Topic: BTC as "every day" spending currency vs. 10 min Block Confirmation/Mining time (Read 718 times)

It is not every time that a Bitcoin transaction takes up to a minute, not to talk of taking up to 10 minutes. Most of the times the transactions you are making with Bitcoin takes nearly an instant for it to happen. The only time that we usually experience this increase in the length of time that is taken in a transaction is during a time when the market is increasing  in price (bullish period), which is when the network gets congested, and there are lots of transactions to be processed on the network.

The transactions starts taking a lot of time. But you are given options which goes from the regular fees to priority fees. And when you select a priority fee, your transaction is  processed faster than when you choose the regular fee or a lower fee. By the way we now have lightning network, although this lightning network has not been finished yet and there is still a lot more work to be done on it, but you can still find wallets that are already making use of this technology. Then you can as well choose to be making use of centralized or custodial wallets that would request that you give your information (KYC) to them.

chargebacks are a bane of merchants lives. many people try to 'recall' their money. its not rare. chargeback scamming is a big deal. and its not a simple 'the recipient chooses to reject the application'. what you find is that the customer can say "my bank account was hacked" and the bank favours the customer and does the recall without the merchants permission.
its like ebay, they favour the customer too.

bitcoins settlement irreversibility stops these things and makes people responsible of their assets.. altnets like LN are not new or innovated. they are old school banking economics with the same chargeback(punishment) loopholes and clauses.

altnetter want bitcoin to have replace by fee and conditional contracts(punishments) to introduce chargebacks into bitcoin.. shameful



already have said many idea's. you know it as do your buddies. but the ignorance of you and your chums dont care about bitcoin scaling

heres a quick refresher
1. to prevent 'spam attacks' of people re-spending same value every block to fill blocks. the solution is not to make ALL transactions more expensive(current idiot model). its to actually use the blockheight of the utxo as a measure of how fresh the value is, if its less then X confirms. they pay more.
EG someone respending a 1confirm utxo pays 144x more then someone with a day old utxo
this way someone spending once a day is not paying the same high fee per transaction as a spammer spending 144 times a day.. simple logic and common sense approach. punish just the spammers, not everyone

2. there are other fee formulae's that do actually count all the bytes(like pre 2017 did) where they make a fairer fee charging system for all. and yes they can be implemented as a consensus rule, before you spout out the fake propaganda that fee's are not a rule. after all the ignore witness in fee costing(the vbyte code) is a rule.

3. if the worry is having a single transaction with 2000 signatures/scripts that can cause validation delays. simply limit tx maxsigops to being under 100 signatures

4. go back to lean transactions without all these lengthy 'witness' (special contract condition scripts/signatures)

5. its not about jumping to 100mb by tomorrow, its about taking out the bad math cludge of misguiding the 1mb limit that still exists and instead actually allow full transaction utility of 4mb which is now considered safe data amount per block. then we can actually see more tx count increases. and PERIODICALY increase, not leap to 100mb like the special boys club pretend is the only option on bitcoin, as their lame propagandised excuse to not want scaling

AFAIK a request can be sent during 13 months but the recipient is free to accept it or to deny it.

https://api-docs.form3.tech/tutorial-sepa-instant-receive-a-recall.html

The first response to OP pretty much covered whatever I was going to say when I first saw the topic title, but consider the other solution long implemented by many Bitcoin-accepting services I've been using since 2016:

- Accept the transaction as soon as it's discoverable on the network
- Only allow the delivery of product and/or withdrawal upon 1 confirmation

Of course, it doesn't work for a lot of on-the-go businesses, so you'd have to accept on 0 confirmation BUT you could get on a network of "identifier" wallets, where you encourage the customer to identify their spending wallets (not necessarily KYC) with a trust list.

Propose a solution then. Rather than just complaining and whining non stop, actually propose a change to the protocol which you think will work and let the community debate it. Or go to the Altcoin board and start discussing your chosen Bitcoin fork shitcoin which most closely aligns with your proposed solution instead. You have many to choose from.

And a quick web search tells me that such payments can be reversed for a massive 13 months after the payment date.

Quote me all you like.  I'm not wrong.  Leaving is an option and I wouldn't dream of trying to deprive someone of that freedom.

I say that to explain consensus networks to you in terms that your brain might comprehend.  Yet no matter how many times I explain it, you still don't seem to grasp the concept.  If you are part of the network, you are accepting its rules.  You clearly despise the rules.  It makes no sense for you to stay.  I'm not ordering you to fuck off, I'm highlighting your best option.  

For all your talk about "other networks", you seem to pretend that there aren't other networks which are perusing the scaling path you prefer.  You know they exist.  You know you could get exactly what you say you want by using their protocol and accepting their rules.  But again, you freely choose to stick with our rules when you could have theirs.  Because you recognised the part where our rules have created the stronger network effects and greater utility.  Our rules are working.  So you stay.

The fact that you still use Bitcoin means you agree.  You are opting in, accepting our rules and choosing to stay because you understand that the benefits of staying outweigh the benefits of leaving.  If you try to enforce different rules, the consensus mechanism will remove you.  You understand that too.  So you don't try to enforce new rules.  You just whine about them like a pathetic man-baby.  Impotent and pissy.



But you're a one trick pony with no imagination.  That's all you know how to do.  You will never stop.  We're trying other things.  Exploring innovative ideas.  Advancing new technologies.  If we did things your way, every single time the issue of scaling crops up, your response will forever be "let's just make blocks bigger again" because you have closed your mind to any other ideas.

It's not propaganda.  It's a fact.  You'll deny it, though.  Because, again, you've backed yourself into a corner.  You'll continue to exhibit the same toxic behaviour because you can't concede the fact that you have lost.  The other networks which have chosen to work the way you want us to work are failing to compete.  We are not following that path.  If you're smart, you'll realise it's the wrong path too.


//EDIT:

It's not worth bumping the topic to respond to this crap, so my response is going here:


So you repeat the same mindless bullshit you've been spouting for years, and this is meant to convince me that you're not a one trick pony?  How fucked in the brain are you?  Users decide fees for themselves.  If you want Totalitariancoin with compulsory fees and bigger blocks and an inability to transact off-chain forced upon everyone, build it and fork off.  You are not in a position to force your ideology on us.  You are a lone headcase.  No one cares what you think would be better, because you have proven that all you want to do is control people.

actually LN is not settled in 10 seconds. its in millisat valued "payments" which are not settled. and usually the funding transaction has a lock for multiple blocks meaning it wont settle quickly either. LN's promotion is that people dont need to settle after a week or month, they can just renegotiate their channel millisat balance to 'rebalance' the channels without ever having to settle

You're wrong, in Europe you can make instant wire transfers in less than ten seconds now, with SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. You just need to know the SEPA account number(IBAN) of the person or the company to pay. Only few dozens of cents are usually charged for those wire transfers.

you giving options?

your options is "bitcoin limits stay, bitcoin wont scale... if you dont like it f**k off"
do you want me to quote the number of times you have said to people f**k off to other networks (both **=uc and or)

scaling bitcoin is not your propagandised scripts of 2015-6 where your clubhouse of buddies pretend the only scaling solution is your silly rhetoric "bigblocker: 100mb by midnight". i know you think thats the only option for bitcoin but you are soo wrong on so many levels.

but here is the thing, we are not in 1999 of dial-up and floppy disks.
i can get a 1tb microxd card cheaper than a GPU
i can get monthly internet fibre of 900mb cheaper than just 2 fastfood meals

its not a budget breaker to scale bitcoins blockchain periodically.

bitcoin does not need to jump to 100mb by midnight. so stop with that dead end rhetoric as if its the only option.

