Topic: The Lightning Network: A failure? - page 2. (Read 905 times)

LN is not a scaling solution for bitcoin. its a backdoor to get people to abandon bitcoin
LN is not a solution for bitcoin. its not even bitcoin, its another network. bitcoin never leaves the bitcoin network
LN is not a solution for all. again trying to get "all" to leave bitcoin for LN is a idiot philosophy

those thinking LN is next gen bitcoin everyone should use, is the same crazy games altcoins/crapcoin/forks that brand steal "bitcoin" have made

Even if Bitcoin turns centralized in the long run? Scaling should be done in a responsible manner to help prevent BTC losing its core aspects of decentralization and censorship-resistance. Why do you think chains with a big block size (BCH and BSV) didn't succeed? Because they chose to sacrifice decentralization in favor of high performance and cost-efficiency. Layer-2 networks like the Lightning Network are a much safer bet. Even though the LN is flawed by design, it's a temporary solution meant to scale BTC without driving it away from its decentralized principles. If the LN shuts down or gets compromised, the main BTC blockchain will still be running as usual.

Developers need to get their act together by focusing on fixing the LN's issues to make it a reliable scaling solution for all. Improving UX (user experience) is the first thing they need to do. At least, we have plenty of options to choose from. If you're in a hurry and want to save money, why not use an altcoin ("shitcoin") instead?

"bitcoin scales"
not "stop using bitcoin, abandon bitcoin and use another network...... that is not bitcoin scaling. thats bitcoin abandonment

these LN fangirls who idolise people should stop using bitcoin and adopt LN are not here to scale bitcoin or want bitcoin to scale. they want bitcoin to fail and other networks to replace it as the things people are locked into

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as for those looking for privacy..
instead of advertising other networks.. did you know you can break off your UTXO taint. and be given fresh coins without taint on the bitcoin network

much like ordinals done special deals with mining pools.. privacy guys can too
simply arrange to have tainted transactions that use all the UTXO value as a mining pool fee.. thus 'destroy utxo' fully

and then the pool can use certain amounts of previous, current, future rewards they hoard as a payout to the privacy guy. thus frsh coins. where the privacy guy is seen as just a miner getting his award from the splits of the reward

It already does. To coinjoin, you have to create another (mixing only) wallet, send your coins there, pay a decent amount for the whirlpool fee, wait for lots of days for your coins to get remixed sufficiently, and once that ends, you must be careful to not consolidate the mixed coins together, as you're losing in terms of privacy. And on top of that, you have to be aware that your whirlpool participants might screw things up, ruin their privacy, and ruin yours as a consequence.

In Monero, there are no coin control headaches, participants that may screw you up by mistake, pool fees, nothing. Simply send and receive XMR, just like you're supposed to.

LN is not technically complicated.. its actually so simple that it has many bugs and flaws.. whats apparent is the flaws.. and also the bad code of the GUI(graphic user interface) and the user experience, which creates the ILLUSION of complexity. so lets call it what it is.. impractical complexity. not technical complexity

 this is done on purpose to make things look technical via hindrances people experience...  thus pretend it required smart people just to function.. when infact its just script kiddies who jumbled things together really quickly to meet some sponsored workload for a cheap pay day. and the annoyances added to bitcoin to pretend they were needed to make LN work are there to push people into using it in a certain way that only the sponsors take advantage over its users to get ROI from the games played of trying to push people away from bitcoin and into the flawed LN system that doesnt meet its expectations promises and hopes and dreams which they keep telling people to patiently wait for heaven and utopia to arrive

LN is not a blockchain nor require network wide consensus. thus LN could have been wrote differently from scratch to actually be compatible with bitcoin rather then do the crap they did to make it appear complicated then demand bitcoin change to become LN compatible

even now someone can re-write an entire subnetwork system that learns from LN mistakes and not need bitcoin to change to be compliant with a new subnetwork. but instead make the subnetwork easily compliant with bitcoin.. but we all know that doesnt benefit the sponsors that wanted LN

