Topic: Lightning Network - not the real solution to BTC scaling problems? (Read 243 times)

franky1, do you have any idea how thoroughly obliterated your reputation is since you spent months throwing FUD at Segwit/LN last year?

It came and the world didn't end. You are pushing an agenda, and you will keep on failing.

I won't accept your words.Because now the transaction fee of bitcoin is one third of previous transaction fee.I think you had posted this thread without the current knowledge about transaction fee.I was dam sure it's reduced one third to old value by this Lightning Network.

firstly ebliever. you read too much reddit propaganda. and try pushing anything thats not blockstream roadmap as being fud made by 2 guys.
you need to start having some original thoughts of your own instead of just repeating the same reddit buzzwords

maybe its worth you taking off the blockstream roadmap defense cap and actually learn LN. learn the limitations.
the link you put PRETENDS that LN can remain open indefinetly and limitlessly

EG
"Together, these mean that in theory, a user can create a fixed number of channels that will last her a lifetime. She can receive her salary or payments through these channels, and send out payments back again through them, ad infinitum, without ever needing to close channels or create new ones."

but i dare you to put that into practice, run some scenarios

imagine people opened channels with $60 deposits(UTXO)

[A:60 <-> B:60]       [B:60 <-> C:60]       [C:60 <-> D:60]
firstly
it cost A 1 onchain tx to open channel AB
it cost B 2 onchain tx to open channel AB and BC
it cost C 2 onchain tx to open channel BC and CD
it cost D 1 onchain tx to open channel CD

secondly
A needed $60 funds
B needed $120 funds to be part of the routing
C needed $120 funds to be part of the routing
D needed $60 funds

now imagine A wanted to pay D $60
remember A's funds do not leave [A<->B] what happens is
A pays B in [A<->B]..  
then B uses his separate [B<->C] to pay C..
remember C's funds do not leave [B<->C] what happens is
C uses his separate [C<->D] to pay D..

result is:
[A:0 <-> B:120]       [B:0 <-> C:120]       [C:0 <-> D:120]
now
B cannot buy anything from C or D
C cannot buy anything from D

all because A raided B,C
now B C have to wait and hope for a reason to get funds back for some reason.
yep B and C have not even had chance to use their own $60 for their own spending. and its already gone due to routing. all they have left is to wait and hope or to close channels (costing them more onchain fees. to then use even further onchain fee's to open new channels to redistribute the $120 back into the 2 channels of $60.. and just hope that A wont screw them over again

remember routes only work if there is sufficient funds available by those involved in the hops
remember the funds dont actually leave the channels when the chanels are open

i do find it funny how the utopian dream of infinite, limitless usage is talking about paying salaries. can you imagine the headache of trying to give someone $1200+ when most hops are only $60
meaning for someone to get paid $1200+ they would need to have 20 channels open and raid ALL 20 channels of their $60. meaning 20 other people are out of their spending amounts

and before you even say that people will put in $1k+ into each channel.. they wont. most people will only put in an amount that they think they need to spend to cover their daily spend habits for the things they buy ATLEAST once a day (like coffee/sandwiches) because most people wont open a channel just for their monthly salary just to close the channel, to then distrubute it.

no one woulld put their life savings into LN as their are many risks

atleast run scenarios instead of copying and pasting other peoples utopian empty promises

I haven't seen the video but it sounds like the propaganda gibberish put out by the bcash cartel. No LN hub will not be regulated, at least there is no evidence to support such wild FUD. There's no way for authorities to trace every node out there anyway, and it would not be cost effective for them to try since it would be so easy to continuously generate new ones.

Big blocks are the stupidest way to scale, and that will become more and more painfully apparent as time goes on. Bcash won't be able to support 1% of the TX that the LN can. Blockstream does not control bitcoin despite all the lies about it (they are not even the biggest contributor to the code last I saw), the dev community simply had much better ideas on how to scale.

Here are some links to counter all the dishonesty apparent in what you've outlined (wittingly or unwittingly):

https://bravenewcoin.com/news/the-legacy-of-bitcoins-bearwhale/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/59kflj/its_becoming_clear_to_me_that_a_lot_of_people/
https://medium.com/@Ulrich_98986/why-the-brazilian-and-argentinian-bitcoin-communities-oppose-segwit2x-801edc213af8
https://medium.com/@menirosenfeld/a-flash-of-insights-on-lightning-network-338aea52e2bc

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but will give you some idea. You need to look at how Bitmain and Roger Ver are involved with the propaganda effort you've stumbled on and how they are profiting off Bcash and from trying to hold Bitcoin back. Google terms like ASICboost and Antbleed for example.

