Topic: POLL: Have You Ever Used the Lightning Network? - page 2. (Read 751 times)

Nobody follows the New York Agreement anymore.  That's the point.  People moved on and created a 400 billion dollar altcoin market.  The lost synergies have most definitely cost the Bitcoin market a ton of value, heartache, time spent bickering amongst each other, and splintered the real resource, creators of use cases, while making low value trades of BTC ridiculously expensive and replacing real world activity with the idea of hodling.  I don't know about you, but if I found Bitcoin today and it's main use was to hold and try to sell to someone later for more, I would have avoided it, as I don't invest in the Greater Fool Theory.  Wall Street is certainly embracing it as a way to generate management fees, so if that was satoshi's goal, to create another revenue source for the existing monetary system, congratulations, we did it!  People are even more excited about Dogecoin now for god's sake...  It's tough to say what could have been, but it's simple to say what became was not the original intent that had many of us excited to help change the world.  Do you think the New York Agreement would still have failed if everyone knew that in 2021 the Lightning network would be what it is today?



OK, I've never had someone ask me to open a Lightning channel for any reason, ever.  Escrow was just one example.  Come to think of it, I don't even think I've seen Lightning payments accepted for any goods or services on this forum ever.  This despite having the "altcoin pass" to post anywhere here while other altcoins do not.

I have never used the lightning network.  There's lots of altcoin networks I've never used.  I don't find lightning to be any more special than any of the others.  I actually find it to be less honorable than most given the developer's attitude following the New York Agreement so it isn't something I'd rush to support.  I've also never had a single escrow request come in for Lightning funds, despite receiving hundreds of requests for other altcoins, leading me to believe that not many users are doing any real activity with Lightning.

BlueWallet doesn't require opening an LN channel. As LoyceV replied, this custodial part of the wallet where the channel is already open on their side. You just need to transfer part of the funds from the main chain to top-up the LN wallet.

It depends:
BlueWallet is custodial, so you don't need your own channel. I think LN transaction fees are up to 0.3%, which is still very low (assuming you only use it for small amounts).
Phoenix Wallet opens a channel for you. They charge some fees for this:
I kinda expect them to charge a bit more in the future, but that's just my speculation.

So by the term "does everything for me" you mean it automatically opens a channel for you right ?
Even if it does it automatically, you would still have to pay the fees for opening the channel right ?

I haven't tried LN on Electrum. It requires you to manually open a channel, and after trying that on several wallets, I came to the conclusion that it's much easier to use a wallet that does everything for me.

I have not used the Lightning Network yet but will probably use it soon. I did try to open up a channel once.
I had downloaded and configured the Electrum wallet to open up a channel just when the payment was settled mutually.
So I'm just waiting for the next payment period to arrive when I will be opening up a channel and then start the Lightning Network payment on occasions.

One thing I would like to ask is many people are mentioning wallets I have never heard of before.
Is Electrum not so good for Lightning payments or are the other wallets too good for them ?

I made the payment from Phoenix Wallet, so it's not just "internal" on BlueWallet.

You can try a casino. Deposit 5 sat, double it, withdraw 10 sat

Let's give it a try then so here it is, QR code for 100 satoshis invoice





edit: Damn that was fast, 100 satoshis already received! Thanks @LoyceV, I really appreciate it. Now I can cross it off the bucket list! Anyone willing to do the same, post QR code with a few satoshis  invoice so I can try to do the same?

I'll answer:
1. Yes
2. I pay with LN whenever I can, sometimes a few times per week. With the right wallet, it's very easy to use.
3. I've tried many (but won't mention the inconvenient ones). I now only use BlueWallet and Phoenix Wallet. The former has custodial LN, the latter non-custodial. Both on Android, both wallets take care of channels (they charge a small percentage fee for this), incoming capacity and connectivity. There's not much you have to setup manually (just create your backups).
4. Acceptance. And to accomplish that, more people should start using it.

Then don't use those exchanges I've used CoinPlaza and FixedFloat with LN. The latter has a very low minimum, it allows to exchange $1 worth of Bitcoin LN for an altcoin! It's a great way to try the LN network and see how fast it works too.
I've even used LN to pay for hosting.

Problem 1 is easy: use one of the wallets mentioned above. And problem 2 isn't a problem in LN: LN is perfect for small amounts!

I'll give you a reason: this very post is what made me bump you to Legendary! How's that for motivation to install a LN-wallet?

