Topic: Layman's understanding of Lightening Network. (Read 306 times)

My thoughts aswell. But they are thriving, which means the strategy is working for them. It therefore means when you have something of value to publish, you wouldn't care paying for it to be published!

Yes and yes. It appears to be a pay-to-view site where even the content writers have to pay to publish their articles. It's a zero-sum game between readers and authors i.e. some make a net loss of money and others a net gain.

Could you imagine how small the internet's userbase would be if all pages on the web had to be paid for to be posted? Writers hate paying to publish unless it comes with backlinks and if anything, they are supposed to be getting paid for what they publish, not the other way around.

There is a "Write New Article" button in the top-right corner. At the moment, you need to pay $0.84 to publish an article. However, if you provide your node's public key, you can withdraw the coins that other people will pay to read your article. Since you are using BlueWallet, you would have to provide the public key of their node. Unfortunately, this would allow every BlueWallet user to pay out your earnings.

Am really having a new experience. Thanks so much. I discovered that in yalls.org I really need to make some payment before I could read an article. It's a nice way to earn, do I need to make payments to publish an article for people to read?

Paid. The fee was a mere 51 msat Here you can find services which accept Lightning Network payments. 500 satoshi is not a lot so you might give the following a go: yalls.org, satoshis.place, lightningspin.com

Great! Thanks for this, will never forget someone helping me to make my first LN transaction. Below is the invoice of 500sat

lnbc5u1pss08n9pp5udhvp65fceydenk8495q502z6dneae0u809rykl3w8qjd2thtyzqdqqcqzpgxq yz5vqsp5k3vv86p5s86976sla3ut4dwlextslw9rmgnr5z45vekusrk5ztfs9qyyssqhk8rlhyd4xy5 9zxnp0a9vyvdvuxh898zxcz7uvu3spmyf2kh9p2xmnpsen698ej4xc3mrcvf05vac3l0n4uvazm4jdr q84m7lxanrdcqn4d76r

There are two users and threads you can turn to in order to receive your first coins to play around on the Lightning Network:

• LoyceV's lihtning loans with 1% interest.
• jackg's free lightning tests with 0% interest.

The loan duration is one week for both users. There are no rank restrictions, so anyone can apply.
LoyceV gives 1.000 satoshis per loan while jackg gives out 10.000 satoshis.

Following Rath_'s advice on Eclair, which would be the best testing ground to get a glimps of how the real Lighting Network works, you could to
https://starblocks.acinq.co/
and try your testnet LN payments. Find some testnet bitcoin online, there are a few faucets around, open a channel and try your first LN payment.
The first time you do it it is pretty coo!.

Aside from the payment invoices, there are also keysend payments. You can receive such a payment only if you are running your own node. A keysend payment requires only the amount and the destination node id. Payment invoices include more information like: hash of the payment preimage, description, routing hints etc.. So, keysend payments are basically spontaneous payments.


That's what commitment transactions are for. They can enforce the current state of the channel on the first layer. They are actually quite complicated, so I am not going to explain them here in detail, but there is one important thing that you need to know. See the answer below.


There is a risk that the other party might attempt to close the channel with an outdated commitment transaction while you are offline. Once such transaction is confirmed, you have a certain amount of time (usually 144 blocks/~1 day) to broadcast a penalty transaction which sends all of the coins from the channel to your address. If you don't come back online in time, you can lose all or most of your coins.

To mitigate this attack, you could set up a watchtower. If you were using a mobile wallet, you would very likely have 2016 blocks/~2 weeks to broadcast the penalty transaction.


Some people complain that users are more likely to open channels with large HUBs rather than small nodes to avoid routing problems. The thing is that there might be thousands of large nodes in the future.


I don't think so. You still have to pay a transaction fee to open and close a channel. Also, keep in mind that the Lightning Network was designed for micro-payments which would not be economically viable on the first layer, especially when the transaction fees spike for some reason. Still, you can send fairly large payment over the Lightning Network. Payments can be split into smaller chunks and routed through different channels. My node routed quite a few 900k satoshi payments through a single channel.


Most LN node operators, including me, operate at a loss. I am running my own node to support the network and I am not really looking for profit. Earnings from payment routing are a nice bonus since I would keep my channels open for my own use anyway.


If you have an Android phone then you can download Eclair Mobile Testnet. You can get some testnet coins from a random faucet. Alternatively, download BlueWallet, create a Lightning Wallet and post here a payment invoice for 500 satoshi. I will pay it and show you some services where you could spend those coins.

