Topic: Reasons why Lightning Network will fail (Read 1159 times)

I believe what sjefdeklerk means by "decentralized" is "distributed". But the Lightning Network in its present structure today is indeed decentralized.



It is a natural and simple mistake newbies make.

Sorry, I overlooked that answer ...

I would not call it "centralized" but "multi-central". I think both models will co-exist: Technologically savvy people will try to use LN in the most decentralized way possible, while "non-techies" will follow the "easiest" way (using an exchange or online wallet service as "LN bank"). You're right that this isn't what the most optimist LN advocates want but I consider it more realistic than a totally-decentralized LN where the average user can't be sure to pay a high fee.
For advanced users the situation is different; they can try to open several channels in low-fee-periods, so they can route through the network using much smaller hubs and thus use it in a much more decentralized fashion.

Even with this "hybrid"/"multi-central" topology LN is much better and more decentralized than the methods most users follow today  - using Coinbase or even an exchange to deposit your coins. There will be many types of hubs, not only commercial providers but also "altruist" hubs of libertarian Bitcoin early adopters, mini-hubs for groups of friends, etc.
Well, the "LN dreamers'" vision is that the fees would stay relatively low because most people would use LN instead of on-chain transactions. I think with LN enabled and an user base of less than ~50 million people fees won't go as high as in late 2017. But if the user base grows beyond that mark and the Bitcoin community want fees to stay low, then it should also consider sidechains as alternative scaling method because LN + on-chain alone wouldn't be enough imho.

That is a Roger Ver video. Hahaha.

But as a developer yourself, what would your proposal be to make routing better? Can you check the code and tell us where the problems are and explain how to fix them?

Here is a video of the bitcoin lightning network failing to route a transaction https://youtu.be/PgjUXi6XXFc
Sadly, this is quite a common occurence, and as a developer myself, id advise everyone using lightning to only put in bitcoin that you are willing to completely lose

This centralized idea of LN makes at least much more sense than the decentralized version, to that much I agree. But people wanted bitcoin because of decentralization. If we go back to the model where big centralized banks are key in the whole system, will people still like bitcoin? Doesn't this go against the very core of what people look for in bitcoin? But even in that version, everytime you 'recharge' your 'bank' you still would need to pay the huge on-chain fee.

The standard configuration for most non-technically-savvy users would be only one channel: most likely with an exchange that acts as my hub and connects to other sub-hubs, acting also as my "recharging station".

But even the example you mention would make sense. If I have good hardware + a good Internet connection then I can try to profit becoming a mini-hub, charging some (extremely small) fees to the other connected users, for example my friends with less good connections that don't want to connect directly to an exchange to incentive decentralization.

Yea, I know. But one has to be a dreamer sometimes, just like Satoshi was . (No, I'm not comparing myself with him.)

Anyway, I'm not so optimistic about LN as some other users here, as I consider it as a pure micro/mini-payment solution (for amounts up to $200-500), not so much as a complete replacement for on-chain TX. And I would like a steady, but slow block size increase (based on a model like DooMAD's one) to handle possible bottlenecks. And, of course, sidechains and alt-chains like I already wrote.

We'll see soon if optimists or pessimists are right

Eh? If you have a channel with A and a channel with B and can simply fund B from A, then why have 2 channels in the first place? This makes no sense!

You're a dreamer. Just like all the other LN adapts.

You accuse me of talking nonsense, but it seems you haven't understand even the basics of LN. It's obvious that if you "recharge" your channel with lower amounts, you'll do it within LN itself. You would be connected via LN to your exchange, or if you're a merchant, to most of your clients.

Why should Bitcoin handle millions of on-chain transactions per day if there is LN?

I'm a supporter of a three-layer (or even four-layer) model as the "final" configuration of LN: On-chain transactions as the first layer (sidechain settlements), sidechains as the second one (large transactions and opening/closing of LN channels), LN as the third one, and (for non-technical users) centralized providers like Coinbase as the fourth. That should be more than enough to handle billions of transactions per day.

I also don't think Bitcoin will ever be the one and only cryptocurrency, and much less the one and only payment system. Bitcoin will coexist with altcoins, fiat currencies, and other centralized payment systems.

So I don't think the average fee to open a channel would be higher than $50. I guess it will be much lower. It's likely that we'll never see again the extreme congestion in December as the reasons were spam attacks, a strong bubble, and Christmas.

Well I'd love to have a decentralized coin with which I could pay everywhere in an instant, that would be awesome. But at this point in time that's just not possible due to the current state of technology. Maybe some day in a future someone will invent a better blockchain algo. But what I know for sure is that LN is not the solution, it's a dumb idea and I really don't understand why people think this will work. If you'd design a system from the ground up, you'd NEVER come up with LN. The only reason it exists is that this was the only thing possible within the bitcoin network without having to change anything in the network itself: someone thought "oh let's use the fact that people can have a shared wallet and change the ratio of ownership without having to do an on chain transaction" and that's how it was born. And then people started figuring out "hey that way we can also route from wallet to wallet". So it's a 'solution' given certain constraints. But again, if you'd were to build a system from the ground up, you'd NEVER come up with LN.

