenario: all the world uses Bitcoin technology.
7 billion people use betcoin, 1,000 transactions a year ----> 7T tx (192 byte for every transactions) ---> 1.3 petabytes/year.
when using LN  "the total global payment volume can then grow well above the 10T/year estimation, at no additional cost."[1]
will solve.

No, lightning network does not keep your money, but its a channel based on the bitcoin blockchain.

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Please spend an hour of your time reading -----> a flash of insights on lightning network you will be learning everything about the LN.

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