what you fangirls miss in your silly thought process. is that although you want fee's to rise to give more persuasion that people should avoid bitcoin.. that same fees rise is the REAL reason less people will use bitcoin daily, and thus less people will run full nodes

the transactions cost being the "just stop using bitcoin advert" is more of the problem for those wanting to run a node daily.. not the hard drive/internet cost.
if you actually cared about wanting more people to be full node users you would actually want more people to use BITCOIN DAILY.

and you would not be chanting "we dont want people using bitcoin for daily stuff like coffee", instead you would be trying to make BITCOIN a daily utility.. not promoting some altcoin to make people not need to be full noders every day because they dont need to check every day, because they are happy on other networks.

heck you and your chums even are foolishly trying to pretend that a pruned node (that wont act as blockchain seeder for peers) pretending its still a full node. to fool people into running nodes that dont support the network

shameful on many levels!!


i can spend less than 1 weeks rent on storage space that can store then entire blockchain as it is now plus the estimated next 5 years..
yet if i was to transact daily. i could not transact daily for 5 years where the total fee's would be less than 1 weeks rent

see the problem
the transaction fees due to limiting bitcoin scaling will cost people more than any hardware scare tactics you pretend exist.

lets just take an example
https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_fee
today its $3

imagine having your utopian ideology of having LN with 5 channels(average expectation). where the locks/unlocks happen once a month
month 1: 5x$3=$15 lock into 5 channels
month 2: 5x$3=$15 unlock from 5 channels, 5x$3=$15 decide to lock into 5 new channels (running total $45)
month 3: 5x$3=$15 unlock from 5 channels, 5x$3=$15 decide to lock into 5 new channels (running total $75)
month 4: 5x$3=$15 unlock from 5 channels, 5x$3=$15 decide to lock into 5 new channels (running total $105)
month 5: 5x$3=$15 unlock from 5 channels, 5x$3=$15 decide to lock into 5 new channels (running total $135)
month 6: 5x$3=$15 unlock from 5 channels, 5x$3=$15 decide to lock into 5 new channels (running total $165)

oh look in under 6 months time you have spent more value avoiding bitcoin. than buying a storage device that can handle bitcoin upto 2026

so just give up the 7 year old rhetoric and propaganda about hard drive being a node decentralisation killer.. and wake up to the real fact that transaction fee's will be the persuader to make people not want to use bitcoin daily, thus not need to run a node daily.

and another thing.
with the mining reward:fee dynamic of salary:bonus slowly flipping to  fee:reward being salary:bonus. miners will need fee's so they would want more onchain transactions. and instead of keeping it at the average 2500tx a block meaning fee's need to double periodically.. instead if transaction count capacity doubled periodically then people wont have to pay double but mining pools will get double income.

again common sense.

and no the 4mb 'weight' is not a scaling bitcoin. because the 'weight' miscalculation of bytes has not translated into a 4x of transaction count, nor will it. so stop promoting the 4mb weight as 'giving bigblockers more bloat like they asked' as thats not what bitcoiners asked for as a scaling solution(fake counted bloat) they asked for more transaction capacity

When are you going to give an honest appraisal on the flaws of your big-blocker ideology?  Why can't you openly admit that you wish to compel everyone running a full node to bear a larger cost to achieve your preferred outcome?  That's your fantasy.  It's unlikely to come true any time soon.  And what annoys you more than anything else is that LN isn't a fantasy.  It's real and people are using it.

You're the one trying to sell utopia, where there are supposedly no tradeoffs in cranking up the size of blocks to squeeze in more transactions.  Be honest for once in your miserable existence.  Admit there is a cost to having larger blocks.  Admit that you want those who secure the network to bear that increase in cost.

Ours is the pragmatic approach.  If you wish to make lots of relatively small transactions, you have the option of paying for the same on-chain security as someone sending a vast sum, or you have the option of sacrificing some security and making some of your transactions off-chain.  No one is being forced.  We're just presenting the options.

You aren't giving people options.  You're demanding that other people pay for your ideology.  Only problem is, you can't make them.  The people who bear the costs would have to volunteer to increase their burden.  It's collectively up to them.  None of your weasel-words and obnoxious behaviour can alter that fact.

If you have any better ideas (and let's be honest, you clearly don't), then we're going to continue highlighting the benefits of LN because Bitcoin isn't a dictatorship and most users seemingly don't agree with dumping the cost of greater throughput onto those who help secure the network.

derailed, debunked? you are funny.
i was not the one that turned this bitcoin topic into an altnet advert

but what you will actually find is that if you read what i said, without auto replying like a cult member defence guard.
you would see that i said if you actually honestly advertised whats different about LN and its niche away from bitcoin. its features and benefit that are separate to what bitcoin can offer. you would actually end up promoting the altnet better and gain more support for those that want the niche service it offers.

but atleast also promote its issues and flaws so that users are risk aware, and not just the utopian fantasy of bitcoin2.0 brand tagging.

i say this, but i know you wont bother even conceiving the thought. and just continue with your brand stealing auto fame and trust PR method of promoting deceptive utopia's

Because, like many other threads, you have derailed it with your same old tired and already debunked arguments.

Once again - who cares? Altcoins have poorly copied everything which bitcoin has done first, from the blockchain itself, to the elliptic curve, to the mining protocol, to the core software, to HD wallets, to segwit, etc. Them copying Lightning is completely irrelevant.

Spend it! If you want to use bitcoin as a currency, then start using it as a currency. If everyone in the world was only interested in holding bitcoin or trading it back and forth on centralized exchanges, and no one was interested in spending it, then no merchant would go to the effort of accepting it. If there is a demand to spend it, then merchants will start accepting it.

Look for merchants which accept bitcoin directly and shop with them (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--5367983). If you can't find a merchant for something you want to buy, then look in to buying a gift card for such a merchant (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/list-gift-cards-providers-5208530). If you still can't spend it, then speak to merchants yourself and tell them you want to pay in bitcoin. You might not be able to convince them yourself, but at least you'll get them thinking about it.

So, all of the posts were mostly helpful and I thank each of you for taking the time to reply.  I didn't recognize that the LN was truly "ready for the game" and I suppose that small purchases (like a slice of pizza or a sandwich) can simply "assume the risk".  To me, this screams that BTC/crypto real can pull this off!

I actually do believe that there will come a time when government's will no longer have the stranglehold on currency that they do now.  The idea of a decentralized blockchain makes a heck of a lot of sense to me and, in the long run, I don't think the banks can stop this from becoming widespread.  Don't get me wrong, they are sure as heck going to try and bring it down and put up obstacles, etc... but - as one Cypherpunk put it - "Just like we now have separation of church and state, in the future we will have separation of currency and state."

I suppose what I am trying to think about is, "What is the best way to get from Point A (today) to Point B (future - cryto-dominated Earth currency)."  I realize that some of you don't think this will happen and I respect that, but I think we are going to see more and more smaller countries go the crytpo route and, eventually, the larger countries will have to succomb or risk being left in the dust.

locking up funds is a bitcoin thing. its not a LN thing. its not measured in millisats, it is not involving "routing" or "invoices" and doesnt require other people to be online to permission the lock.

do not even attempt to try to trivialise the separate things by pretending its the same. even when you want to flip flop in one message they are separate things and then flip flop they are the same thing

you are the one causing the strawman confusion by trying stupidly to make LN be thought of as bitcoin


i have not been the one trying to say that its all the same and that LN is part of bitcoins network. you and your friends of the altnet are the strawmen trying to trivialise it to try making it all sound like the same thing.

and the funnier part is how this whole topic has turned into a altnet promotion topic. just look at Doomad pushing hard to advertise it.

