I just wanted to say thank-you for providing this information and to let you know I'm following the discussion. I have Eclair, Blue, Zap and Phoenix wallets on various tablets and mobile phones to test the applications out and get a feel for the Network's capabilities.
Others, myself included have noticed there are data bottle necks in various parts of the network. I was wondering if you have any information on this phenomenon?
Topic: Lightning Network Observer - page 39. (Read 13648 times)
usually. average users would want to lock up just $100 and have a couple channels
hubs would lock up over $1k per channel and have a dozen+ channels
with the stats showing that 90% of nodes are having 14 channels and each channel being 90% 0.1btc($4k+)
means that the majority(90%) of the network is hubs/elitests) and only 10% are normal average people
normal average users are not playing with atleast $14k spread over channels.. so 90% of the network is not normal average people
so dont get excited with fluffy myth of user adoption. instead just see the services offering free/discounted 'inbounds' is pumping the volume even if there are not many users actually using it
hubs would lock up over $1k per channel and have a dozen+ channels
with the stats showing that 90% of nodes are having 14 channels and each channel being 90% 0.1btc($4k+)
means that the majority(90%) of the network is hubs/elitests) and only 10% are normal average people
normal average users are not playing with atleast $14k spread over channels.. so 90% of the network is not normal average people
so dont get excited with fluffy myth of user adoption. instead just see the services offering free/discounted 'inbounds' is pumping the volume even if there are not many users actually using it
I know capacity isn't usually calculated in $ terms, but with 2,283 Bitcoins, Lightning now has over $100 million locked up the first time in BTC history 
I think it's time this network get's back into the Top 10 for DeFi protocols with locked up value, rather than having 0.0001% of the lockup share.
Can definitely become the most popular for payments, I'm not convinced there's any real competition
I think it's time this network get's back into the Top 10 for DeFi protocols with locked up value, rather than having 0.0001% of the lockup share.
Can definitely become the most popular for payments, I'm not convinced there's any real competition
I opened this thread a little bit more than a month ago and in the meantime LN capacity grew more than 500 BTC:
a little under 400btc.. but who's counting.. seems LN fangirls are always exaggerating to the point of appearing as 125%+ of actual truth in regards to LN
it is more than 500btc - but who is checking the actual numbers right?
Careful, he'll accuse you of poking bears and orchestrating social dramas if you dare to imply he might be wrong.
The only reality is his reality. Where LN is an evil plot to weaken and eventually destroy Bitcoin. Only franky1 can save us all from the horror.
I opened this thread a little bit more than a month ago and in the meantime LN capacity grew more than 500 BTC:
a little under 400btc.. but who's counting.. seems LN fangirls are always exaggerating to the point of appearing as 125%+ of actual truth in regards to LN
it is more than 500btc - but who is checking the actual numbers right?
I opened this thread a little bit more than a month ago and in the meantime LN capacity grew more than 500 BTC:
a little under 400btc.. but who's counting..
seems LN fangirls are always exaggerating to the point of appearing as 125%+ of actual truth in regards to LN
the surprising thing is . if fangirls stop their over exaggerations and over hype. they could actually win more favour by mentioning the hard truths and risks. so that people can be ACTUALLY INFORMED
i guarantee you.
if you actually factually tell people honourably that the tradeoffs of security/value risk of unconfirmed transactions exists to allow 'faster payments' on another network.. instead of pretending LN is as secure and better than bitcoin..
that kind of harse but honest information can actually win more favour
It seems that the Lightning network is no longer a theory, many people are using the lightning network. Can we know which countries are using the lightning network the most? I noticed that El Salvador is a popular Bitcoin Lightning user country and some other countries like the US, Japan.
I opened this thread a little bit more than a month ago and in the meantime LN capacity grew more than 500 BTC:
https://twitter.com/kerooke/status/1424013635559608330?s=20
Also the same author published a interesting article on LN:
The Lightning Network Is Bigger Than You Think
https://twitter.com/kerooke/status/1424013635559608330?s=20
Also the same author published a interesting article on LN:
The Lightning Network Is Bigger Than You Think
Quote
To a casual observer, the Lightning Network looks like a protocol with roughly 2,100 BTC ($86 million) of value "locked" into its network. That's not much in comparison to popular DeFi protocols, and it's even less in comparison to the market cap of Bitcoin.
However, the analysis above is flawed on many levels.
The Lightning Network is not a borrowing protocol, an AMM, or a store of value. Furthermore, the idea that Bitcoin is "locked" on the Lightning Network is misleading at best.
The Lightning Network is a protocol for making instant, nearly-free payments to anyone in the world denominated in Bitcoin, and much of the payment activity on the network happens in private.
Only when we examine the Lightning Network through the lens of a payment network, can we begin to estimate how big it is today, and how much bigger it could be tomorrow.
