Topic: The Lightning Network: A failure? - page 3. (Read 905 times)

Lightening network is yet to become popular and adopted in majority of Bitcoin transactions, despite it's existence for many years, the major reason that I hear regarding it is that it's complex to understand and people needs a simple transaction process for their Bitcoin. Couple of months back when transaction fees were so high I was expecting lightening network to get a massive adoption, but it didn't and I'm concluding that it has failed to a large extent, although we can't write off LN yet, hopefully their dev. teams will hopefully upgrade it to be less complex, because that's the main reason that I hear from the average crypto holders.

But if LN doesn't handle a mainstream transaction load such that it could be used for everyday transactions, then... what purpose does it serve? Why not just use normal Bitcoin transactions?

By the way, I continue to be a little bit dumfounded that in a community of thousands of deep thinking technical people the central tradeoff of centralization, safety, latency and cost hasn't been quantified. For me, as a 30 year veteran of high-scale architectures, it took me about five minutes to understand that Bitcoin, or anything based on blockchain, would never scale to mainstream loads. And hence my viewpoint is that insofar as a project gets closer to doing so, it gets further from being actual blockchain in the way that it was meant to be used.

As a technical architect I usually try to make my point with theory, but in this case the empirical evidence is inescapable: they've been working on the problem for over 13 years and it's only become worse, not better (which, if you understand the theory, is exactly what you'd expect).

The Bitcoin project and all of the sundry blockchain-based projects would be better served to stop wasting time trying to make blockchain something it is not, something it was never meant to be, and something that it cannot ever be no matter how hard they try.

Or to put it yet another way: Bitcoin already has a "lightning network": it's called the ETF and/or central brokerages that store a representation of people's holdings in an ordinary centralized database.

Most consumers today see a purchase of Bitcoin as something that only takes a few seconds and only costs a few dollars. That's because they aren't actually transacting in Bitcoin. And guess what: most consumers don't care about "decentralization" and they don't even know what that means.

Lightning Network, to me, seems like a project that was generated by denying these core truths.

The lightning network isn't a saviour some people thought it would be. It doesn't really solve the issues that Bitcoin has (the price and time it takes for transaction fees to get confirmed, and how both increase when the network gets congested). It's not the thing that makes Bitcoin a viable replacement of fiat for daily purchases because it's harder to use and doesn't always lead to very low fees, from what I've heard. So it's not the solution, but it's a solution, in a way. It's certainly not a failure. I think it's okay to wait and see if it gets better later on.

i expect the zero fee offering is if your imprisonment of custody in WOS(buying their credit) enables free fee if the destination is another prisoner of custody of WOS(WOS credit)
as for payments to destinations outside of WoS prisoners. well the external hop charge WoS may average 0.03% of value.. but then you have to calculate how many hops by non WoS on a route may be involved as the users routing through WoS would end up paying more then 0.03% total

and funny how WoS reports LN done 763k yet 684k (89%) are internal

Since it's custodial, I would have expected them to charge a fee on all transactions, but:
I haven't used custodial LN since BlueWallet stopped their service (I switched to Phoenix Wallet), but it looks like I should give this a try again.

exactly the point the main devs have already CHANGED defaults to higher numbers then they promoted years ago
defaults were lower.. but thanks for proving the point by saying defaults are higher. in your own words

---

lugano didnt 'just accept bitcoin' before this.. the legalisation of crypto in swiss is new and this is a first test phase using the LVGA and bitfinex (its less than a year old since it was first talked about, let along the less time of actual offering)
also there was no "memorandum" between lugano and el salvador.. seems you dont know what you are talking about. try to look deeper and do some research. lets not pretend there is already some great success and some big organisation and big processing that has gone on

the lugano area project is not using bitcoin, its using LN. and when looking at all LN stats of the last 6 months. capacity, node and channel cunt is dropping not rising. so its not as if lugano are adopting new people.. instead LN is losing users even when it is suppose to be introduced to a new city/country

Nah, the reason most places charge 1 sat to route through their node is that it's the default.
Some charge less.
Some charge more.
Some don't charge.
But most people running their own nodes just kept the default.

-Dave

You have given enough data and passed alot of information on the LN and am sure before it was adopted as the network for Lugano who just accepted BTC and cryptocurrencies for use in the Swiss, they must have trusted the network to perform better. There was a memorandum of understanding signed between Lugano and El Salvador before this launch was effected by Lugano and am sure the right test and set up has been ensured to make sure the lightening network works better and delivers beyond expectation seeing it will serve more users and devices simultaneously.