well it is not bitcoin. why do you suggest that me saying its not bitcoin with statements like "argue" and "but". LN is a lightning network not a bitcoin network
lightning is a network for multiple crypto currencies. its not a 'bitcoin' only thing

to use another altnet fangirl analogy
its like ketchup. no one calls it the french fry layer
everyone knows ketchup can be used for multiple things. so why say it should be only talked about as something for french fries or even pretend it is french fries when its obviously ketchup

ketchup has different nutrient content than fries. ketchup is stored in different packaging as fries and ketchup is served differently then fries. fries are put into paper containers. ketchup is squeezed out of plastic bottles. ketchup has a messy liquidity issue with how it flows.

i know you want to act as if its 'bitcoin2.0", but thats just to tag on a brand recognised coin to win instant fame and trust. even though LN's flaws do not deserve the trust bitcoin has.

and i am surprised rath is now trying to confuse the bitcoin locks vs the LN payments. by pretending the settlement commitment is the same contract as the invoice/payment temporary things that dont broadcast.

they are separate things. for separate purposes. appearing on separate networks

HTLCs are used only in commitment transactions when there is at least one unsettled payment in the channel.

franky's point is that HTLCs are not Bitcoin because they need to be "converted" (routed down to a whole satoshi). Otherwise, HTLC outputs would be invalid and nodes would reject such commitment transaction. When someone asks you to forward for example 500 msat, you sign a new commitment transaction with a higher fee; there is no HTLC output. At worst, you can lose 999 msat, which is worth $0.00047 at the moment, when you close your channel. Oh, and the same applies to HTLCs and final balances below the dust limit.

So, yes, there is some trust involved here. You might not get either up to 999 msat (~$0.00047) or up to 546 sat (~$0.26) back. It doesn't really matter when you are the founder of the channel; you have to pay the transaction fee anyway.

The Lightning Network could work without milisatoshis, but franky would still argue that it's not Bitcoin because you are not guaranteed to get your money since someone might broadcast an outdated commitment transaction while you are offline.

It's worth mentioning at this point that if anyone wants a nice tidy topic regarding LN, they can head to the Development & Technical Discussion sub.  Because franky1 annoyed two moderators by being a disingenuous shitweasel, he is banned from posting in these topics and you won't have to read his tedious mindless drivel:

• The Lightning Network FAQ
• The Lightning Network node experience
• bitcoind, c-lightning and RTL on centos 7 (walktrough)
• [Complete] A fortnight of lessons on the lightning network

Lol.

Opening and closing channels via HTLCs - on main chain.
Individual Lightning payments - not on main chain. The entire point of Lightning is that these transactions happen off chain. No one has ever claimed that these transactions should be on the main chain (except you when constructing your pointless strawman).

This is not a difficult concept.

just grow up. seems you cant put your fangirl bias aside to think logically.

LN's payments are denominated in millisats. something that does not confirm on the bitcoin network.

funny part is YOU are now saying that LN payments DO confirm on the bitcoin network even though just yesterday you were saying no one has ever claimed that lightning transaction will be confirmed on the bitcoin network

you keep contradicting yourself.
why is it that LN fangirls flip flop and change their mind about how LN should be described. its as if they are just reading some glossy pamphlet of positive words, without actually trying to look at the code or actual functions.

by you flip flopping and contradicting even yourself. seems you are misstating the facts to fit your ever changing narrative. yet my narrative has stayed the same and can be backed up by code and issues raised by LN devs themselves.

anyway it seems you cannot escape your never ending desire to try promoting LN and coax people to use it as oppose to using bitcoin. so ill just leave you alone in your insane flips and flops. and just chuckle at your failed attempts to give straight honest answers.

i see no point trying to explain things outside of your glossy pamphlet of misstatements. because you have obviously failed to even try to spend 10 minutes thinking outside your fangirl prospective. so no point wasting time explaining things to the ignorant flip flopper fantasists of altnet promoters

+1
Indeed, it is the idea of my answer in a general context, using bitcoin as it is designed is a solution that many may not like but there are already solutions such as LN and that same alternative in itself satisfies some, but having followers or Detractors of any of the alternatives does not actually imply that Bitcoin is not moving forward.

And you implying that the HTLCs which Lightning is based on, which obviously do confirm on the main chain, are identical to individual Lightning payments which don't, just goes to show you either don't understand what you are talking about or are deliberately misstating the facts to fit your narrative.

Repeating the same non-argument over and over doesn't make it any more true. Just because altcoins have copied Lightning (you know, because it works, despite what you keep saying), does not mean it is any less bitcoin. Altcoins all copied the very idea of a blockchain. Does that mean bitcoin is actually an altnet now or some "multi-crypto system", as you put it? Of course not. Just because I'm running a bitcoin lightning node does not mean I'm routing altcoin payments or any other such nonsense.

If you don't like Lightning (despite the fact I'm almost certain you've never actually used it), then don't use it. Simple. If you really want to fight against fake bitcoin, then turn your attention to tokenized bitcoin or wrapped bitcoin on top of centralized shitcoins.

just one example

funny part is you merited him 4 merits.
he did not explain the LN payments are the <10 second ones that do not broadcast('state' aka promise aka htlc micropayment in millisat). and there are separate contracts that needs a co-signer and terms of punishment agreement and time lock validity agreement as well as joint agreement of what each other owes the other person rounded to nearest sat, and deducted an amount for onchain fee to whomever should pay the fee.

much like many other examples of the same i have seen spouted out around this forum and the larger reader base of the internet for the last 3 years.

the funnier thing is .. this topic was created to ask about bitcoins utility of transacting as "everyday spending currency"
and literally the first 5 responses were people promoting and advertising LN as something people should use to move everyday spends of btc. as if to say that advertising another network was ontopic and to do with bitcoin transactions that require 10min block confirms.

sorry but LN is not a network that has anything to do with bitcoin onchain. or transacting onchain. LN has no chain
LN is separate for a reason.

if you need more examples of people pretending that LN is bitcoin then just go look at the many other LN fangirls.
including a recent topic made by titular(you merited him too). where by he pretended to be teaching students about bitcoin. but never let them experience any onchain transacting. but just threw them straight into an LN experience of a testnet. but advertised to them they are experiencing bitcoin and that the experience might inspire them to be bitcoin devs and bitcoin maintainers.. (facepalm)

..
now before hitting the reply button to beat your chest about how you hate that people are not positively talking about LN and not trying to convert people into becoming LN users...(true reason for your hostility towards me)
take just 10 minutes. step back from the keyboard. take a seat, take a few calming deep breaths. and spend the next 9 minutes and 30 seconds, to ponder this.

imagine you are not already down the LN fangirl rabbit hole. imagine your new to the LN thing. and someone approached you to ask you as a unbiased person to look at LN for the first time and come up with a promotional campaign about its niche proposition that explains why its different.

now ask yourself this, logically, using common sense, and unbiased thoughts and with ethics and morals of honesty.
does the phrase "bitcoin layer two" really describe:
1. what LN does.
2. what benefits it offers
3. why its different to bitcoin
4. what niche it covets
5. how many networks it can peg to

or
does it just try to advertise that its
1. bitcoin centric
2. part of bitcoin
3. is bitcoin
4. is bitcoin2.0 or bitcoin+
5. just trying to steal existing bitcoin fanbase to this altnet without having to explain anything critical

what you will find is that a true unbiased PR team. would find a 'hook', buzzword, or slogan to give to LN that can explain LN simply. and avoid confusion.

3 words fit better
a. "multi-crypto micropayment system"
b. "multi-crypto faster payment system"
c. "nonblockchain payment routing"

i truly understand that you fangirls think that stealing existing fame of another community is "smart PR"
i truly understand that you fangirls think that hiding the pitfalls, bugs, faults is "smart PR"
but thats deceptive PR caring more about coaxing people across, more so then being concerned about the problems users will experience after being coaxed/misled.

honest ethical PR would be where by instead of trying to claim its bitcoin2.0 when infact its a network that pegs to many blockchains. its more honest to explain the differences, so that it can actually grab peoples attention more for why people might need it.
where by advertising LN more honestly about why its different can reveal its niche better. and help explain why it can do things bitcoin cant. and why there might be purpose for LN.. and why its not bitcoin.
 
