To me, the best analogy for Bitcoin is digital. The gold is old but still valuable.
Bitcoin is now on its way to becoming a reserve currency like dollars and gold. I am talking about bringing the Lightning network to Bitcoin, and I think that most of the criticism of the issue will be solved and bitcoin will be in an unquestionable position.
Topic: Lightning network - when exactly is it going to happen? (Read 132 times)
1. When is LN expected to be implemented? Given the current state of the network, this has to be priority number 1 for the Bitcoin Core devs. So a concrete date or at least a rough estimate should be on the table. Not "some time in 2018".
Bitcoin Core developers have been against increasing the mempool for years. Why would they want to support Lightning Network? Core devs are not the ones developing LN, so they have nothing to do with its release.
LN may not be the solution that you're looking for. In theory, it sounds great, but that just means that we now have a payment channel that not only we have to trust, but one that has to trust us that we won't be looking for exploits and bugs in the system. Additionally, LN goes against the peer-to-peer nature of the blockchain, and ultimately becomes a centralized second-layer off-chain platform for Bitcoin. My biggest concern with LN is that the only types of companies that are large enough or have enough capital to provide a level of trust for these channels are... well, banks and exchanges. So if you trust banks and exchanges, then by all means, have fun using LN.
All in all, LN is going to happen, but BTC Core devs have nothing to do with its implementation or development.
This is an important question!
And I am also interested in an answer.
Moreover, it is important for the community and the users of bitcoin to have free and easy access to the status of the lightning network.
I must stress again, that the buzzword "lightning network" for silencing sceptics or newbies is NOT enough! It cannot be, that the developers do their job in secret, releasing some information for the plebs every few months. More tranparency is necessary.
What ever that means for the public:
https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-fees-mainnet-lightning-network/
That is great news.And I am also interested in an answer.
Moreover, it is important for the community and the users of bitcoin to have free and easy access to the status of the lightning network.
I must stress again, that the buzzword "lightning network" for silencing sceptics or newbies is NOT enough! It cannot be, that the developers do their job in secret, releasing some information for the plebs every few months. More tranparency is necessary.
What ever that means for the public:
https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-fees-mainnet-lightning-network/
BTC dominance has fallen due to people buying up other crypto currencies addressing the speed and cost problem. When that’s not an issue with Bitcoin anymore, people will flood out of the alts back to bitcoin.
No one needs Verge, Raiblocks, Litecoin, and 100 other currency alts when you have LN on Bitcoin
But who has LN running first: Bitcoin or Litecoin.
I would love to believe, that there is a race/competition of being the first. However, the information, that is provided by the LN-developers is really lousy.
This is an important question!
And I am also interested in an answer.
Moreover, it is important for the community and the users of bitcoin to have free and easy access to the status of the lightning network.
I must stress again, that the buzzword "lightning network" for silencing sceptics or newbies is NOT enough! It cannot be, that the developers do their job in secret, releasing some information for the plebs every few months. More tranparency is necessary.
What ever that means for the public:
https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-fees-mainnet-lightning-network/
That is great news.And I am also interested in an answer.
Moreover, it is important for the community and the users of bitcoin to have free and easy access to the status of the lightning network.
I must stress again, that the buzzword "lightning network" for silencing sceptics or newbies is NOT enough! It cannot be, that the developers do their job in secret, releasing some information for the plebs every few months. More tranparency is necessary.
What ever that means for the public:
https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-fees-mainnet-lightning-network/
BTC dominance has fallen due to people buying up other crypto currencies addressing the speed and cost problem. When that’s not an issue with Bitcoin anymore, people will flood out of the alts back to bitcoin.
No one needs Verge, Raiblocks, Litecoin, and 100 other currency alts when you have LN on Bitcoin
This implies the next important question: Which wallet supports LN already? Or stated differently: which wallet provides information about their LN-protocol implementations status?
There's Eclair wallet and lnd. Both are Lightning only, no regular wallet software has Lightning payments integrated that I'm aware of.
You can use Lightning right now, but at your own considerable risk. Well-known websites don't yet accept it. The only reason to use it is to pay between yourself and others that are willing to take the risk that an undiscovered bug might eat your BTC unrecoverably. It may be difficult to use the Lightning software (because it's incomplete).
Again, trying Lightning wallets now is a massive risk. Best advice is not to try Lightning until it's been released officially by the developers working on these wallets. It could be months till that happens.
Anyway you will have to transfer the funds to the wallet which uses LN protocol, and from there you can use your BTC via LN.
So this means firstly, that the wallet developers have to include the LN-protocol into their software. Then, I have to transfer some bigger amount to this wallet via a standard bitcoin transaction. After that, I can pay many small amounts from this wallet without affecting the blockchain.
This implies the next important question: Which wallet supports LN already? Or stated differently: which wallet provides information about their LN-protocol implementations status?