However, the analysis above is flawed on many levels.
The Lightning Network is not a borrowing protocol, an AMM, or a store of value. Furthermore, the idea that Bitcoin is "locked" on the Lightning Network is misleading at best.
The Lightning Network is a protocol for making instant, nearly-free payments to anyone in the world denominated in Bitcoin, and much of the payment activity on the network happens in private.
Only when we examine the Lightning Network through the lens of a payment network, can we begin to estimate how big it is today, and how much bigger it could be tomorrow.
Let me introduce you to a very basic article by Coinshare Research.
A good, basic primer on Lightning network:
Lightning: Bitcoin’s High Speed Transmission Protocol
Intro
Bitcoin’s usage growth over the past decade has been strong and steady. On this journey, from its humble beginnings, Bitcoin has progressed through several phases of differing usage. Starting as a worthless geeky collectible, it soon moved to a niche instrument of speculation, before graduating to its more recent and increasing use as a store of value, or digital gold. Such progressions inches Bitcoin ever closer to the final and most valuable use case: A global and widely used new form of money.
However, widespread usage of bitcoin as money requires it to be useful as such. For bitcoin to reach its final monetary form, it is not sufficient to be a store of value alone (as is currently the case with gold), it also needs to be a viable medium of exchange. As we will see, this is a peculiar challenge for a decentralised payment system.
Bitcoin was designed to reliably settle peer-to-peer transactions without reliance on any third party. To achieve this, it purposefully prioritises security and settlement finality at the expense of transaction scalability. All decentralised systems face this dilemma as there exists an inescapable tradeoff between decentralisation and scalability at the blockchain level. Take note of that last distinction as it is an important concept to grasp when investigating how scalability can still be achieved in decentralised systems using layering. We’ll return to that in a bit.
A good, basic primer on Lightning network:
Lightning: Bitcoin’s High Speed Transmission Protocol
Quote
Intro
Bitcoin’s usage growth over the past decade has been strong and steady. On this journey, from its humble beginnings, Bitcoin has progressed through several phases of differing usage. Starting as a worthless geeky collectible, it soon moved to a niche instrument of speculation, before graduating to its more recent and increasing use as a store of value, or digital gold. Such progressions inches Bitcoin ever closer to the final and most valuable use case: A global and widely used new form of money.
However, widespread usage of bitcoin as money requires it to be useful as such. For bitcoin to reach its final monetary form, it is not sufficient to be a store of value alone (as is currently the case with gold), it also needs to be a viable medium of exchange. As we will see, this is a peculiar challenge for a decentralised payment system.
Bitcoin was designed to reliably settle peer-to-peer transactions without reliance on any third party. To achieve this, it purposefully prioritises security and settlement finality at the expense of transaction scalability. All decentralised systems face this dilemma as there exists an inescapable tradeoff between decentralisation and scalability at the blockchain level. Take note of that last distinction as it is an important concept to grasp when investigating how scalability can still be achieved in decentralised systems using layering. We’ll return to that in a bit.
Also, she correlates the explosion in LN liquidity to PlebNet. Any insight here?
i am also interested in this - from my point of view it looks more like correlation than causation. one big reason for the rise in liquidity (also mentioned in the article) might be the nearly empty mempool or they're staking channels so they can sit around waiting for users to arrive.
yep this option
lots of services offering "free inbound balance" using 'stake' they locked months-years ago where the 'stake' is not locked to any onchain multisig funding tx between the service and the temporary channel user
offering temporary(30 day) and instant(no confirmed) inbound balance:- without any onchain activity needed
(there are many security flaws with this method, but i wont rant.. this time)
Bitcoin Magazine aked Erin Malone, an article about how to run a successful Lightning Network Node:
FOUR TIPS FOR RUNNING A PROFITABLE LIGHTNING NETWORK NODE
Also, she correlates the explosion in LN liquidity to PlebNet. Any insight here?
FOUR TIPS FOR RUNNING A PROFITABLE LIGHTNING NETWORK NODE
Quote
Running a node is more of an art because each individual channel needs its own unique care and attention. It’s kind of like having a tamagotchi that needs to constantly be taken care of.
Between analyzing traffic flow, fees, which channels to open and close, and rebalancing, you really have to take the time to see how traffic moves and what it costs to move. You have to dig in at the individual route then look at a more macro view over time to set your fees and know where to put your sats. This is where the human touch comes in.
Between analyzing traffic flow, fees, which channels to open and close, and rebalancing, you really have to take the time to see how traffic moves and what it costs to move. You have to dig in at the individual route then look at a more macro view over time to set your fees and know where to put your sats. This is where the human touch comes in.
Also, she correlates the explosion in LN liquidity to PlebNet. Any insight here?