..instead of just tagging itself to be presented as bitcoin 2.0, doing so just to win instant name recognition brownie points. where all its doing is making people believe it is bitcoin, only for bitcoin, has the same things as bitcoin. which leads people to still wonder why its needed...

where the only answer they can come up with is bitcoin(the real one) is obsolete and not worth using because LN is the new bitcoin. thus deceiving people to offramp and use LN because they think bitcoin(the real one) is obsolete/broke/not going to work/cant scale/wont be fixed.

again take the remaining minutes to think about the issue not from your fan girl prospective.

Literally no one has ever claimed that Lightning transactions will be confirmed on the main chain. This appears to be some weird metric that you have come up with solely to justify your point of view.

Large centralized services require 3 confirmations maybe, since they are handling large deposits, but most merchants I use in person are more than happy with a single confirmation, or indeed none at all.

Like others said, layer 2 protocols like lightning network is currently the only options for near instant transactions. So yeah, bitcoin sometimes isn't very suitable for using it as a  "every-day spendable currency". The other option both the merchant and the customer using some sort of same custodial wallet where off chain internal transactions are done. It will be instant with no fees at all, but you will very likely have to go through some sort of KYC and you DON'T control your own funds anymore.

market cap is meaningless

anyone can make an altcoin with 5 trillion coins premined. and sell just 0.01 coin for $1. and instantly they have created a market cap of $500 trillion

yep for just $1 you too can make bitcoins $1trill market cap become just 0.2% of your $1 spend altcoins cap

My personal opinion is that since around 2017 bitcoin has been on a timer and they will need to either reduce blocktime and/or increase blocksize or they will be replaced.  So far 62% of the marketcap has been lost to altcoins and every year this increases.  Tick tock.

LN doesnt have a blockchain. there is no need of a softfork.
LN is already failing in the respect of 'hop/routing' and so they are moving more to the 'hub/spoke' model.

the initial overhype/promise of LN was
'just lock up your funds into A channel(singular) and be able to send instant unlimited payments to anyone'

now its more like
'divide up and lock up your funds into channels(plural) with the main retailers you regularly spend with to send them instant unsettled value'

Almost all services today require at least three confirmations before a transaction can be concluded and this means long waiting times which makes it impractical to use in the real world. But with lightning network and the alike i think it compensates for these short comings.

If LN isnt working as intended i see another soft fork happening.

and yet on bitcoin whether i send $1 or $1mill (0.0002 or 20btc) i dont have to think about rebalancing different accounts, or wondering about which route to take by seeing who can pass the parcel. my destination will get it guaranteed and confirmed where by their confirmed payment is actually their's, for good, no ifs or buts or 'maybe laters'. they dont need to worry about "what if next month the sender tries to scam me and i need to be online to spot the broadcast 24/7 and online within a certain time period to punish him to make sure it confirms in my favour"

its things like this that those promoting LN as bitcoin. seem to forget to mention as the differences that make it not bitcoin.

like i said if you lot fairly and openly atleast inform people of the differences without trying to tag your altnet as bitcoin2.0 thing, when its obviously a separate mutli crypto network. people could then potentially see why its different and why its even needed as a niche service, as a separate offering to what bitcoin does.

all these subliminal and subtle hints that it IS bitcoin2.0. is just false advertising and trying to say bitcoin is broke, bitcoin cant be fixed, but here is bitcoin2.0. suggesting 'everyone abandon bitcoin as its not fit for daily purpose and just use bitcoin 2.0 because it is better'... yet ultimately thats a complete lie, when novice users try to use LN and end up scratching their head even more, with the iffy installation requirements and then the channels setup hurdles and then the non guarantee of payment even with 5+ co-signed accounts(channels).

so atleast dont pretend its bitcoin 2.0 when its actually more like 'multicoin 0.1beta'

Sure, my node failed to route 389 payments. Some of them were probing attempts, some failed at a further point in the route and others could not be routed because I didn't have enough coins on my side in the outgoing channel. However, those were not my payments. I keep my fees fairly low compared to other nodes so no wonder why I am getting a lot of routing attempts. Anyway, my point is that my node failed to route 70% of the payments, but it doesn't mean that LN failure rate for transaction smaller than 0.09 BTC is 70%. You can't tell if another attempt for the same transaction was successful or not.

I still haven't shared my stats for December, but you will be delighted once you see them. I didn't have much time this month to adjust my fees and rebalance my channels so my node failed over 300 payments mostly due to no liquidity.


No, if you accept a zero-conf transaction and the other party cheats, you have no way of penalizing them. If someone broadcasts an old channel state, you can publish a penalty transaction.

actually its more like you saying. that altnets are bitcoin because they too use p2wpkh. if you want to get pedantic.

reality is:
a transaction that includes a utxo on the bitcoin blockchain thats using say p2pkh that gets confirmed by the bitcoin blockchain. and accepted by fullnode peers of the bitcoin network. are part of bitcoin.

if 'payments' use p2wpkh but are denominated in 'picobitcoin-1' (millisats) which bitcoins blockchain rules dont understand and wont get confirmed by the bitcoin network or accepted by bitcoin full node peers.. then its not bitcoin.

emphasis. just because it uses p2wpkh, does not mean it will be accepted on the bitcoin network guaranteed.., because other parts of the "payment" uses millisats, that are not supported by the bitcoin network

thus using p2wpkh is not a defining thing that decides if something is bitcoin

maybe you need to learn the differences of what LN does vs bitcoin.

..
i find it strange how the altnet lovers are trying soo hard to declare their altnet as being bitcoin. even when its a separate network and different payment 'forwarding' system to bitcoin.

if they just said that its a multicoin faster payment rail. and listed the pro's and cons honestly. they could actually find a niche and their own community of loyalist that want such things. without trying to tarnish bitcoins utility and over exaggerate the altnets ability. just to promote their altnet as being better than bitcoin.

the funnier thing is these altnet lovers also want to now express that bitcoin full nodes dont need to be blockchain archivers to support the backbone of the network, where they want to promote that 'fullnodes' just need to scan the blockchain once and just keep a UTXO set to ensure the users own funds are legit.

in my eyes thats just too much BSing to try getting others to stop supporting bitcoin, while risking their value on altnets

Why? Why if an altcoin steals an idea does that make it not worthy for bitcoin? By that logic, bitcoin isn't even worthy enough to be bitcoin because there are dozens of fake fork coins which employ the exact same mechanisms. P2PKH isn't unique, PoW isn't unique, secp256k1 isn't unique, 10 minute blocks aren't unique, I could go on all day.

And then, why does it even matter? Who cares if 100 altcoins also decide to implement Lightning? All that means is that it has merit and people want to copy it.

What do suggest instead? That the devs patent Lightning?

because the altnet LN does not confirm transactions(THEY ARE UNRELAYED/OFFCHAIN). its the same risk as accepting a zero confirm transaction on bitcoin.. so why wait if all you are selling is coffee.

if you acept a zero-confirm risk when using LN you might as well do the same on bitcoin.

infact. if your co-partner to a hub owned by a coffee shop, whereby your just trading balance in the offchain contract. you might aswell buy a large giftcard of a coffee shop using bitcoin and then trade the giftcard balance with the retailer. its the same thing in the end.

many people including LN devs have lost value when using LN. so its not 'just noob/operator error'. its actual flaws in how LN functions.

