IMO the current bitcoin mining operation is centralized by the likes of Bitmain and some mining pools. As far as I have read, LN would lower the fee a lot, off-chain transactions would lead to more user privacy, and exchanges would not be prone to hackers. Payment channels/hubs getting centralized is a possibility, you would need a lot of revenue backup to operate hubs and some big players like Coinbase would dominate, but the same thing is happening now. Hard fork is not backwards compatible, and with the rate bitcoin is getting adopted increasing blocksize would be a temporary solution, what happens when limit is reached, another hard fork? Segwit alone is not a scaling solution, LN is. If it could be said that LN would lead to centralization then it is not wrong to say that bigger blocks would lead to centralization simply because only a few miners would be able to afford to run full nodes, centralized entities.
As a user, I do not see why not LN. I am not against bigger blocks, but LN could be the permanent scaling solution. Using temporary solutions and letting bitcoin users go through periods of uncertainty would be bad to the community as a whole. The prolonged scaling debate and increased fee has already affected bitcoin, alts have increased in value during this time, continuing this would be illogical.
LN does have a niche.. but if you actually look beyond the utopian propaganda illusion and see it for what it is. its not a solution for everyone. so dont be under the impression that LN is the solution... its just a OPTION.
as for the bigger blocks kills miners.. LOL
miners just use ASICS, which connect to pools.. an ASIC does NOT have a hard drive. an asic does not handle the blockchain, an asic does not validate transactions.
miners dont have any worries about the blockchain. all they get is a
few hundred bytes of data. that the asic re-hashes a few trillion times a second and then sends out a solution thats only a
few hundred bytes long.. not megabytes, not gigabytes..
as for nodes..
the fact that most dynamic proposals (if using real network consensus) would grow only when the majority of nodes accept such change.. then its not going to cause issues.
what is going to cause bigger node dilution issues is all the prunned/stripped/filter node crap that (using torrent analogy) means there is less seeds of full data for other nodes to leach from
I found one of your old posts.
LN can be considered a bank network.
afterall.. what is a bank
a system where your not in full control of your funds.
the bank can put limits on your spending habits by refusing to authorise transactions
customers require the banks authorisation/agreement.
the only recourse in a disagreement is to close the account
although LN is not a central bank. it is a next gen localised bank. where LN hubs become the new bank branch managers
you can glorify LN as being linked to the open bitcoin network should a customer want to close channel.
but thats just like saying a bank manager of a local bank branch is a glorified accountant supervisor who has no control of SWIFT/cheque clearing house should a customer wish to close their account and take funds elsewhere.
accepting what LN is.. a side option/service. rather then an endgoal solution to bitcoin.. is the way to think about it.
LN has utility for fast action users like satoshidice, faucets, etc. but its not the solution for everyone
No third-party trust: the two peers in a channel pay each other directly using regular Bitcoin transactions (of which only one is broadcast) so at no point does any third party control their funds.
Their earlier version had time locked channels.
Channels can stay open indefinitely: as long as the two parties in the channel continue to cooperate with each other, the channel can stay open indefinitely -- there is no mandatory timeout period. This can further reduce the load on the blockchain as well as allow the fees for opening and closing the channel to be amortized over a longer period of time.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Lightning_NetworkI am not arguing with you. You are too well versed in the technical aspects of bitcoin than I ever would be. As far as control of funds is concerned, once a user deposits funds into a channel it is moved to a multi-sig address, smart contract, now only when the user signs that these funds need to be moved or transferred then only it is done, the channel itself cannot do anything without the user signing, right. The channel is just the middleman who does not have any control over the funds.
LN is an open source code, anyone can start a node, but yeah eventually some nodes may become bigger, but still I would not compare it to a bank since you have full control of your funds.
I did not meant that bigger blocks would kill miners, that bigger blocks would lead to less miners running full nodes so in the long run a miner might have control over a substantial amount of hashpower which in turn would make bitcoin more centralized.
