Topic: Is the Lightning Network centralized? - page 10. (Read 1931 times)

wow your rebuttle to me contains so much detail and scope and accuracy.. not
if your only reply is "tinfoil hat" and not lines of code, not financial data, not examples of anything of context. may you just refrain from commenting until you have some substance. like have a cup of coffee and think about things independantly and research whats been said.. without seeking answers from achowe/carlton mindset

P.S your the one saying bilderberg group..  which is you twisting things.. kinda what id expect from people friendly with achowe and carlton. its their usual tactic. much like gigabyte blocks was never a proposal but the achowes and carltons of the world loved exagerating things to discommunicate reality, to make it look like what was really proposed sound rediculous. rather than actually discussing the reality of the situation


the devs made segwit purely for the identification of transaction type to be used specifically for LN,
bc1q(and recently added ltc1q) and soon will come more
LN is not a bitcoin only network.
the hop model has shown not to work for gneral random spend to random people as many scenarios have proven. thus hubs is the way they are going (factory channels are coming too.. research it).. go on, get truly enlightened. research it.

while also allowing hiding how many counterparties (N of N) will be involved in the signing process (research schnorr)
even your friend carlton LOVES the idea of having managers monitor channels with thir own third key to chargeback(revoke/punish) certain users

ask the devs. if they really wanted bitcoin to have cheap fee's why take out the fee formulae.
(you'll hear waffle about free market)
ask them why did they INCREASE the tx dust relay limit from 1000 to 3000
(you'll hear waffle able control. (opposite of freemarket))
ask the main devs (rusty russel for instance) as founder of blockstream how much of the hundreds of millions of dollars is his 'share'. and what those investors expect as a means of return on their investment

 

Peer-to-peer-via-some-other-peers, perhaps, then?  It sounds like you're nitpicking here.

I mean, there's nothing to stop you opening a new channel directly with every person you want to transact with, it's just not necessarily the most cost-effective way to use LN.  But it's effectively as peer-to-peer as you're willing to make it.  No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to route payments through peers you don't know, it's just potentially cheaper to do it that way.

Nope!

People often seem to conflate trust with centralisation.  They're different concepts.  LN is undoubtedly a different trust model to regular, on-chain, Bitcoin transactions, but that doesn't mean it's centralised.  It's still a peer-to-peer network.  There's no central authority making stuff happen.  



Yeah, I'm as confused by this point as Wind-FURY, you're going to have to explain how you've arrived at that conclusion.  If anything, Lightning is better suited to small payments than it is large ones.  At the time of writing, the most you can send in a single payment is ~$280 USD.  Literally the only thing stopping people from running LN nodes is that they don't understand it yet.  You don't have to be wealthy to do that (although, obviously you have to have some funds).  And you certainly don't have to be a bank.  Once you have more knowledge, you can take part and open/close as many channels as you wish.

Who said that? Is this a network of banks and wealthy institutions? https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/ - The Lightning Network is live.

Stop the FUD. The Lightning Network has more nodes maintained by users than Bitcoin Cash.


"If". That is the biggest distinction. Why not start enforcing KYC/AML on the miners? They "process" transactions onchain, correct?


Centralized how? Explain it.


In theory yes. But let us see how that turns out.

Actually the cryptocurrency is a centralized network wherein it helps the people and the society and the government itself become united and more systematic than before which is a big helps.

As long as the fees remain low, I don't think it will become centralized due to the nature.

Well, I consider the Lightning Network somewhat centralized simply because you're going to need to trust LN nodes on the network to route your payments. Not to mention, not everyone will be able to open/close channels on the network, allowing only banks and wealthy institutions to operate LN nodes. And if governments start to apply AML/KYC regulations to such nodes, then there would be no use for the Lightning Network since people would need to verify their ID to be able to use such feature.

Eventually, I believe that Bitcoin will become extremely centralized as people would prefer to transact on the Lightning Network (which is an off-chain solution) over the main chain. Then, there's the issue of miners where they won't be able to claim the block reward if people transact only on the LN, leaving the main chain behind. As such, with the Lightning Network, there would be no incentives for miners, further threatening the security of the Bitcoin network itself. Only time will tell whenever LN becomes successful or not. 

Not hearing an argument presented there, so thank you for conceding defeat.  Regulators will likely attempt to chase down excessively large on-chain payments that might look suspicious, because those are quite easily viewable and plainly understood.  You know beyond doubt exactly how much was sent and when.  So if the authorities can figure out who sent/received those amounts, they at least have a small chance of success there.  It's easier to obtain a warrant, for example, if you already have the evidence that a large sum of money has changed hands.  If you can see it right there on the blockchain, it's easier to prove.