LN has many payment fail issues. many loss of funds issues. many ways a co-partner can screw over each other. LN does not have the same elegance as bitcoin.

i personally if i want coffee would just buy a starbucks giftcard for say a months worth of coffee value using bitcoin.
thus not have the hassle worry or concern of altnet problems of liquidity stopping payment successes, or having bad expensive routes or having to have several 'pots' of funds locked up with different people just to try and get a better success rate of a payment.

people want a payment system that is a no fuss straight forward system that works every time. thats why bitcoin is so elegant and beautiful in its invention. these other non-blockchain offerings have more flaws and issues and require more effort than simpler methods.

its funny how LN supporters think people to lock up 5 'accounts' just to make a payment. its funny how LN supporters want to blame users if payments fail rather then admit the flaws in LN's design.

the issue i have is bitcoin devs are trying more and more to restrict what bitcoin can do and trying to push people away from using bitcoin, by means of pretending bitcoin has problems and these other networks dont. when in actual fact bitcoin doesnt have problems technically. but has been purposefully restricted in its expansion to cause issues just to advertise other networks as solutions.

but hey. if people were atleast honest to admit the flaws instead of saying 'if you just want to buy small things like coffee just use LN', where by making it sound like its the same/just as easy as using bitcoin. also without actually highlighting the issues that need addressing to guarantee 100% payment every time. then that is not an honest depiction of a solution to bitcoin.

especially when the "solution to bitcoin" is a work around to a problem only caused by devs personally refusing to allow bitcoin expansion on the bitcoin network. (thus not a real problem bitcoin cant solve. but a purposefully created restriction on bitcoin to cause problems), done to advertise other networks as a thing people should use instead of bitcoin.

using doomads ice/steam analogy. he does not want bitcoin to be a steam engine. he wants bitcoin to be an ice hoarding cargo ship. where it keeps h2o locked up as ice and not used for months for any purpose. where people dont need to audit the ship for months.. and then transported to another vessel to be melted into steam to then use on steam engines. requiring middle men to co-manage the evaporation and freezing process at port entry and exits.

i personally prefer the 2009-2016 utility of steam powered boats(bitcoin). where they store the ice and allow it to be broken down and melted into small vapour molecules by the owner of the ice alone, his full control.. on the same ship where every litre/gallon is accounted for. where it doesnt need different vessels or middle men or having to have several ships per pair of users to ensure delivery of steam. via passing steam through several boats along a stream hoping none is lost on the way or hoping there are available boats in the stream to allow passage. where you cannot 100% guarantee delivery is confirmed and settled for weeks/months

LN's payment method is not the same as bitcoins payment method. in LN even if you think a 'payment' is successful, the co-partner can still screw you over with how the final settlement is done. so its no better then just accepting a zero-confirm on the bitcoin network. atleast you only have to wait for like 10 minutes on bitcoin, and not left waiting days-months hoping the co partner doesnt screw you over while you wait out the lock for a settlement.

many people have totally forgot or purposefully ignored the benefit of why bitcoin was invented.

just remember. if its not a confirmed transaction on the blockchain. its not yet your funds. LN payments are just as much at risk as zero confirm bitcoin transactions. LN payments wont even get a chance to confirm within 10mins-hour. as they are usually locked for weeks/months, before getting a chance to unlock and confirm. plus ofcourse the co-signer can mess with the potential settlement contract which adds more risks to confirm chances.

but hey people will still say LN is "bitcoins solution" without explaining the issues

---

P2PKH P2SH benefit features on the bitcoin network.
P2WPKH P2TR benefit gateway transactions /locks which other networks want as their 'pegs'

using real logic. if LN was bitcoin layer 2, something worthy of being called a bitcoin feature.
it would be something only bitcoin can have and use. something unique to bitcoin.

also LN would be the code that would change to fit bitcoin.. where LN would have to fit bitcoin because its part of bitcoin.
but thats not the case.

LN is its own network for multi crypto. its not a bitcoin layer two (hinting that its unique/solely part of bitcoin, for only the benefit of bitcoin)

EG
visacard is not 'dollar' .. visa is a multi currency payment system
visacard is not 'L2Dollar'.. visa is completely different then the dollar payment network.

yes you can settle your visa balance at an ATM by requesting and getting authorisation of a 'cash advance' but thats more about the ATM and the bank authorisation, not a simple "plastic card is a bank note" misrepresentation

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

By this logic, we should all still be using P2PK transactions, since everything that has come since (P2PKH, P2SH, P2WPKH, P2TR, etc.) represents a change to bitcoin.

It is a non-issue when paying online. No merchant is receiving, processing, packing, and shipping your order within 10 minutes. They can wait for the first confirmation with no delay to your order.

It doesn't. If the user or merchant in question doesn't like Lightning, then there is absolutely no requirement for them to use it. They can continue to transact on the main chain as we have always done.

Except for the part where within this very same topic of which you are continuing to post in, I have already clearly stated:


Look at me drawing attention to the different coins.  Tell me how I'm trying to hide the fact it can be used on other coins when I've literally just said you can use it "on LTC" and "other chains that support it".

You couldn't be honest if your reputation depended on it.  Oh wait.  It does.

They have already named several solutions that have been presented and that give scalability in those two points, but, in other words, the solution cannot be accepted by many, perhaps that matters(!?).

We have been adapting our financial priorities to traditional banking, checks continue to exist, transfers take five days, then why not accept bitcoin as such and understand that despite the "hassle" there are alternatives today that satisfy those who see this as an inconvenience.

yawn...

the thing is its YOU that says that LN IS bitcoin. sorry but bitcoin does not accept millisats. plain and simple.

if we go with your steam/water analogy. you think that a steam engine works on ICE. nope steam works on vapour not solid. there is a difference. to work in a steam engine for fast transport. the ICE needs to be converted from solid to vapour.

if you want to pretend that what goes in, through and out of a steam engine is ICE. then you are deluded.

as for your other insults of calling me a sociopath. you are just showing your anger and frustration that i am highlighting the flaws you dont wish to be popularised. and dont worry i get it i understand it. you love to hype up your other network. and you like to steal the fame of the bitcoin network to try off-ramping people to other networks by suggesting that other networks are bitcoin.

yes in some places you may hint that there are different levels of security. but others you keep saying that it IS bitcoin. which people take as to mean its the same security.

much like this topic. your not calling it a multi-crypto network for offchain payments of different coins. instead you say its bitcoin layer 2. again suggesting that it has everything that bitcoin does and is made for bitcoin and unique feature of only bitcoin.

I think I fully get the main point you are driving at. Imagine paying for a cup of coffee in a coffee shop and you have to wait for at least 10 minutes before you can go out because the payment has not yet been confirmed - in this scenario it could really be a big hassle. However, it might be a little different if we are paying online - that 10 minutes wait can be tolerable that is assuming that you are doing things online at home maybe. Now, I also understand that we already have Lightning Network that we can use and being utilized by merchants who are accepting Bitcoin. There will always be solutions to different problems as long as there can be a demand for it - or there can be money that can be made.

I openly tell people off-chain doesn't have the same security level as on-chain.  As evidenced by my post history:


But please, keep discrediting yourself further by saying things which are blatantly untrue.  Clearly you've become so completely addicted to lying, you don't even bother checking if there's any evidence to counter what you're saying.  How do you expect anyone to believe a single word you say?  You're pathetic.



Y'know, that would be the most insightful thing you've ever said if you hadn't said it without a hint of irony.  

Does it not occur to you that this is the exact reason why no one here likes you?  Because you try to twist and manipulate every last word to suit a false narrative.  



I'm going to stick with the water/steam analogy.  Someone invented the steam engine and you're telling everyone it's a bad idea to use it because it's not water anymore.  Steam is just water in a different form and it allows us to do some things we can't do with regular water.  No one is forcing you to turn your precious water into steam.  The choice is yours.  But you can't take that choice away from us.  

