Topic: Reasons why Lightning Network will fail - page 3. (Read 1191 times)

This may be a valid point. But I suppose that it could be possible to send the money in smaller packets, one after the other. Or sending a part of the amount on one route and the rest on another one - most likely this would be the easier method, because in this case both partial payments could be managed simultaneously.

But I think that would be an exceptional situation and should be treated as one. LN isn't really made for big payments anyway. Most likely, the higher the payment amount, the harder it would be to find a "decentralized" route which evades the big nodes like exchanges or specialized LN hubs. So if people started to use it massively for big payments a more centralized structure could emerge. I would prefer instead to use sidechains for mid-to-large payments.

My point is that there simply might not be a route with enough funding.


It is. But you're never 100% sure, which means that you actively NEED to monitor all of your channels for fraud. That's really a big downside.

This is no argument at all.

These are some serious problems with LN which will most certainly ensure this will never become a big success.

So you'll end up taking a different route, most likely without you even noticing.  You aren't forced to route through people with insufficient funds.



But if someone does attempt to defraud you and you catch them, you can take their funds.  That's a rather strong disincentive to try ripping people off.



Which is why Lightning is completely optional and you can still send regular payments to be confirmed directly on the blockchain, just like you always have done.

I don't see how any of these will result in LN "failing".  The more accurate thread title would have been "There are occasions when LN transactions will be less viable than normal transactions", but I guess that doesn't have the same kind of alarmist fearmongering tone you felt the desire to convey.

I'm happy that you agree with pretty much all of my points. The other ones:


This really is something different. You can ALWAYS pay ANYBODY from each of your bank accounts. In LN this is not the case, in fact, you open the channel BECAUSE this is not the case. If it was the case why have several channels in the first place?


A lot of functionality can be hidden behind the GUI. But still there are essential parts that can't be hidden and you really need to understand quite a bit of LN in order to operate. For example, when is it a good idea to open a channel ? How to do that? When to route? How long is the money locked up my channel? How can I get it out? Etc etc. This is way more complicated than regular banking. Of course in theory you can even hide all that to the user so that all that's left is a simple 'sendto' button. But this is highly uneconomical, which user wants to risk the high on-chain fees when he buys a simple cup of coffee?

1 - True, but LN is meant (in my opinion) for small transactions anyway, so this is less of a problem than you're claiming it to be. Also, at a certain adoption level there will be multiple payment routes.
2 - Correct, but why is this such an issue? Is this a manual thing you have to do all the time?
3 - Correct, but there are no guarantees in many things. If you care about all your intended payments being possible in the early stages you will make sure you are connected via multiple channels which will reduce this risk.
4 - I think a lot of people will run nodes 24/7 to earn fees and they will become (mini) hubs. I know hubs are bad for decentralization, but not if there are many of them.
5 - Not sure on how the amount of data would compare to for instance the data stream for huge blocks so we can all buy beer (why does it always have to be coffee?) with our BTC
6 - They don't have to be huge if LN is used and that reduces the load on the blockchain. I also think the blocks will eventually be increased, just not to the gigabyte blocks bcash is talking about, but to whatever is needed and doesn't lead to centralization (8mb? 32mb? who knows?)
7 - LN is not meant for these amounts in my opinion, but still you don't have to have a channel with everyone you interact with. Payment providers could solve this.
8 - You don't have to do it directly with the coffee shop, lowest level users will end up having a channel with a payment provider who will have a channel or routes to the shop.
9 - I have several bank accounts, I see no problem here. Why do you see the funds as 'locked up'? They are in a channel so they can be used. Do you consider your money at the bank as 'locked up'?
10 - I doubt your mother or grandmother know how a phone signal works or maybe even how a car engine works. Doesn't mean they can't call or drive.

Some of the points the OP mentions (particularly point 1, 2, 6 and 7) have some truth in it. These points are the reason why I think that LN won't be used for very big payments.

But even then, it can be a huge success. Imagine it as the Bitcoin equivalent of a prepaid card which you can use to shop online and offline, pay your coffee, etc. etc. And with a channel to your exchange you will be able to "reload" your account at any time.