They'll struggle to do that with Lightning, however, since there's no way of knowing exactly how much has been sent.  You might be able to tell how much total BTC is in a channel, but that's not the same as knowing how much is being sent back and forth.  See if you can tell me exactly how many mainnet LN transactions have been sent to date.  It's only been running on mainnet for less than a year, should be easy, right?  Wrong.  You can easily tell how many on-chain transactions have been sent since the genesis block, because the information is there for all to see.  Totally transparent.  Can't do it with Lightning, though.  You can't regulate something you can't even see.  Thinking you can is beyond naive.  Learn it already.  It's not that difficult.

You can't realistically monitor LN transactions unless law enforcement already have the intended target under close surveillance, have cameras on them 24/7 and bugged their house and all their electronic devices.  In which case, I should add, it doesn't even matter which medium you're using to transact, they already know you've done something wrong.  Those are pretty much the only people with something to worry about.  But none of this will apply to casual, everyday users, going about their ordinary lives, buying regular stuff.

In the same way governments have only managed to extract tax revenues from crypto users who have freely volunteered that information, the same will apply to KYC/AML in Lightning.  A tiny number might volunteer for it and the authorities will appreciate that, because they know they haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of monitoring the other 99.9%.  But those tiny number won't get much traffic.  Users will naturally want instant transactions, not wait a week while they send off ID and wait for verification.

And stop comparing exchanges with Lightning.  They're entirely different things.  Not even remotely comparable, unless you're some sort of idiot.  Exchanges are static entities and deal with potentially massive sums of money.  That's their entire business model.  They're an easy target in plain sight.  It's not difficult to ensure they comply with regulations because they're relatively easy to shut down.  LN hubs aren't so unwieldy.  Remember that LN is currently capped at a maximum of 0.16777216 BTC in each channel and 0.04194304 for each transaction.  We aren't talking about particularly large sums of money here.  Plus, if you really don't want to be found, all it takes is some reallocation of funds, a quick change of some technical details, a bit of mixing for good measure, and *poof*, gone.  Little to no trace.  A fresh bunch of channels opened and no one is any the wiser.  It's going to be regulatory whack-a-mole if they tried to come after LN hubs.  

If you ever feel the desire to gain some practical understanding about how LN works, rather than just listening to what a bunch of brainwashed zealots are telling you and then repeating it like a lowly pawn, then you might fare a little better in future.  But for now, you clearly demonstrate barely any working knowledge and are easily shot down for the ignorant troll you are.  Any more insanity you'd like to present us with?

Ah, the good ol' discussion. And I see arguments haven't changed in the past year

I believe the Lightning Network will surely have some centralizing incentives. But that does not mean that the whole system will be centralized. For me, it will be a mix of hubs (commercial ones and altruist ones) and decentralized routing happily coexisting. After all, LN (like every cryptocurrency!) is a social network, it's a network of individuals, and they decide how to build it up.

Have you seen the Channels Factories proposal (Whitepaper)? In short, CFs are single channels opened between multiple parties (up to 15 with the current limitations of Bitcoin Core, but afaik many more if Schnorr signatures are implemented). Members of such a group can open sub-channels at no cost to the other members of the group, and transact freely.

That has two advantages:
- first, you have to pay only one transaction fee for all the 15 individuals to open or close the channel. The transaction is bigger, so the transaction fee will also be bigger, but the fee per individual node would be >5 times lower.
- second, you can integrate a well-connected node (a little hub, for example) into the group, to be able to recharge channels that get "out of balance". That would mean that there will be very few necessary on-chain transactions.

So CFs could be an interesting part of the puzzle to avoid the scenario that "only wealthy individuals and businesses" could afford to open channels. Instead, you would open a channel factory with your friends, some merchant(s) you regularly visit and perhaps one exchange to re-charge the channel in an off-chain manner if necessary.

Exactly! There will be no mandatory route. Everything is possible. Let's wait and see. I think LN will be an excellent micropayment network, but not necessarily will replace on-chain transactions completely.

As LN transactions are "private", but regular Bitcoin transactions, they cannot be double-spent easily. I don't know if a large LN channel, however, could incentive a Bitcoin double spend attack.

It might also be that there is no argument worth doing in the first place.


There might be, but it might also be a demonstration of the disruptive nature of Bitcoin and decentralization. Was it not that that attracted us to be here?


