but it was end to end over a single channel. It can become quite complex over multiple hops over several channels.
Yes it is complicated and Dave on the far end of the route might not be on-line for days at a time
Alice-------->Bob-------->Carol--------->Dave
"When Alice sends payment to Dave through Bob and Carol, she requests
from Dave hash(R) to use for this payment. Alice then counts the
amount of hops until the recipient and uses that as the HTLC expiry. In this
case, she sets the HTLC expiry at 3 days. Bob then creates an HTLC with
Carol with an expiry of 2 days, and Carol does the same with Dave with an
expiry of 1 day. Dave is now free to disclose R to Carol, and both parties will
likely agree to immediate settlement via novation with a replacement Commitment
Transaction. This then occurs step-by-step back to Alice. Note
that this occurs off-chain, and nothing is broadcast to the blockchain when
all parties are cooperative."
it uses a number of HTLC (Time locks) that locks up funds for both Bob and Dave
and they themselves need to set up multisigs private ledger settlement and disputes
can result in settlement going to arbitration and one side having to pay Miner fees
so here we have potential counter party risk.
if Bob and Carol are not major banking hubs with many inter connecting channels
to other major banks then a dispersed network like this even if we assume each person
always has two channels open would require at a guess something like 2,000 hops
so again we are being presented with a case that is not really relevant unless it only
covers a few streets if all the channels are bidirectional which is another pain in the bum
by itself.
See image
http://forum.cryptolivecap.com/posts/m38-Lightning-Network#post38IMHO even if we forget my love of bankers/miners this is not an elegant solution to
the problem of scaling and if I know it then they know it also so why are they doing this
because from what I can see the lightning network is a good system for international
banking but in this case the central bank become the Bitcoin block chain instead of the
FED, ECB or IMF