You're there raving like a madman that it's not safe for people to drink hot steam, as though that was some sort of valid argument against using it.  I think most people are aware that operating a steam engine might have some safety implication that they need to consider.  Particularly if they've never used one before.  And I'm not suggesting for a moment that a steam engine is suitable for all situations.  It's not.  But enough of us find it useful and it's only natural for us to assume others may find it useful too.  Perhaps you believe the right course of action is to shield people from this technology to protect them, but some of us believe people should be allowed to decide for themselves.  

But yes, steam is hot, everyone, please be careful when you use it.  



And we are painfully aware that you're still butthurt about that.  I would say build yourself a bridge and get the hell over it, but then you'd probably launch into a tirade about how I'm "promoting bridges in a dangerous fashion when we should just ford rivers like the good ol' days".      



They do say that sociopaths don't "understand the emotional consequences of their actions"...


Scary how many of those traits you appear to be 100% nailing.

you might want to check on your assumptions.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.58357392
rath is a dev for the altnet known as LN. even he has 70% fail rate in 2021.
(success:fail  143:389)
oh and his payment fails. were all of amounts under 9000000000millisat (rounded/converted under 0.09btc)

yes its an altnet. its a different network. its literally highlighted in the name. N part of LN. the handshaking and communication format agreement of messages between LN peers is different then the handshake connection of bitcoin full nodes.

its not a network "built ontop of bitcoin" .. its a separate network build separetly. that only connects to blockchains if the blockchain has had a fork or txformat upgrade to be able to lock coins in a special way to fit LN.

bitcoin had to change to fit LN's settlements(filtered/rounded close session contracts) . LN was not built to be 100% bitcoin else bitcoin would not need to have been changed to be 'compatible' because in a bitcoin centric altnet, everything in the altnet wouold meet bitcoins standard format.
the funnier thing as already highlighted but worth emphasising yet again is LN doesnt have a consensus mechanism so extremely easy to have designed LN to be 100% compatible without editing bitcoin to fit. but because LN is a separate thing doing its own methods and protocols, it decided it does not want to be bitcoin centric.. LN is its own network that wants to be something else. hense why bitcoin had to change to fit rather than the altnet being fully bitcoin centric in all of its formats

if people were honest about why its not bitcoin, then other people could spin that as the advantages of why to use it instead of bitcoin. after all if its just suggested that LN is bitcoin. then there is no difference, thus no need to use it.
so explaining the differences can be made into a positive, for those wanting to advertise altnernate networks

as for others using the swimming pool/hose analogy. the filter connecting the 2 separate vessels of separate fluid is a filter separate smart contract that converts piss to water. (rounds up/down millisats to sats)

the LN 'payments' (invoice and secret reveal)(aka hose) is a separate contract than the settlement contract(sat denominated bitcoin format)filter

the hose is not part of the pool that only works for that pool. it needs the specific filter for a bitcoin pool and uses a different filter for other pools.

inside the hose is invoice payments and htlc secrets that open up milisat payments(piss not water).
the hose of piss, is not bitcoin.

...
as for Doomad wanting me to die by fire.. a bit harsh, why so emotional..
.. oh, because he is mad that he has not realised that LN does not have the same security as bitcoin. nor the features of bitcoin.. doesnt make payments in the same units as bitcoin, he has not realised the differences. he has failed to understand they are separate networks that do different things. offering different features. even when the name of the altnet literally says it in its name..
.. he may also be mad that its someone that doesnt like other networks, doesnt want to use other networks, that has highlighting the differences and even suggesting that these differences could, if honest about them be used as positive PR spin for why people could use another networks.. but instead Doomad wants to stick with lies and deception to pretend it is bitcoin and fool people  into thinking its just as secure and safe and guaranteed as bitcoin.. hiding the flaws, fooling other people just to get them to stop using bitcoin by his deceptions. rather then acquiring new users with fair honest advice about risks and limitations of using other networks whilst explaining what other networks can do.

more people would be happy to use another network when getting honest advice about the risk/advantage and they weighed up the pro's and cons and decided they thought its acceptable under honest advice about what they are getting themselves into.. rather than being deceived into using an altnet and finding out the flaws the hard way.
you dont built up a loyal fan base via deception.

.. oh and bitcoin does not accept millisats.
. maybe he should take more time reading code and not playing with being an angry arsonist that wants to offramp bitcoin users to other networks because he doesnt believe bitcoin should be used by everyone.

i know Doomad is not a dev and so doesnt understand anything beneath the GUI. but he does try too hard to make LN sound like its bitcoin, when it has no consensus mechanism, no blockchain to audit the LN network of 'instant payments' no PoW security of the "instant payments" where all instant payments need co-signers and need the other people to be online.

totally not what bitcoin is about

Why are you clowning dude?

You cant be serious. LN does not have a 70% fail rate lol.

And when your example of LN not working is sending 100 btc (currently over $5 million worth of bitcoin!) it is easy to see you aren't trying to make a serious point. LN isnt for enormous transactions. It's mostly for daily transactions. It's for sending maybe half a bitcoin or 0.1 btc or 1000 sats or 10 sats. Not 100 btc lol.

Just as you said the base chain is for sending $10 and up, LN network is for sending let's say a few thousand dollars down to a tiny fraction of a cent. LN isnt for sending millions or billions of dollars in a tx just like the base chain isnt realistically reasonable for sending something less than in the 10s of dollars because then you get a high % fee.

You just seem to not understand the point of LN. It's not some non-btc thing that is trying to compete with btc. It's literally just a network built on top of the bitcoin base chain to broaden the scope of the types of payments bitcoin can do. Base chain can do transactions that dont require immediate settlement and is only reasonable to use for payments minimum in the 10s of dollars. LN is for transactions that require immediate settlement (like buying something in person) AND/OR for smaller transactions like the kind people do on a daily basis.

LN broadens the scope of Bitcoin's abilities.

You wouldn't want to use the base chain to make daily purchases, that's what LN is perfect for. You wouldn't want to try to use the LN to send $5 million of bitcoin, that's what the base chain is for. They complement each other which is the whole point, and there is a nice overlap where if you want to spend $100s or $1000s of dollars in a transaction either L1 or L2 would work very well so then it just comes down to whether or not you needs LN's insant finality or not and whether you care about saving a few bucks by using LN for such a large tx.

LN plays with millisats.. not btc
when your pissing in the hose. you have to realise there is a filter at the ends of the hose to stop the piss getting into the pool.
piss and pool water dont mix.
the filters being the 'settlement contracts' . the piss being the millisat payment. the pool water being the LOCKED btc.
(millsat contracts dont enter the bitcoin network!!)

the pool is a different shape/store of water then what a hose is/uses. they hold the data differently and move the fluid differently.

the hose is not created to only fit the btc pool. its not a btc hose. its just a universal hose thats not made specifically for the btc pool.

infact the hose manufacturer has forced the btc pool to design a filter(tx format) to fit the universal hose.
this does not then make it a btc hose. its still a universal hose, with a filter
the universal hose has many filters for different pools.

but hey if you want to pretend that a hose is a pool and people can swim in a hose as free as they can a pool.. you keep playing that delusion.. there is a liquidity and flow rate issue with the hose that does not offer the same flow as a pool

but yea if you cant tell the difference between a pool and a hose. then anything IT related must be extremely hard for you to understand

infact. the hose is not a single hose allowing 1-to-1 transfer of piss from one end to another. its actually a spiders web of thousands of hoses. where each connector needs to accept a certain amount of piss to pass through it. where some connectors have limits on how much piss can pass.. where your piss can get blocked if you try sending too much in one go.

bitcoins pool does not have connectors that resist the waves of water molecules. it just flows around. there is no "your water molecule is more then my connector can handle so i wont let you passed". nodes dont stop transactions based on having too large a value. thats why bitcoin works. if someone has $1billion in btc, he can send it and nodes wont stop it due to them not having $1billion to pass the parcel along.
bitcoin does not have this value pass the parcel flaw

i dare anyone to try today to lock up 100btc and make a LN payment to a destination(not their co-channel partner). see how well LN works. or more precisely doesnt work.

a solution to a payment system is not a system that has for example 90% fail rate of pizza amounts in 2018. and 70% fail rates of under 0.09btc in2021.

in bitcoin. i can send $10 amount or $1billion+ and know its going to get confirmed. no ifs or buts or maybe or praying that there are people around to accept/pass the parcel.