Please post a QR-code with a 100 sat ($0.05, I'm cheap) LN payment request. I'll fund the first 10-ish I'll see (one per user of course). I don't want to turn this into a giveaway thread, but for testing it should be okay. If your request is valid for 24 hours I should see it on time (if it's only 1 hour I might be asleep).
I'm asking for a QR-code so I can easily pay from mobile without copying codes.

It's pretty high in rich countries too. As long as they don't allow LN withdrawals, I simply don't withdraw low amounts of Bitcoin, but withdrawing an altcoin to an instant exchange to turn it into LN works like a charm!

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I always said I only use LN for small amounts, and I'm okay with custodial for small amounts. But since Bitcoin went up quite a lot and $10 on-chain transactions aren't really worth the fees anymore, my LN balance is slowly increasing.

That's him alright.

Maybe someone else did the same thing, but the one I remember doing it was @bpovtmg when he created the thread last September in which he was giving 200 Satoshis for free for those who installed  Lightning Network wallet. That was exactly the reason why I downloaded Blue Wallet, but somehow I forgot to ask for those free satoshis in order to test it.


+1

This is the key, ease of use, and until that is sorted I don't think that use of LN will get any traction. Sooner or later that will happen though, as with everything. But until then, it will be used by those few that are either tech savvy enough, or really interested in all this.

It's precisely because of those withdrawal fees that many centralized exchanges won't act that quickly to implement the Lightning Network. It will weaken their revenue structure. Traders will still be using their services, with or without LN. If I am not mistaken, Binance was quite slow with the introduction of the SegWit upgrade as well.

Excellent advice. I will bookmark the address because it can be useful in the future.   

I am sure that will be sorted out with time. The developers have to understand that if LN (and Bitcoin for that matter) is to get some serious traction, it has to become understandable and easy to use for those with 0 experience with that subject.

I think that was LoyceV or jackg.

I remembered one guy over here giving away 100/ 500 Sats for free if you enabled LN on your wallet.

I tried but never received the Sats because it expired/ became invalid and he never replied to my inquiry

It depends on LN implementation/software you use. Here's few example for BlueWallet from reddit,

1. https://reddit.com/r/bluewallet/comments/atl0ne/api_error_try_again_later_code_9/


2. https://reddit.com/r/lightningnetwork/comments/kyky1l/1_of_fund_stuck_in_blue_wallet_lighting/

I did a couple of tests when it was first introduced and AFAICR, that's it... Some of the online stores that I use from time to time offer it but I still prefer using the on-chain transaction instead.
^{- Having said those, I have nothing against it [I'm just fine using on-chain TXs (with its current limitations)].}

In addition to "Pmalek's second post", you can find a few more places from here: 1ML directory ^{[website links are usually posted in the "Owner Info" section]}

By the way, let me help you with a small tip when you need to quickly find topics with specific keyword if you are guessing one user has big interest in that area. Assume you want to find topics on lightning network from jackg

• Go with this hidden link: https://bitcointalk.org/gettopics.php?user=543626
• Search with keyword is: lightning or LN
• 543626 is the jackg's UID.

It's a quick and very efficient searching.

So far, I have never transacted using LN, but I have heard about it quite often on several occasion. At this time, I can't try to make transaction using LN because maybe I don't need it yet. But yes, LN will be very helpful for small transaction and I'll try it next time. Hopefully someone in my area will accept an LN payment for just a pack of cigarette. 

Yep. The list of services that accepts Lightning is surely slowly but surely growing. But still, I think that international exchange giants such as Binance is what's going to decently boost up adoption if they started accepting Lightning. As we speak, the withdrawal fee is 0.0005 which is more or less $25 in current prices. That's definitely pretty high for most people in poor countries.

According to https://lightningnetworkstores.com/, a lot of the sites that accept Lightning payments are crypto casinos and sportsbooks. But there seems to be a couple of exchanges that have integrated LN as well. There aren't that many familiar names and I have only heard about these:

- SouthXchange
- Bitfinex
- Bitgild

This one seems to have the most hits:
https://fixedfloat.com/

How do the error messages look now?

Thanks for the remainders. I didn't know that jackg has so many LN-related threads. I will take a look at them.

So does a standard on-chain bitcoin transaction. However, if you send/receive bitcoin from the same people on a regular basis it would make sense using it.

Considering that not even Bitcoin has seen massive adoption yet, I don't think Lightning Network will either just yet. We shouldn't forget that this is still a work in progress and the development is still on-going.