Is centralisation necessarily a problem?
For now it's more of a concern. It's all about potential. Centralised points of failure aren't generally perceived as a problem until they fail. So it's better if something could be done to encourage a wider distribution of the load. But what that "something" might be, I sadly have no idea. Hopefully it's something that happens organically through market forces and competition, but there's no way to tell right now.
Something things do have to go wrong before people adjust their behaviour. When mistakes happen, some people learn right away and change their habits, while others don't. But gradually, over time, there are fewer central points of failure and the whole thing becomes more resilient. A similar situation could arise here. If any of these major nodes have failures, people may be more likely to use smaller nodes in future.
All I can suggest is keep a close eye on it, see what develops, then make contingency plans if it looks like it's getting worse.
- After 4 years from launch the 90% of the liquidity is provided by 1% of the nodes. I hardly see any explaination of why this should be the product of free market, rather than a sort of accident, whose causes and effect I ignore.
either these 1% of nodes are doing alot of high value txs over the network, or they're staking channels so they can sit around waiting for users to arrive. Probably mostly the latter. Seems like natural behavior, some will be purely speculative/service oriented, while others will be rich people who already use Bitcoin for their business payments taking advantage of the cheaper tx fees.
Until a large proportion of merchants and regular people start to use the liquidity (and add their own), the network will continue to be balanced this way.
so, the argument is: "decentralize the money"?how do we do that, by sending any extra money we don't need to [email protected]?
I know the subject has been debated many times. But still there is a lot of issues on the matter.
I think it’s very useful if a payment system is centralised/decentralised/peer-to-peer. Each of those network structures has a set of features, there might not exists an absolute winner.
But honestly recognising the status of the network could be the first step for an analysis.
Having said that:
- After 4 years from launch the 90% of the liquidity is provided by 1% of the nodes. I hardly see any explaination of why this should be the product of free market, rather than a sort of accident, whose causes and effect I ignore.
- Given the above structure, and the stability of the capacity of the median channel, I struggle thinking LN is gaining traction. Something I think it would be a net positive effect.
- I don’t think this centralisation is a problem. It is very similar to the hash power being concentrated at 90% in China: did I like it? No, of course. Was it a problem? Not at all: when China “banned bitcoin” mothers network readjusted by itself. Something probably would happen if the 1% of node would drain their liquidity overnight.
- Which is the best measure for network decentralisation? Capacity? Network usage? Transaction numbers? Which of those metrics can help us assess the LN success and how reliable are them?
An user pointed out a few interesting points, corroborated by some numbers:
https://twitter.com/pablogallegos1/status/1418202181803544581
Is centralisation necessarily a problem?
https://twitter.com/pablogallegos1/status/1418202181803544581
Is centralisation necessarily a problem?
so, the argument is: "decentralize the money"?how do we do that, by sending any extra money we don't need to [email protected]?
Interesting point made to a user answering this tweet:
https://twitter.com/kerooke/status/1417961486253764609
This is the usual update by @kerooke about network growth.
An user pointed out a few interesting points, corroborated by some numbers:
https://twitter.com/pablogallegos1/status/1418202181803544581
Is centralisation necessarily a problem?
https://twitter.com/kerooke/status/1417961486253764609
This is the usual update by @kerooke about network growth.
An user pointed out a few interesting points, corroborated by some numbers:
https://twitter.com/pablogallegos1/status/1418202181803544581
Is centralisation necessarily a problem?
franky1: you were basically banned from gmaxwell in the "The Lightning Network FAQ" thread and now continue here with whatever you are doing...
What matters with BTC more than price action at any given time is the rate of adoption --lightening network is a key piece of adoption because it makes bitcoin viable as what it was originally intended for (peer to peer electronic cash) -- versus primarily as a store of value.
LN growth = bullish for bitcoin.
... to state the obvious. :-)
LN growth = bullish for bitcoin.
... to state the obvious. :-)
bank notes made gold viable(the promotion)...... until people didnt want to withdraw their gold out and instead opted to swap their bank notes for nickel and brass coins
'coz gold too heavy to manage'
'coz gold too expensive to withdraw with'
'coz convenient'
see the pattern
when LN devs are literally screaming it in your face
'bitcoin onchain fees expensive'
'atomic swap to altcoin'
LN does not make bitcoin viable for average joe. it makes average joe viable for altcoins, while custodians take the btc
What matters with BTC more than price action at any given time is the rate of adoption --lightening network is a key piece of adoption because it makes bitcoin viable as what it was originally intended for (peer to peer electronic cash) -- versus primarily as a store of value.
LN growth = bullish for bitcoin.
... to state the obvious. :-)
LN growth = bullish for bitcoin.
... to state the obvious. :-)
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