There will always be business men who will fill the gap and offer services for profit. It is the business men that are building around Bitcoin today.


Yet the blockchain is unaffected by this.


More tinfoil hat theories. Bitcoin is controlled by the Bilderberg group. Hahaha.

@DooMAD

I take it back, you were born that stupid.

I shall leave you to your false religious beliefs.
Logic and reason have no place in your mind.

Have a great day dumbo.  

Yes, you cretin, that much is obvious.  No one is unclear on that.  Now let it sink in to your empty head that wording applies to ALL cryptocurrency transactions.  Not just Lightning ones.  Thank you for yet again completely failing to make a relevant point.  If regulators had their way, every on-chain transaction would be subject to KYC/AML.  But they can't practically enforce it.  So it's not an issue.  Same with Lightning.  Same applies to large, physical cash transactions out there in the real world.  You can't realistically monitor them all.

Learn to brain plz.  



But as soon as you send a transaction for a substantial sum, even on chain, that should bring the regulators sniffing.  Don't try to crawl out of the corner you've painted yourself into, you'll only look like more of a fool than you already do.  

If you're using Lightning to send millions of dollars, or whatever, then sure, you might conceivably have the tiniest hint of a point.  Watch your back, they're probably coming for you. 
Doing your weekly grocery shopping with Lightning once that level of adoption is commonplace?  No issues whatsoever.  Now stop talking crap.

People running full nodes have nothing to worry about as they are only keeping a ledger of public information.
They are not sending any funds.  AML/KYC laws can not touch them.

LN Hubs on the other hand will facilitate fund transfers using their own note system like a bank allowing redemption in bitcoin
or as Franky1 said another crypto or eventually even fiat.


Two completely different things.   

The static snap shot is not of help.

Dynamics are important together with economical attractors - > these are always leading to centralization.

Only external factors like op-risks can break these up, like PoW has plenty of.

arguing about AML/KYC in LN is right now empty argument..
but what people on both sides to defending offending the devs dont realise is that LN is NOT a service solely to be used by bitcoin.

as soon as the FIAT hubs start atomic swapping for btc on LN then you will see the AML/KYC compliance issues

yep when the 'decentralised exchanges' start operating. then you will see all the other BSCartel services start making their money.. EG Civic with thier admin fee for ID registration/checks. circle,coinbase,and other exchanges taking fee's and ... requiring ID

again LN is not a pure BTC network. its a offchain service to atomically swap between currncies and its been the gameplan since before 2015 to earn the BSCartel millions.

ever thought why rusty russel and sipa were getting millions of dollars if all they were doing was coding for bitcoin community,
(blockstream has ovr $100m and less than 100 employee's so ach guy linked to Blockstream has over $1m)
reality is that all the development is being pushed to make services to make returns on dev investment back to the BSCartel (barry silbert doesnt run a charity, he wants returns eventually)

P.S
if you think devs are interested in making transactions cheaper onchain. or have a cheap tx system. please refrain from replying
 just look at whats happened
bitcoin core price october 2017 ~$6000  ... min dust tx  limit 1000byte =6cents min to have tx happily relayed #
bitcoin core price june 2018 ~$6000  ... min dust tx  limit 3000byte =18cents to have tx happily relayed  #

funny thing is after october the price increased. but did the november or the january code releases DROP limits to compensate the value change.. nope they infact increased the dust, not decreased.thus double whammy (facepalm)

As far I know (from docs) the lightning network is not centralized.

It is live and there are users doing small - medium transactions to buy stickers, shirts, etc. Plus there are now apps made for Lightning. Try this, https://satoshis.place/


I believe there are many nodes that have done more than $10,000 in routing.


That will not happen. Haha.


Old news, and that never stopped Bitcoin. I want to see arrests for running Lightning nodes and Bitcoin full nodes because they are not KYC/AML compliant.

Has it gone live yet and actually transferring funds, because last I heard it was unsafe to use and the devs were saying no one should use it.
Those 7000 nodes aren't transferring much of anything yet are they?
Threshold is usually around $10000 US  before they start going after people.

I'll shoot you a PM , after the arrests on LN Hub operators start showing up in the news.  

FYI: In The Meantime:
https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/las-vegas-resident-accused-of-bitcoin-money-laundering/
https://www.coindesk.com/michigan-man-charged-unlawful-bitcoin-exchange/


 

There are 7,000 Lightning nodes. I want you to report all of them because they are not KYC/AML compliant and yet they are routing payments across the globe. If you want to go deeper, you can also report Bitcoin's full validating nodes. Haha.