Topic: Lightning Network Observer - page 35. (Read 13552 times)

I have a channel with podcast.org and MOSTLY see lots of little sub 20 sat relays.  Its cool!

Podcasting is an interesting example, since podcast micropayments through Lightning are implemented quite nicely in Breez.
You can set it to pay a few sats (any amount you want) every minute you listened. And compared to traditional solutions, it doesn't just count the minutes and does a one-off payment afterwards; it directly pays LN invoices every minute which is not possible without BTC and Lightning.

Chivo Lightning Node is growing well.

The address linked to the official El Salvador Wallet is now more than 22 BTC stored in capacity:





It has recently declined from a top capacity of over 27 BTC.


Of course this means a lot of people in El Salvador is using this custodial wallet instead of using a non custodial solution, but I guess that wit h time, and education, a bigger and bigger portion of people in El Salvador will use more sophisticated and privacy sensible solution.

Another interesting fact is the capacity management of the node:



Node managers tend to adjust capacity with frequent rebalances from/to blockchain.
I guess they have a partnership with Bitfinex, and they need to adjust the capacity according to the FIAT imbalances on the node: the more people want to convert sats in FIAT, the more they need to see BTC to pay for this FIAT, on the opposite if people want to Hodl on Chivo, the more they need to add capacity the node.

Kevin Rooke is out with an interesting Article:

The Lightning Network's Next Big Use Case



Here discusses the impact of LN on content creators.
Something we might not really familiar with, today, but could be relevant in the newer future. He actually also discloses, in the last row of the article, his investment on this thesis.

Arcane Research has been presenting "State of Lightning" report at "Adopt Bitcoin" in El Salvador.

They also updated some data and came out with this one:




https://twitter.com/ArcaneResearch/status/1460863760218963968?s=20

Probably this is the original report they presented a few weeks ago:

A nice thread by@Rath_ on the board for sharing discussion on Lightning implementations and experience about running a node.
The Lightning Network node experience

BabysittingRunning a LN node can be a cumbersome task. In this thread you can learn from others and share your own strategies.
Worth a read.

But what happens if you spill beer on your phone and then can't get more beer?

On a serious note (yes more serious then beer), I have seen a major uptick in transactions routing through my nodes over the last few weeks. Not a major amount, but where my 3 nodes would do 5 a month I have been averaging about 7 or 8 a week since mid October. Anyone else seeing this?

-Dave

I don't know about you guys, but after this bull run I'll probably buy one of those..
https://twitter.com/i/status/1456346866875052034
Fits perfect to my plans to start making home brewed beer hopefully next year.

With the term "centralized" I mean only we are all using the same services, programs, and apps to access the internet.
Wonder why it's such a big issue when Google of FB have problems and their services go down?
Because the internet is centralized, if everyone is using Gmail as a mail server

a p2p browser? we shouldn't try and reinvent the wheel

there is this article from the ceo of the breez wallet, which i recommend reading:
https://medium.com/breez-technology/lightning-the-internet-choosing-the-right-path-bedfa6382316

i am all in favor for a lightweight lightning network and not some "frankenstein network" impervious tries to build. also all their claims are not verifiable, there is no source code (correct me if i didn't look at the right place). don't forget the saying: don't trust, verify

on another point: saying the internet is centralised, just tells me, that you don't understand how the internet works

The centralization of Internet is just a phase, we are already moving forward. We are on the Web3 move and soon things will be different.
It's amazing how everything started with an idea of an anonymous guy and a white paper of that idea and it went so global that is changing the world as we know it right in this very moment.

And the LN plays a big role too, not only after the Twitter integration just off-chain transactions is the future, ~0 fees, fast transactions and fast growing network, what would you want more.

I don't get it how people still buy ETH, just moving some dust cost hundreds.. insanity.

The future is exciting

Exactly.  My thoughts with the quoted post are just that the centralization of the internet is kind of up to the user.  Thre are arguably fundamental points of centralization such as TLDs, but even then TOR and i2p solve these issues (at least somewhat).

So, you can use the internet in a VERY decentralized way, like using fedarated social media servers (mastadon), and TOR and VPNs etc...  Or you can just plug straight into Google.

And for some things I want the latter.

It will be the same for lightning.  There will be ways to use it in a centralized way and ways not to.

I will tell you this... I have thought about taking my family on the holy trip of the Bitcoiner to El Zonte in ES for a vacation.  If I do I will be taking at least two lighting wallets.  I will try to primarily use my own node (with Zeus), but I would also load up my Wallet of Satoshi to have as a standby. in case something went screwy with my node.

That is a perfect example on the simplest level of using decentralization and centralization to my advantage.

the p2p browser is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2022


https://www.impervious.ai/
https://twitter.com/Bitcoin/status/1455297028125196290

The internet is centralized: Yes.
Is the internet centralized by design: No.

Of course, centralization has a lot of nice features: it's damn easy and convenient.
Of course that is at a cost: privacy and freedom.

In case of centralized actors turn evil, can the users show the middle finger and turn away? Yes.


Lightning network is similar, not all systems are built this way. The banking system is centralized (every dollar exchanged in the world has to go through the NY FED), and you cannot basically escape from it.

This is a relevant feature.

I have read this one back around the time it came out.

I think the LN is going to evolve in a way MUCH like the internet.  Is the internet centralized or not?

Yes.

Looking at the profile, it seems this person is posting random quotes from the internet. I shall check for plagiarism later.

Edit: yes, my suspicion was true. He's reported already: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.58124330

i nearly reported your post. what are you saying? why should primary nodes fail? why should i make a backup plan after looking what develops? if what gets worse?  i am confused...

here is a nice summary of the arcane research which was posted before from my italy dude fillippone

https://cryptonews.com/news/bitcoin-lightning-network-is-growing-faster-than-you-think.htm

A lot of the clustering debate originated from this paper ^{I might have already posted it here?}

Lightning Network: a second path towards centralisation of the Bitcoin economy

Maybe you could find useful insight, even if I am afraid the taxonomy of the network has changed a lot since the publication of the paper.

Thanks for that Arcane Tech link fillippone.  This is good stuff.

I have been thinking a lot about the clustering idea and where it will lead, and what it's natural balances are.

So far the LN is an open protocol that anyone can join and there are different costs and incentives for joining different ways.  As a custodial service customer to a profit seeking node.  But there are also lots of service provider roles we are seeing appear as the network matures.

Take Strike.  They are a service provider that uses the LN as the backbone for really a traditional finance product they offer.  So their incentives for running nodes on the network are different than, say, WoS, Fold, or your average tinkerer like me.  Yet what they do potentially benefits the network. 

It is also possible nodes like Strike's could do net damage to the network (I am not seeing this happening now/yet).    They could sequester traffic or deny traffic etc.

So I am thinking through all the incentive theory etc that we are seeing appear.  I am not sure there has ever been a network like the LN where nodes can benefit from simply participating.  Even the base layer of Bitcoin is much different in it's incentive structure.

But it is natural in systems like this one that traffic (read: information) is going to find the most efficient routes to flow, and the network as a whole will determine what is and is not really advantageous. 

SUPER interesting stuff in my opinion.  I think the LN as a business is where bitcoin mining was before say, Asics.  What i mean is back then mining was unfolding and moving from CPUs to graphics cards, and owning a mining business was an interesting and constantly changing game.  The LN is not the same as this at all... but it's evolution will follow a path, and we are very early still.  What will be the big game changers on this path like ASICS were for the base layer nodes?  What incentives will appear and change for the LN? 

These are the questions that are interesting, and possibly profitable, right now!