Well, you seem to understand it even better than me
But, yep, point taken.


Oh. That part was unclear to me. Thank you.
I know that he's a big supporter of big blocks and all against LN. And yeah, he tends to cross the line, that's why I was a bit afraid to post.
But then yes, although I am not that "strong" as DooMAD was, I agree (with you and DooMAD) that there's a problem there.

---

I like the way @titular have read it all and came to the right conclusion:

You might need a check-up, when you start understanding frankish it's not a good sign.


More like a submerged hose that at both ends communicates in the same pool, since there is no difference between me opening a channel paying you and you closing it and re-entering the blockchain and me sending directly those coins to you on-chain. The coins are still there, they have never left the pool and can't leave the pool and more importantly, coins entering the circle don't even have to go to the other end.
 

Because he claims that water entering the hose turns into piss, that's why 

Bitcoin relies on nodes to broadcast messages across the network. That seems to be the same level of "middle-men" as you call it.


LN doesn't need a blockchain it's an L2.


Whether it's a co-sign/co-custody system is irrelevant. LN is a scaling solution that brings people more flexibility. You can't say LN does damage to the ecosystem.

It boils down to principles.  I'll fight fascists and totalitarians wherever I might find them, because freedom is paramount.  If franky1 had their way, no one would have the option to use LN.  He begrudges its very existence and will say or do anything, no matter how devious or underhand to deter people from having that choice.

While by no mean I want to start a flame war, I think that I've understood what he means.
His point is that LN acts like a hose. It doesn't care if it will transport water (bitcoin), oil (name your altcoin) or even air (if it's tight). It will work the same, depending on where it's plugged.

While LN can be seen as an extra layer for Bitcoin, it can be an extra layer for whatever. This is what I've understood.


BUT at the end of the day it doesn't matter what else the hose can transport as long as we can use it for our needs.
At the moment the hose is plugged to 2 holes of a water pipe, it's a water hose. So... why argue for tiny details?!

I agree with jackg's point that only cash is spent immediately. So it's possible to create workarounds to make sure that Bitcoin works as a form of money, but it won't be merely Bitcoin or will involve third parties facilitating the operations. They're doing it in El Salvador, and it's a living proof that it's possible if there's enough interest in it. Also, I think that for big online purchases Bitcoin could be used directly (sending some BTC from customer's address to the address of the owner of the shop) because the fees wouldn't matter if the sum's high enough, and also because when you're buying something online, it's often not crucial for the transaction to be finalized fast.

H2O can take the form of water, ice or steam.  Steam can't flow in a river but it's still H2O.
BTC can take the form of satoshis or millisats.  They're still BTC, you goddamn sociopath.

Die in a fire plz.



If ketchup is a condiment for burgers, it can't be a condiment for anything else, like hotdogs.
Except it can, you goddamn sociopath.

Again, die in a fire plz.  Absolute waste of oxygen.

firstly. what you are sending through routes is not BTC. its an invoice measured in millisats. a unit of measure the bitcoin network does not understand and in a packet of data the bitcoin network would not accept.
these invoices and htlc secret reveals are not bitcoin network compatible.they are their own format.

the latter in channel contract update (after htlc secret reveal) are not between the sender and receiver of a route. but a contract update between the partners inside their channel and only done on the success of the hops of channels success.

its nothing like bitcoin.
heck the whole last 5 years has been alot of dev drama of trying to change bitcoin to become LN compatible.
the silly thing is LN does not have a consensus mechanism nor a blockchain all nodes need to follow, so it should be LN that should change if it wants to replicate bitcoins format. not the other way round.

maybe if you were more honest to say whats different about LN then you could actually turn it into good PR as to why people should use it as oppose to bitcoin. but trying to promote it as bitcoin and part of bitcoin as if its the same thing, is both misleading on its features and niche. but also its putting people at an extreme risk of not understanding the different security risk, problems with payments and why bitcoin is better.

i know you dont like bitcoin anymore and you dont want bitcoin to expand and grow and anyone that does you simply want to tell them to go away to another network if unhappy with bitcoin.. thats been your personal game plan for years, offramping users to other networks.

but here is the thing, i am not the only person that likes bitcoin. i am not the only one that wants bitcoin to grow and have more utility. without the need for constant promoting of other networks being the solution people should move over to.

i doubt that you can even admit that LN is a separate network that measures value in a different denomination than the bitcoin network. but that should be your first realisation to why LN is different and not bitcoin

---

you only have 100% if using small value's. payment success is not a user error. its a value limit. its a liquidity problem,
but if you want to blame the operator. then go on the dev board and find the LN topic and go argue how Rath is a operator that cant use LN properly, that would be a laugh to see.

anyways,
do you know the difference between bank balance in euros and settled withdrawal of physically exchanged dollars?
the LN payments are millisats(bitcoin network does not understand). and is LATER hours/days/months settled by negotiating contract terms of fee's and rounding up/down of millisats into a bitcoin value is a separate 'deal'/contract/payment.

the LN "payment" (the thing described as 'instant/fast/cheap') is a separate transaction/contract from the one that gets settled to the bitcoin network.

you may not notice it at GUI level. but at code/raw data level you will see the negotiation of exchange of units of measure.

whats next.. if a exchange/western union took in FIAT, but behind the scenes used crypto to do the reserves transfer between different WU 'shops' you will claim that crypto is fiat, under the naive beleif that all the customer can see is the fiat being settled.

no, when you understand the inter-change happening in between you then realise the separate mediums of exchange happening and the contract and reserve values change and the negotiation of conversion from one unit of measure to another happen. then you start to see that the customer facing view looks like its a fiat transfer system, but then realise that its a fiat-crypto-fiat system and they are separate systems, not to be confused with each other and definitely not to be used to pretend that crypto is fiat

if LN was bitcoin. then LN can only be bitcoin. it could not be anything else. ..
but LN is its own separate thing, which is why it allows different cryptos to peg to it.

but the first step to understanding it is to realise that bitcoin does not leave the blockchain. the value is locked to the blockchain. all the negotiated off-chain stuff  measured in units not understood by bitcoin are not bitcoin things.

LN relies on middle men (channel partners, route hops)
bitcoin does not rely on middle men

LN does not have a blockchain.
bitcoin does

LN is a co-sign co-custody authorisation required system
bitcoin is a sole custody signing system

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Bcash solves nothing. The average block time is still 10 minutes. Your transaction is more likely to get in to the next block with Bcash because each block is barely 10-20% full because no one uses it. However, since their hash rate is so low and so centralized, 1 Bcash confirmation is not even close to as secure as 1 BTC confirmation, and so you have to wait hours longer to achieve the same level of security. https://howmanyconfs.com puts the current figure at over 4 days to achieve what Bitcoin achieves in an hour. Kraken want 4 confirmations for Bitcoin deposits, but 15 for Bcash. Coinbase want 3 for Bitcoin and 12 for Bcash. Gemini want 3 for Bitcoin and 15 for Bcash. As you can see, Bcash takes significantly longer than Bitcoin by all metrics.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was, I think, supposed to solve this problem. I sent my last BCH into an exchange to swap them, it only took 45 minutes to be confirmed, what a f***ing joke. Z-cash at least confirms in a few minutes. But a few minutes still is too long to stand and wait in a store for a quick purchase. It'll be interesting to see what LN can do for bitcoin...