The best source of information about the LN is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7npeh6/lightning_network_megathread/
A to Z. (Highly recommend to check)
Can I Send Funds From Lightning to a Normal Bitcoin Address? (works in opposite way also)
No, for now. For the first version of the protocol, if you wanted to send a normal bitcoin transaction using your channel, you have to close it, send the funds, then reopen the channel (3 transactions). In future versions, you and your peer would agree to spend out of your lightning channel funds just like a normal bitcoin payment, allowing you to use your lightning wallet like a normal bitcoin wallet.
Anyway you will have to transfer the funds to the wallet which uses LN protocol, and from there you can use your BTC via LN.
A to Z. (Highly recommend to check)
Can I Send Funds From Lightning to a Normal Bitcoin Address? (works in opposite way also)
No, for now. For the first version of the protocol, if you wanted to send a normal bitcoin transaction using your channel, you have to close it, send the funds, then reopen the channel (3 transactions). In future versions, you and your peer would agree to spend out of your lightning channel funds just like a normal bitcoin payment, allowing you to use your lightning wallet like a normal bitcoin wallet.
Anyway you will have to transfer the funds to the wallet which uses LN protocol, and from there you can use your BTC via LN.
However the problem with BTC is that the updates are taking a lot of time to be implemented. Lets take Segwit for example, it was introduced and accepted long time ago, and it solves some security problems + it would make the transactions faster and lower the fees, but at the moment only 10% of service providers and exchanges are using it. If you would notice lots of streamers are talking about it now, because they want to spread the word and urge people to use only Segwit service providers.
My problem is, that I do not understand the LN.
What I understand is, that two parties open a payment channel via the provision of the same amount of founds to a mulitsig-address. Then, only deltas in form of transactions are exchanged between the two parties, without broadcasting the transactions and, thus, without using the blockchain. Connecting many such channels results in the LN.
What I do not understand is, how I, as a simple user with funds in the blockchain, get my bitcoins into a payment channel. A standard transaction would be too wasteful with respect to transaction fees. So how does it work? And why is it so hard to implement? Imho, this step is not explained in the low-level explanations.
Clearly, the LN should be secure. I think, the step described in the link I provided above is the right path: giving users the possibility to use the LN on the main net for small and negligible amounts.
Hey,
It is already happening, but just not as fast as we would like. There are already some providers which are accepting LN payments. For the reference: https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-fees-mainnet-lightning-network/
However the problem with BTC is that the updates are taking a lot of time to be implemented. Lets take Segwit for example, it was introduced and accepted long time ago, and it solves some security problems + it would make the transactions faster and lower the fees, but at the moment only 10% of service providers and exchanges are using it. If you would notice lots of streamers are talking about it now, because they want to spread the word and urge people to use only Segwit service providers.
It is already happening, but just not as fast as we would like. There are already some providers which are accepting LN payments. For the reference: https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-fees-mainnet-lightning-network/
However the problem with BTC is that the updates are taking a lot of time to be implemented. Lets take Segwit for example, it was introduced and accepted long time ago, and it solves some security problems + it would make the transactions faster and lower the fees, but at the moment only 10% of service providers and exchanges are using it. If you would notice lots of streamers are talking about it now, because they want to spread the word and urge people to use only Segwit service providers.
This is an important question!
And I am also interested in an answer.
Moreover, it is important for the community and the users of bitcoin to have free and easy access to the status of the lightning network.
I must stress again, that the buzzword "lightning network" for silencing sceptics or newbies is NOT enough! It cannot be, that the developers do their job in secret, releasing some information for the plebs every few months. More tranparency is necessary.
What ever that means for the public:
https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-fees-mainnet-lightning-network/
And I am also interested in an answer.
Moreover, it is important for the community and the users of bitcoin to have free and easy access to the status of the lightning network.
I must stress again, that the buzzword "lightning network" for silencing sceptics or newbies is NOT enough! It cannot be, that the developers do their job in secret, releasing some information for the plebs every few months. More tranparency is necessary.
What ever that means for the public:
https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-fees-mainnet-lightning-network/
It seems to me that ever since the transaction fees skyrocketed steadily and the backlog filled up with unconfirmed transactions, everyone's been discussing how the LN could change that.
My questions are:
1. When is LN expected to be implemented? Given the current state of the network, this has to be priority number 1 for the Bitcoin Core devs. So a concrete date or at least a rough estimate should be on the table. Not "some time in 2018".
2. Is there anyone that can prevent it from happening? Like the miners, for instance, because the current status quo is in their favor, and the way I see it, they got no reason to lose out on miner fees. Hence, could they do something to stop LN or delay it considerably?
My questions are:
1. When is LN expected to be implemented? Given the current state of the network, this has to be priority number 1 for the Bitcoin Core devs. So a concrete date or at least a rough estimate should be on the table. Not "some time in 2018".
2. Is there anyone that can prevent it from happening? Like the miners, for instance, because the current status quo is in their favor, and the way I see it, they got no reason to lose out on miner fees. Hence, could they do something to stop LN or delay it considerably?
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