Getting a distinct sense of deja vu here, like all the people who proclaimed Bitcoin itself had died but turned out to be dead wrong when it kept churning out another block every ~10 minutes.  Lightning will be the same.  Some people will completely fail to comprehend it and declare it dead in the water because they're ignorant, but it'll just keep going. 

Anyone want to start off LightningObituaries.com with this thread?

I'm honestly not sure at this stage if the OP genuinely believes it will fail, or if it's more along the lines of them wanting it to fail for reasons they've yet to disclose.  Hate to disappoint you, but talking it down won't kill it.  Enough people are on board with the idea that they're willing to commit time and effort to improving it.  It's only going to get bigger.

But you go right ahead and keep using Visa.  All you have to surrender is your privacy, independence, freedom, etc.  Small price to pay, right?   

Sure. The fees are just WAY lower than with bitcoin/LN.

Nonsense. Any time you need to 'recharge' your channel you'll pay the on-chain fee. And again, this will be very steep if bitcoin would ever become popular. With only 450k transactions/day in December it already was more than $50. Sure it can handle now twice that due to segwit but that's still only 900k/day, for the whole frikkin' world. For some perspective, VISA currently does more than 150 MILLION transactions PER DAY. Remember that the max bitcoin can handle on chain anyway is only 1.2million per day!

Nonsense, nobody is going to pay for such steep costs.

The lightning system is nonsense. I don't believe she can succeed. I'm waiting for a return to the system segwit2x. Without that, bitcoin has no future. We need to admit this honestly and seek a compromise with the miners right now. If the price of bitcoin starts to grow miners will not agree with the loss of profits.

1. Credit cards do charge fees, and not only that: their merchant fees increase the final price of the products you buy with them. With LN, you would have to pay a fee once, and probably never again, if everything works as expected. You can open the channel when you want, probably in a "low-fee timeframe", like weekends.
2. There will be, very likely, providers that open the channel for you for no cost just to ensure you use their LN node as a gateway. I expect this behaviour from exchanges and online wallet providers. Obviously, they want you to pay their (trading) fees, but let's be honest, most Bitcoin users do that anyway, and trading fees are usually low.

I don't need to pay, say, $50 to 'open a channel' when I want to buy something with VISA from whatever shop. THAT is the whole point, I'm not sure why you fail to understand such a simple point.

You've effectively countered your own point.  The sense in people paying the fee to open a channel rather than just making an on-chain transaction, is that it provides that Visa level of scaling.  Once a channel is open, there is no limit to the number of transactions you can make as long as you still have adequate funds.  You don't have to wait for however long the next block might take to be found.  You also don't have to worry about working out what mining fee would get your transaction confirmed the fastest, because none of that applies.  You don't need to wait for X number of confirmations.  Channels are also bi-directional, so the funds don't just have to go one way.  Those are all reasons to have channels open and funded, ready to go.

But aren't master nodes open to sybil attacks? How do we know that Dash's master nodes are not controlled by Evan Duffield and his friends from the secret instamine? Because it is possible that they do control more than 50%.

I remember this issue was already raised before but with no convincing reply from the Dash development team.

But each time you open a channel you pay the on-chain fee, which would be very steep if bitcoin would ever become popular. So I just don't see people opening tons of channels and put a lot of money in each and every channel. That just makes no sense.

The thing is, you compare it to the on-chain form of bitcoin. But that makes no sense, that's a failure already. You need to compare it to VISA for example.

Did you read any of mine?  I'll make a few more just in case:



The more you use Lightning and the more channels you have open, the greater the potential savings on fees.  Each time you can avoid making on-chain transactions, that's one less mining fee to pay.  Financial incentive will be the driving force for having multiple channels open.  Incentive itself will provide the liquidity.  Users can also incentivise routing by adjusting the fees they charge, even charging negative fees (effectively paying anyone who routes through them), so there may be situations where you can rebalance a channel rather than having to open a new one.



Lightning opens up two new choices for how to transact.  Opening a new channel, or routing through one of your existing open channels.  If this scenario of no sufficiently funded channels occurs, you might not be able to route through an existing channel, true enough.  So you open a new channel.  Or you send a regular on-chain transaction.  Not exactly rocket science.  Plus, that's still more options overall than you previously had, so if one of the two new choices isn't available, that doesn't constitute a failure.  I'd rather not repeat myself, but, "the only "problem" it creates is that you now have a choice which you didn't have before.  There will be times where you might use Lightning because it's cheaper, more convenient, or both.  There will be other times where it won't be those things and you can transact as you always have done".  How can something that gives you more freedom and choice than you previously had possibly be a bad thing?  I can see how it might look bad if you haven't taken the time to comprehend how it works, but that means the failure is on your part and not Lightning's.



You don't have to personally sit there and stare at it 24/7.  By "monitor", you mean your software simply has to be online.  I know plenty of people who are online 24/7.  It won't be a downside to any of them.  Work has also started on an idea for what they're calling "watchtowers", which will step in to monitor for you if you're offline for whatever reason.  If watchtowers are successful and become the norm, you won't have to worry about monitoring your channels.  As I said before, all the stuff that will make it easy and user-friendly will come later.  Give it time.



It's an argument you don't have an answer for, you mean.  Lightning is not designed to replace on-chain transactions altogether.  If you're suggesting that it is, no wonder your arguments seem so skewed.

LOL

?? What are you talking about?