Lightning Network -- Basics.

There are many resources to read from the thread and some of them are recommended above. When you have time, you can read the following resources

• BitMEX 's reports (6 parts)
• Lightning Network Documents
• Overview of lightning network nodes owned by forum users

Apart from the above clarifications by hatshepsut93 with LN there are two major things to consider:
1) you only need very few open channels to be able to transact with every node on the globe. To open/close channels you're required to make on-chain transactions but until you've got liquidity you don't need any other on-chain re-balancing. (any tx you make via LN is OFFCHAIN)
2) the coolest thing that will happen when taproot will become mainstream is that your LN channels opening and closure will become not distinguishable from other regular multisig transaction.

You still need some thought on LN but keep researching and use it.

Hi OP , you are right . The LN can be a confusing area , I’m not 100% clear on the technical side either. I have used LN several times and find it perfect for fast transactions.
This thread is great for beginners
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.44524521
Also this thread will help to
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5158920.900
Good luck and Hope this helps  

Altcoins are welcome to try to copy Lightning Network's design, if they have the features necessary for it, it could work.


The funds will stay on Lightning Network for as long as the channel will be open. But you can't control the node that you open your channel with, so you can't rely on your coins being on LN for years. When the channel closes, your funds will become available on mainnet.


Lightning network doesn't have addresses, it has payment requests that are generated for each new payment.


Lightning network transactions are signed on-chain transactions that don't get broadcasted. The act of closing the channel is actually broadcasting the last state, so the security of LN transaction is very similar to onchain. The possibility of fraud comes from broadcasting a previous state, but there are mechanisms to combat that.


It's not guaranteed to reduce transaction fees on chain. People will still be doing onchain transactions. And miners don't control transaction fees in any way, they are decided by the fee market.


All you need is an open channel that can find a route to all these stores. If the whole network will be fully connected without isolated "islands", you won't have to worry about it.

I first knew about the Lightening Network in @Pmalek thread. I understood its concept, which is majorly to solve the problem created by PoW nature of bitcoin, which are;
1. To fasten BTC transaction processing time.
2. To curtail the transaction fee.

To continually enhance the adoption of LN, it is pertinent to make its algorithm less ambitious compared to the algorithm of the problem it tends to solve(bitcoin).
The complexity of blockchain and btc is actually a piss to many and a factor hindering its massive adoption.
I therefore urge us to be less technical in this thread in order to answer some unanswered questions, many answered and some unexpected questions(maybe worthless in the eyes of many).
Having acknowledged the works of Joseph Poon, Dryja and others for the success of LN, I also praise.
Can we please see the below questions together that may be running in the minds of most newbies in LN like myself.

1. Is Lightening Network only out to solve BTC problems? If no, are all altcoins eligible to use it, if not now maybe in the future when the need arises. Or would there be or is there solution to altcoins limitations?

2. Can the LN be used as a store of value? Which means that I can transfer some amount of btc there and leave it for a long time for saving purposes? If yes, any security risk?
3. Can a user add someones wallet address to the network without his knowledge? What I meant is that must the sender and receiver be authenticated before transaction? It would be better if there is a scenario that an organisation can pay her thousands of staff through LN without involving the staff in the network(since there might not be a time that the staff will send money to the organisation)Like, campaign managers paying users here through Lightening Network opened and closed from their end. I don't know if someone understands me.

4. Since the blockchain only records transaction at opening and closing a channel, will it be nice to have a mechanism that mirrors the transaction in the LN to the blockchain for on blockchain record keeping and security even when they are not charged transactions fees?

5. Can someone explain to me that LN is not centralization in decentralization?

6. The increase in the adoption of LN will invariably reduce the reward of the miners, Will this not amount to further increase in the on blockchain transaction fees?

7. In the off chain transaction, is it that there is a very low transaction fee or there isn't a transaction fee at all. If the former holds true, are there node operators in LN, if yes, how sufficient is their reward.

8. In the case of buying coffee.  If I have to buy coffee from 5 different stores, do I need to open and close channel 5 different times? Isn't the cost of opening and closing these channels equal transaction fee on the blockchain?

9. Is there a demo version to try out the LN without using real btc in other to get acquainted with the process.

I am sorry if most of the questions are illogical or substandard and hence piss, I promise by next year, I might not get where I want to be in crypto, but I will not be where I am today.
Perfect Peace!