2 sats in LN fee
the idea/promise/promotion of msats being multiple 0's below 1sat to allow fees to be many times below 1sat seems to be dying out too as a promise/proposition, if you are paying more then 1whole sat

guess the LN promise of sub-sat(msat) fee's already broke.. seems even LN is starting to hike up their fee's

(and before claiming anything. LN only functions over a 20hop gossip path, meaning the max length to destination could be 20 hops. meaning minimum fee per hop if full path was used would be 0.1sat, even though msat allows for far more subsat pegging)

after the mistakes and failures of LN in el salvador in sept-dec 2021
and in Nigeria much more recently
we are now starting to see another attempt using LN in a large populous of lugano switzerlands as the next test case
lets see how well/dysfunctional LN performs for users of switzerland trying to use LN en-masse.. time will tell.. lets watch what happens

so far. comparing 2023 to 2024
https://planb.lugano.ch/lugano-plan-%e2%82%bf-2023-a-year-of-collaborative-milestones-and-growing-momentum/
digging into it. they accept LIGHTNING not actual bitcoin transactions
and looking deep and more recently

https://planb.lugano.ch/crypto-payments/

292, seems to be a drop of over 60 in lightning utility (LVGA stil shows ~370 merchants. so 60 switched off lightning and tether)

One application (and yes it's custodial I know) is is doing 750k LN TXs a month
https://twitter.com/walletofsatoshi/status/1711208926727885153

Breez is also doing a lot as are others.

---

If you don't know what you are doing running your own LN node can be difficult. And a lot of people think it's like running Core (which people still screw up) but if you take the time to learn it's really nor that bad. And, if you want to use a custodial service (bad) LN is great. The other side is, if you are treating it as a hot wallet, who cares. Like I have said many times trading security for simplicity has risks, BUT if the risk is a minimal amount of money does it matter? 1 TX and done.

---

I just topped up my starbucks card with a gift card that I bought with lightning. Cost me 2sats in tx fees. Left my node, wound up bitrefill. Don't care how it got there all I know is the 1st hop since I can see that in my channels. I open channels when fees are low and I don't have to worry. Off to meet people for a ride.

Which does being up the other question, why do we meet at a coffee shop before a ride, that just means we have to stop and empty our bladders sooner.....

-Dave

Bitcoin is here to stay and Lightning Network is probably here to stay too even it has less years of existence than Bitcoin.

Did we already have some projects that use their slogans like "Lightning Network killer?"

I did not know any project says it but "Bitcoin killer" is a lot but after a while some time, they are dead.

Many people just speculate and hope to get rich with Bitcoin, by storing and holding it on exchanges. Some people simply trade on exchanges and they only move their bitcoins when they want to cash out or even will not move bitcoin at all but will choose altcoins or stablecoins.

They must know the risk of bitcoin storage on centralized exchanges.

Security checklist
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts
Bitcoin Q&A: Not your Keys, Not your Coins

a. seems you have not used it, seems you have read somewhere some giberish promises, but not seen the liquidity problems bottlecks, lost funds exploits that many have experienced including the LN devs themselves that are now able to admit to the bugs, flaws and exploits now their sponsorship contracts have ended

b. LN is dropping in popularity. becoming more centralised and causing more issues.

c. bitcoin is not forced to only function with LN and LN is not forced to only function with bitcoin. for you to assume bitcoin is now reliant and "would not be possible if we did not have LN" to do things.. shows how little you actually know

d. el salvador president is hoarding coins yes. but many testimonials have shown that the real citizen and business adoption of BITCOIN has not had the success certain people pretend it has in el salvador. the promotion of "success" was short lived in autumn 2021.. but dropped when LN caused issues in el salvador, and gave bad reputation to bitcoin, hiding the real villain(LN). yep the el salv president contracted an LN 'adviser' to help add functionality to 'chivo' but it ended up as a LN failed experiment not a bitcoin success. the president within months realised he got abused and changed the plan. and moved to using a CEX and has had issues trying to re-launch a second campaign of adopting bitcoin for daily use by citizens and business, all due to the LN failure


i do laugh when the inexperienced, ill-informed people promote something via faked, broken promises they read somewhere about something they dont have full knowledge of.. its like they just want to be ass-lickers and not actually want to learn anything REAL about the thing they want to ass-lick

its like asking a orphaned virgin stuck in a boys foster home that has never had a girlfriend or sister or mother, get asked to advertise tampons and bra's

when something has issues which millions have experienced and dropped using.. we should not then see childish legomen singing "everything is awesome" in some choir voice of repetition in their non reality.
what should happen is people should raise more awareness of the short-comings, not just to help out their fellow community, but also to push the devs to adjust their own thinking and try to offer something that actually benefits bitcoiners

Indeed, the Lightning Network has been regarded as unsuccessful. It was excessively hyped for numerous years, culminating in an underwhelming infrastructure.

Ultimately, Bitcoin has diverged from Satoshi's original vision, transitioning primarily into a store of value rather than a practical currency for daily transactions, rendering the Lightning Network largely redundant.