Recently there was an article published about bitcoin developers losing faith in lighting network - https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2024/04/02/are-bitcoin-developers-losing-faith-in-lightning/

For me, the lighting network is very impractical and its usage and adoption prove that it failed. Payment should be easy, not hard. It also shouldn't give you a headache. On Electrum I need at least 2 .mBTC to open a channel. The largest channel you can open is 10 BTC and I find it complicated for average Joe to create a lighting channel, deposit and then send/receive money with it. It's not really that hard but why should you use LN when you have Venmo, Cashapp, PayPal...?

when you become a router on LN you become a MSB(money service business) which then means you are suppose to register as a MSB(payment facilitator for a commission/fee) to continue offering services as a router.. just wait until those regulations kick-in properly and governments enforce trying to locate LN routers.. watch how quick CEX's drop LN partners that are not registered as MSB's due to regulations CEX have to obide by via their business partners that facilitate value routing

then you will see why LN is a failure to offer a system of moving value that escapes government regulation inside the network
(bitcoin as a network is exempt from being treated as a MSB for node users/mining pools relaying bitcoin, because of how bitcoin works differently in regards to relaying/confirming transactions)

the whole borrowing other router(hops) locked value to pass-the-parcel/hot-potato value for payments for a fee. makes LN a failed model that ends in regulation

You're answered your own question on previous sentence.

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Government pressure also makes exchange delist many coin with optional privacy feature (such as zcash and dash).

I agree with almost anything you said but I am not sure if monero is the next station for us who prefer decentralizated networks. It is because monero don’t compromise. It is fully anonymous and it is a good thing but sometimes we need need transparency too.

As you know (or maybe not), litecoin has recently upgraded itself and added Grin’s MimbleWimble algo which provides fully anonymous transactions.

Here is an article which you can learn more about it:


Monero will never get widely accepted. The exchanges are delisting it and legit businesses don’t accept it.

I am not saying Ltc will succeed 100% since it shares something with monero (anonymous transactions) but it is optional to make these transactions. The chances are way higher for litecoin and people are already using it more than any other coin on bitpay.

The main difference is that sidechains always rely on a certain third party, while LN can be non-custodial. I'll repeat what I said during high fees in 2017: I don't care how Bitcoin scales, as long as it does it.

subnetworks of bitcoin are all manner of network types that bridge/offboard to-from bitcoin. its the name of the "layer two" networks.
the term "layer2" and "ontop" have been abused by making other networks feel like they are above and better or a protective sheild/skin around bitcoin done so to subliminally suggest they are better and more secure/protected than bitcoin, trying to suggest that it is bitcoin that is the raw under-layer thats 'soft and weak' compared to 'hardened' other networks 'layer'..(skin of an orange metaphors).. so calling these other networks subnetworks puts them in their place properly so that people can be sure to know that its these subnetworks that are less secure, less important then blockchain mainnets

LN might be on a huge recruitment campaign. but looking at node and channel counts.. their campaign has been not so successful at recruiting, as there are other subnetworks with more liquidity locked, and devs of LN have admitted to LN flaws and losses of value and users

Hi all,

I'm digging how Nostr social networks like Primal are using the Bitcoin Lightning Network for "zaps." via WebLN ..I think of them as instant, super cheap tips I can send to creators for great posts.  Like, if someone drops a hilarious meme or a really useful thread, I can fire off some Satoshis  their way.  The combo of Nostr's decentralized setup with Lightning sounds like a super combo..

If I am not mistake you don’t need to work as a donk to have 100K follows to start generating income for your digital content ..

That’s the user case for LN I find interresting..

By "subnetworks" do you mean "sidechains"? If that's the case, then yes, they're a much safer and reliable option than the LN. Bitcoin's use cases can be expanded far from the areas of finance. I've seen sidechains providing smart contracts functionality, as well as, decentralized storage capabilities. Unfortunately, these chains aren't as widely-recognized as the LN. The latter has strong marketing from crypto companies, businesses, and exchanges alike.