In my opinion, LN will not be the "second layer", but the third or even fourth layer of the "final" Bitcoin ecosystem. For me the most likely candidate for Layer 2 are sidechains (including slight variations of the concept like child-chains or extension blocks); their tokens would be pegged to BTC via mechanisms like "Drivechain" (or perhaps better ones) and would be easily tradeable for other sidechain tokens via atomic swaps.

There would be no need for a separate LN on top of each sidechain as LN is also capable to achieve connections between different blockchains (a concept TenX, for example, is exploring) and thus it would be a single third layer on top of all sidechains. While sidechains would be used for mid-to-large transactions, LN would be the micropayment layer.

Core has been delaying proper segwit function at the GUI level because they don't want to push it into the system prematurely so they only let experienced users to access segwit functionality with the command lines.

With 0.16 it will be on the GUI and anyone will be able to use it as usual just like legacy addresses.

Coinbase has said that they are working on segwit and also on lightning network, check their twitter. So soon enough we will see a massive increase in segwit usage and late on on lightning transactions.

Concerns explained by OP will be taken care off eventually by making user friendly GUI's.

Ultimately, we will find out if it's a failure or not once it's working at scale. What is clear that will be a failure is the "blocks-as-big-as-needed" route (BCH)

Because it is a fork of bitcoin and does not have these problems.

thats an argument by assertion and not true

That would be a huge pile of hypocrisy when in the end they will have to copy LN from Bitcoin Core after it takes off big time with regular Bitcoin. Right now the only advantage that BCash enjoys is fast and cheap transactions. Well, it is actually two advantages but both will quickly disappear when LN takes root for real.

Why is BCH coming up in this discussion?  They have exactly the same root problem as BTC, with no LN or equivalent (unless they intend to just copy it over).

Back to the matter and the original points raised, which ones are wrong?  Maybe not every detail is correct, seems to be a fair assessment overall.  LN is not going to solve much unless firstly its embedded into bitcoin clients as the default, and secondly people go through hubs.  Obvious candidates for this are the exhcnages that have large liquidity and most people will have used as some time.  Embrace this, or bitcoin will not succeed, because the alternative of no LN is bitcoin suffocates under the weight of its use.

Mass adoption? You been smoking to much of the Bhash stuff. LOL   Just look at the transactions on each. 10's of thousands on BTC and a few hundred at most on Bcash.  It's another useless altcoin but you can still believe what you like.

Here go admire the BCH ghost highway.  https://txhighway.com/

In the meantime BCH gains mass adoption

uups i said jehovah(BCH) 

It should come with time when it gets traction. And don't forget that in most cases it is not up to the users to deal with all the gory details of Lightning Network intricacies because most users don't even use desktop wallets in the first place. They use online wallets like }{apo and Coinbase or even exchange accounts as their wallets.

If you really know how to use it, i think that everybody would start using it in order to avoid having to pay more than $18 worth of fees.

I prefer to pull out my ass to pay $0,01 of fees, instead of doing it by the easy way to pay $18 for the SAME.

Isn't it possible to make lightning network work in an easier way so that the average user won't even know they are using it?

That's because segwit was badly implemented. There's no buttom on QT to create segwit addresses, you have to use a console command.

You cant expect the average user to be writing console commands, specially when most of them dont even have patience to synch the entire blockchain, and prefer smartphone wallets instead.

Also, segwit only gave me a 15% discount when I tested it. To send 100k satoshis, you still need to pay approximately 80k satoshis in fees, sending from a segwit address.

To be honest, Lightning Network is too long and difficult to understand to become mainstream, it adds difficulty to understand cryptocurrencies. The LN is so complex (Lightning Network - A Puzzle With Missing Pieces) so I would say I agree with some posts here (and no, I am not paid by Roger Ver)
It may be easy to understand for you but not for everyone (including me)

Do you feel confident investing in a coin where the creator has recently sold
all of his holdings? He justified it with a "conflict of interest", which is odd
in my opinion, because he saw no conflicts of interest when he was working
at Coinbase or in the time before Litecoin made all-time highs.

Would Litecoin have ever been added to Coinbase if Charlie Lee would
have never started working there?

I somewhat agree with you here. LN is a second layer solution to Bitcoin blockchain, so it can't be easier than the blockchain itself. Nevertheless, to explain something in layman's terms, you don't need to have a detailed and profound knowledge about something and how it works in every detail. You just need to understand it conceptually to be able to explain its concept to your grandma.