I think Lightning Network is one of Bitcoin's biggest successes. We are currently talking about the Layer-2 trend with the popularity of Arbitrum and Optimism on Ethereum, but in fact we already have Layer-2 for Bitcoin and achieved great success when Lightning Network has a speed of millions of tps. I have never used Lightning Network and I also realize its unpopularity, but that doesn't mean Lightning Network has failed, maybe it was invented too early before we really had a need for millions of tps.

Currently, El Salvador has widely adopted BTC, people can use BTC to pay for micro-payments, this would not be possible if we did not have Lightning Network. In the future, when many other countries also adopt the BTC strategy, we will see Lightning Network being used more, creating more value, eliminating the speed and transaction fee barriers that Bitcoin has been criticized for in the past decade. I really look forward to that time, when Lightning Network will really become popular!

more comedy on your part in regards to YOUR assumptions
I DO MY RESEARCH
and that does include reading the code, and using it and testing its limits and finding its flaws..

i dont personally "use" it as in treat it like a on going long term credit card to daily spend.. but i have actually used it in regards to throwing some small at risk value into it and tried lots of tactics to use lots of different software and scenarios to see how many ways i can steal my own funds from myself via creating different scenarios of channeling to myself and brutalising all the weak points.. and it didnt take me long to find many flaws

and thats why i dont like it..
its screwed up system that doesnt work as promised. those who have least issue with it are the ones that dont use it outside a small narrow function (EG direct channel to their gambling site or they trust a certain custodian 'balance renting" system).. however the exploits are out there and when services decide their CEO wants to retire to a paradise island you will suddenly see alot of "we been hacked" excuses jump out

you do know that the extra "EVENTS" do not mean extra payments for actual goods/services.
the extra "events" was a period of lots of nodes testing out "rebalancing" inside the network instead of closing-reopening channels

here is the thing

you can try it for free using a pen or a spreadsheet or any doodle app

imagine A spend 10 to (you choose)
then imagine A* wanted to rebalance via the other channel/partner/route..
notice how it then UNBALANCES the other route and causes X events
then notice the other parties may want to rebalance to get back to their first state seeing as they havnt spent their own balance so dont like seeing themselves unbalanced.
then notice their attempts to rebalance causes other unbalances..
yep one A payment causes X re balance events.. (its called a snowball effect, try it)

*if you decided A wanted to pay either DEF(not just direct pay B or C) then other letters may also want to rebalance at just the action of A's single payment

You don't use LN and you don't like LN and that's fine. You do you.

6 months old but: https://cryptopotato.com/bitcoin-lightning-network-growth-surges-by-1200-in-2-years/

I use bitrefill a lot, I also use other services that take lightning a lot. I have my node peered to what works for me.
The channels I have open work for what I need it to do at a fraction of the cost of sending BTC payments to all the places I use all the time.

Some people like paying cash for things. Others would rather put everything on a credit card and get the cashback and pay one bill a month. Neither one is right or wrong.

-Dave

Blockchain doesn't solve anything with respect to security since you still have a data store that needs to be protected just like any other data store. A hard drive is a hard drive, and hacking into it means you have control of the data on it. Application controls are application controls, and if you manipulate the controls that means you compromise the application. Adding "blockchain" to this just increases system complexity, which makes it less secure than a standard system like they've been doing for decades.

Unless the data stores are compromised, then "one employee cannot change records at a bank branch" etc. in normal banking software for instance. If they are compromised, then they can. Adding the complexity of blockchain doesn't change that one way or another.

To put it another way, if a hacker were to somehow take control over a majority of Bitcoin's servers and manipulate the ledger for their own purposes, the concept of "blockchain" would not magically protect current Bitcoin holders from such an attack: Bitcoin would be compromised and potentially anybody could lose their blocks. Of course this is extremely unlikely for a lot of reasons e.g. Bitcoin's operation on thousands of servers, and the extensive vetting that the specific software system of Bitcoin has undergone.

But there are literally thousands of examples of compromised blockchain projects out there that underscore that there's no magic buzzword you can add to something to make it secure.


I'm right there with you on this, but we keep hearing this stuff here and elsewhere like a broken record...

https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-channels
86k->52k

https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity
5.4k -> 4.6k

"just a bit, stayed level" .. funny. you should book some stage time in the comedy circuit and make more jokes


the big LN custodian services are not getting bigger. its just when you remove the independent self custody users. all thats left is the LN custodian services so their PERCENTAGE of total LN liquidity increases. even if the AMOUNT of LN liquidity decreases
its basically centralisation

Which IMO is why we see these big LN providers keep getting bigger. YES they are for the most part custodial, but if we are talking about hot wallet amounts who cares.
Use Wallet Of Satoshi send 1 TX for whatever amount you want and get LN funds then spend LN funds wherever. And you don't have to think about it. And if once every couple of weeks you have to send them another BTC 0.002 to top up it's not a big deal.

-Dave