Although adoption for the LN is still low, it's certainly greater than sidechains. The solution to the high fee problem is already there. What's challenging is making people use alternative solutions to have a better experience with Bitcoin. With plenty of altcoins to choose from, why focus on scaling Bitcoin, anyways?

It’s not a failure, it’s just going to take time. Layer 1 Bitcoin is still niche in the mainstream so it’s going to take a lot longer before people are using Layer 2 to for example buy coffee with Bitcoin. Big changes in life, new tech takes a long time before it gains widespread mainstream adoption, have some patience.

I'd argue a Bitcoin maximalist knows Bitcoin can't scale on-chain, and also knows it's okay to risk small amounts in a custodial wallet.

Custodial LN is a lot more user friendly, and I don't mind paying a few cents in fees for that.

Good tech isn't enough to become market leader. Monero will have to go up 550-fold to top Bitcoin.

Bitcoin maximalist doesn't necessary mean they also LN maximalist.


At least for privacy, IMO it's onion-routed payment offer decent privacy. But otherwise, i agree running LN node could be difficult and payment could fail due to LN complexity.

Yes I think in a lot of way it's a failure, most Bitcoin maxis are in denial.

i just a saw tweet from a maxi telling people to use custodial lightning wallet - this is centralization. this is what we're trying to avoid. Goes against everything Satoshi envisioned

I stopped running a lightning node because it's not real user friendly, i lost funds, my channels got closed. it's not reliable enough to make payments (unless connected to large centralized nodes) & I don't trust it's privacy. of course, if this changes in the future, I may go back. Until then, i prefer onchain.

problem is there no privacy onchain, unless you're willing to put in a lot of work & discipline, Coinjoin is super expensive, time consuming, & it only obfuscates your transactions.

Bitcoin fees will likely skyrocket rise as the price rises. The cost to open a lightning channel will rise too.

To me, Monero is the next logical move to scale and get privacy (top 2 priorities). It has dynamic block sizes to scale, keep fees low & it's about to get a massive upgrade to privacy - will have a huge anonymity set. Will make Coinjoin look like a joke.

Also, it's the most used & widely accepted privacy coin online (#1 on darknet markets), has lots of support for wallets, there's plenty of options to trade P2P without KYC, various decentralized exchanges (more coming online), working atomic swaps too....it's a thriving network. almost no one is paying attention to. IMO it's the only one that has a real chance to flip BTC.

It's probably also because LN is more complicated. On LN, the wallet need to consider many things such as transaction routing, maximum coin can be send and maximum coin can be received, while L2 doesn't have that kind of complexity.

stop obsessing about LN prospects/plans of future
LN cant succeed due to failures of LN

.. now start thinking about other subnetworks that could do other tasks below bitcoin.. new subnetworks made from scratch that actually offer proper niche services(more securely/les flawed)..
dont start talking about how bitcoin is viewed and how it doesnt succeed where ethereum did.. instead see bitcoin has potential for financial utility of bitcoin and niche services for subnetworks.. dont get stuck in the bitcoin or LN as only option where bitcoin becomes junk and only LN becomes financial.. those are not the only options going forward.

there doesnt need to be one solo subnetwork everyone needs to move to and avoid bitcoin mainnet use..

Why can't the LN succeed the same way ETH-based L2 networks (Arbitrum, Base, Optimism) succeeded? I guess that's because people consider Bitcoin as an investment than a currency. ETH is viewed among many as a "utility token", especially when it's needed for interacting with smart contracts (dApps). I don't know how BTC developers are going to pull it off, especially when many exchanges still haven't adopted the LN yet. Coinbase recently made a partnership with Lightspark to add support for the LN.

Maybe there's hope after all? If the LN gets perfected, it could become the main railway for day-to-day BTC transactions. The future is unpredictable, so anything's possible.