Let me clarify some stuff you said individually while others gave you good explanations in general:
Bitcoin is as it has always been a decentralized, censorship resistant global currency. Being a currency means it is also a store of value. In fact SOV is one of the characteristics of any currency.

It is not for security reasons. It is one of many decisions made by the inventor of Bitcoin to make it so that the blocks be found every 10 minutes on average. This decision provides certain characteristics such as limiting the number of stale blocks to a negligible number.

The same way any other payment system that has extremely long settlement time (up to 6 months in some cases) have been used long before bitcoin was invented and are still used to this day.

Nobody is asking you to wait that long. If you are purchasing some goods online, by the time they want to ship it to your address the transaction has lots of confirmation (not just one). If you are purchasing something small offline (face to face) like a sandwich the merchant doesn't care about confirmation because that is the risk they are already taking when accepting other forms of payment including cash (fake bills, reversing digital payments, credit card fraud,...). If you are purchasing something more expensive (like a car or a house) then the process of transferring money through any other method is already hundred times slower than a single confirmation on bitcoin network!

In short your arguments on their own may make some small sense but in comparison to any existing payment method they have no legs.

Security in bitcoin (and its alternative copies) transaction confirmation is defined by the cost of reversing that block. In bitcoin the cost of that for one confirmation is usually equal to at least dozens of confirmation on the alternative chain. In other words it would take hours on altchains to get what bitcoin would offer in 10 minutes.

We don't envision such a thing. Bitcoin was not supposed to and is not going to become "only currency of the earth".
You can't even get two people to agree on one thing, how can you make almost 200 countries/governments to accept a single currency!

I'm sorry but, by definition, LN is certainly a layer 2 solution. It settles all on the base chain.

Also, if you're having 70% of your payments fail, it is the operator that is doing something wrong. I have made 100's of LN transactions and not one of them have ever failed.

It is layer 2.  It's layer 2 on BTC, it's layer 2 on LTC and it's layer 2 on any of the other chains that support it.  Being layer 2 on other chains doesn't cause it to stop being layer 2 on BTC. 

It operates on top of Bitcoin, ergo it's a layer.  To date, you are the only person I've witnessed on this forum who is utterly incapable of comprehending such a simple concept.

Whether it's unique to one blockchain is irrelevant.  If I'm using LN to send and receive BTC and BTC alone, it literally does not matter what's happening on other blockchains.  And even if I were using LN on other chains, that still wouldn't detract from the utility of LN on BTC's chain.

Stop acting as though you're making some sort of point.  You're just making noise.

LN is not a layer 2 solution. its a altnet that many coins can peg to. its not even unique feature just for bitcoin.
its not a solution. its an off ramp to get people to stop using the bitcoin network.

LN cant even guarantee 'payment success'. even one of the most famous advocates of LN recently revealed a over 70% payment fail rate of his routes in the last 3 months. so its not a solution at all. its an alternative network

LN is not a sidechain. It is a layer-2 solution. Sidechains include things like the Liquid Network and Stacks Protocol.

Layer-2 solutions do not rely on their own native blockchain. There is no lightning block explorer. It is all settled on bitcoin's blockchain.

Sidechains have their own native blockchain.

I always like to say, layer-2s are built on top of bitcoin's blockchain while sidechains run alongside it.

Bitcoin transactions can be faster or lower in confirmation than bank transfers. However, with Bitcoin network and your non custodial wallet, you will have not rely on any centralized bank to approve and process your transfers

With Bitcoin, your transaction will be confirmed by miners on its network, globally. Miners, nodes will do their works and your transaction will be picked from mempool for confirmations.

Additionally, Bitcoin transactions are irreversible, not like bank transfer.

Bitcoin is faster and more final than every method of transferring fiat other than cold, hard cash.

A bitcoin transaction shows up instantly, can be spent by the merchant instantly, and is finalized and irreversible within 10-60 minutes.
Bank transfers or debit/credit card payments show up instantly, cannot be spent by the merchant for 3-5 business days, and are not finalized and irreversible for up to 180 days, depending on your country/jurisdiction.

And yet most merchants accept credit card transactions. Why? The safety of accepting a credit card transaction which can easily be reversed by a simple phone call for up to 6 months (much more easily than a bitcoin transaction can be double spent in the <60 minutes you have to do so), comes from the fact that most people are honest, most merchants can tolerate small amounts of fraud, and merchants have law enforcement and the legal system to back them against fraudulent customers. None of this is any different to accepting zero confirmation bitcoin transactions for small value transactions (such as a coffee).

And if you don't like that, then use Lightning.

My 2 satoshis on this reply! Same opinion here as well! LN is the best option going forward which can make bitcoin transfers cheaper and faster. It uses a sidechain and broadcast multiple transactions in batches to save the cost and time. So this is the future for payment using bitcoin.

Second option is also great! But the requirement of KYC is the only downside. But if you are comfortable in providing KYC details to the centralized entities, you can just swipe in your crypto debit card at any pos. But this convenience comes at a cost of privacy.

Actually, only physical cash is what you can spend immediately. If you pay by card, the card issuer promises to pay the company within 3 days of the transaction but the funds are just somewhere between your two accounts and are pending in both so that's not very instant (when compared with an average for bitcoin of 10-30 minutes).

As was mentioned above, there's the lightning network where transactions normally take less than 10 seconds to go through (they just use contracts in the wallets thst can be broadcast to the blockchain at any point to redeem the btc owned by that node).

@OP
have you ever heard about charge-back? when you know how it works I am pretty sure you will get comfortable only with btc payment.
because: even if a payment get an immediate confirmation in your bank account it can be retrieved by the bank that has issued that payment.
and you have nothing much to do since a scammer know very well how to handle these stuffs... e.g. high risk to get scammed when you trade btc for fiat money.
 
with bitcoin you can do it with a function called RBF and trying to do a double spend. but isn't easy. you have to do quickly and hope the second transaction get confirmed. however a seller will immediately notice it....
after some blocks (or minutes it depends the way you are measuring your time) double spend it is literally impossible.
now there are off chain transaction like LN (Lightning Network) that provides a new way for spending your btc daily.... as many of us will confirm.

replying to your question:
- yes
- send enough fees to allow confirmation in one block.
- LN or for small payment you can use alternative blockchain (altcoins) with quick confirmation/but isn't the best way I should admit....
- I don't know this is your first post
- A better world. this is why me and others users are here.  

If you're going to ask Bitcoiners in general, mostly the answer you're going to receive is the Lightning Network[1] which is slowly but surely being developed right now; which allows instant and near-zero transaction fees. Though usable, the UX is currently not the best.

Probably a controversial opinion, but if you're personally fine with submitting AML/KYC to centralized entities, the so called "Bitcoin debit cards" are the way to go; whereas you hold bitcoin on the Bitcoin debit card's wallet app, and the app automatically sells bitcoin for fiat everytime you make a purchase.

---

[1] https://lightning.network/

Consider the following:

1) BTC was initially conceived as an "every-day spendable currency" (and not just a "store-of-value")

2) the BTC Blockchain is intentionally designed (for security reasons) so that a typical block will take about 10 mins to mine

If these 2 principles are accurate, how do we envision BTC being used as (1) while retaining the time limit of (2)?  That is, "How can I spend BTC right this second without having to wait 10 mins for the Block to be confirmed (aka mined)?"  It seems to me as though some other step/intermediary would be needed to make this happen - such as, a different kind of wallet/account (one where BTCs are "pre-confirmed as spendable") or an "immediate spend" alternative crypto with an intentionally faster Block confirmation time (making it less secure).  Are there any other alternatives?  Am I missing something here?  What model do you envision for a world where BTC is the main/only "currency of the Earth"?