I would like to add on to what some of the other people have said by suggesting you watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4TjfaLgzj4.

Its a little more boring than your video (with no fancy drawings!) but very informative none the less.

Basically increasing blocksize is a temporary solution, that can create centralization. You can't just constantly increase blocksize anytime there is some strain on the network, unless you inevitably want to lead to 1GB+ blocks. I think by keeping blocks at 1MB, a lot of high use clients have been forced to use space in the blockchain more effectively. You can see now slowly exchanges such as Coinbase, Bitfinex, etc. adopting Segwit, making their own transactions cheaper.

Also for lightning hubs, I'll say that people don't need to be directly connected to a node to transact with them. This should help with keeping it decentralized.

This is incorrect. Higher fee transactions move to the miner priority "front of the line". They can be as cheap as you want them to be but your transaction will not be confirmed in a timely manner. Increasing Block sizes is like a dog chasing it's tail. They will continually increase in size in order to continue to scale, until only extremely large and expensive PC's will be able to run the Block chain thereby centralizing into the hands of the very rich. Just like Proof Of Stake does. 

Actually the bitcoin transaction cost is cheap, because the high bitcoin price currently affects expensive transaction costs.

Thanks guys for all your answers! They helped me a lot. It's kind of difficult to stay focused on this ocean of noise.

Increasing the blocksize is just a stop gap, it is in fact being put in to place soon but it won't stop the problem, it will just delay it. Lightning network can be the solution for the next years and return bitcoin to its former glory.

increasing block size is not the solution, it is a simple way of temporarily pushing the problem a little down the line unless you find a way to have 1 GB blocks and still keep bitcoin decentralized.

i personally believe we need a block size increase on top of SegWit and LN though. but not a ridiculous rise. a 2 MB hard fork would suffice for now until the future.

from what i understand from LN hubs, your statement is not true at all.
first of all anyone can still run a hub just like they are running a bitcoin full node but when they run a LN hub they also get something in return (incentive for running it).
also there is no way in hell to regulate (KYC/AML) LN because you can not know the last one that sent you the transaction is the origin of it or just relaying it, and you don't know the destination is the end or just another one relaying it forward. somewhat how a node works in relaying transactions.

It's not necessary that you'd have to transact with those lightning nodes that have open channels and are funded with a lot of money. Everything starts as a monopoly and slowly competition will kick in. There will be more Lightning hubs and more payment channels that are connected to many other payment channels and this should over time make lightning fees even more cheaper (not that they already will be) and also the fact the it'll enable you to make payments as soon as you send them out.

For example I wouldn't need to rely on a 3rd party lightning hub, instead I could create my own payment channel with the party with whom I directly would wna to make payments over multiple-scheduled periords. This way there's no need for KYC / AML or anything.

Also, no I don't think Blockstream is being funded by any large financial institution or a large party associated with the banks. This is just a rumor and a consipracy that people create since they tend to think Blockstream is the only company that controls the development efforts and decisions for Bitcoin. This is completely false. Bitcoin is open source and you can get involved in the development as well. You could write your own research paper or a BIP I guess if you have a succesfully tested and researched plan to help Bitcoin scale.

Also second layer solutions will not be the final go for all of your off-chain payments. Soon there will be Schnorr signatures implemented to help reduce the fees even further and maybe sometime in the future a hardfork to increase the blocksize or an even better proposal. The idea here is to keep the blocksize small enough so that many of us can run nodes and help validate our own transactions and also help decentralize the network.

Hi to all,

I'm thinking about buying again into BTC (had before but sold them), but I'm kind of worried about where it's heading (high tx fees, scaling problems, etc.)
I was hoping that the Lightning Network will solve this but yet again, all kind of rumours here also.

Recently I saw this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g stating that Bitcoin's scaling problems were known from the beginning and the solution was simple -bigger blocks, instead Blockstream promoted Lightning Network.

Now, because of the technical limitations of the Lightning Network, Lightning Hubs will appear which will need to be regulated (KYC/AML) as they will be perceived as 3rd party settlement organizations. By the time, this Hubs will end up being run the very institutions that Bitcoin wanted to avoid - banks.

As such instead of having a fast and furious BTC, Blockstream decided to develop a business model in which they will be paid by all kind of businesses/banks needing to run Lightning Network or Lightning Network Hubs/Nodes.

Does this sound plausible to you?