Topic: The Lightning Network: A failure? (Read 792 times)

Don't get your hopes too high. Especially when "Wall Street" is in the game. Giants like BlackRock and Fidelity might push the adoption of LN payments soon. They will only look for what's best for them (lower fees, near-instant transactions at the cost of centralization), instead of what's best for the people (decentralization, self-custody). I've read somewhere that the Bitcoin Core project is being funded by banks. I wouldn't be surprised if that turns out to be the case with the LN in the future.

The "off-chain scaling solution" may be facing issues in terms of user experience and liquidity, but it will get "better" in the long run. Money is what makes the world go round, after all. So if the aformentioned entities pour money into the LN, developers will be well-funded to fix issues and improve the network. I sure hope BTC stays decentralized and censorship-resistant forever. Else, it was good 'til it lasted.

https://coingate.com/blog/post/crypto-payments-report-2024-q1


So coingate is seeing decent usage of LN

No other payment processor that I could find gives out any information as to the percentages of which coins are used for purchases on their platform. I would think they would all be about the same but that's just a guess.

-Dave

 

I'm glad LN failed. It was an attempt for one huge, bank-funded company to control Bitcoin.

Now everyone just uses other coins that have expanded the block size for day to day transactions.

LN is not bitcoin so not sure why you are getting so giddy about wanting LN adoption..
secondly LNs problems/obstacles are not the lack of adoption.. its actually LN's own problems and obstacles(flaws bugs, exploits), that are the issue of why its not getting adopted

did you know the more people that adopt it the more obstacles occur. yep the more bottlenecks and liquidity issues arise and cause more centralisation to occur and more IN-LN fee increases when more people join. and thats just economics/math of the way LN was designed in regards to moving value around a network

LN also has its own flaws, bugs and exploits even before people adopt it which LN devs admit now they cant fix which is also reason people wont adopt LN

and that not just my opinion. its actual details said by the LN devs themselves..
even 'poon' the progenitor, curator, conceiver(insert title) of LN has even moved onto other projects of doing subnetworks elsewhere

if you are hoping LN reaches its "1 million" milestone before core devs then decide its time to then scale the bitcoin network to cope with LN.. you are wrong and will be waiting forever.. we should be trying to get core devs to either relax their own centralised control to allow other brands of devs to make proposals on the bitcoin network of features for bitcoiners on the bitcoin network need/want to scale BITCOIN. or get core to stop delaying scaling BITCOIN and just get on with it. this has been an ongoing impedance for many years, they cant just keep on pretending they have to wait and find solutions and not know of exploits(which they were told about years ago) and instead actually do what they are put in positions to do, be bitcoin devs not alternate network promoters

LN is not the solution it makes out to be and the things it pretends to solve are limited thus doesnt solve the main issue, its just a niche subnetwork for niche service for a niche usecase of small amounts AT RISK(less secure).. not a solution to bitcoin scaling.. and trying to make people think its the 'all or nothing' thing everyone has to wait around for and hope and dream and give false snake oil sales promotions to recruit people into.. is just not even the right thing to do even if the network did fully function for all of the empty/broken/false promises that were made about it

failed, in my personal opinion LN has not failed at all, the biggest obstacle for LN at the moment is adoption, people are still busy using on-chain bitcoin for their transactions and they don't even care when fees are at unreasonable values, apart from that is LN's reputation not yet big because maybe it is still very new, in the long term, the opportunity for LN adoption is quite large, by joining great influencers you can be sure that LN will not die, they themselves will help the liquidity of the LN process, just be patient.

Sell the IP block and buy BTC.

Profit!

I’m imagining F here on a small island in the UK and his opinion about that. The DWP - The Department for Work and Pensions should sell its block of 16,777,216 IP addresses.”

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/38744

 

Franky has his own opinions about BTC scaling.

Why senior board memebers like Frank is pissed about?

SegWit for BTC is the equivalent of NAT for IPv4.

It's a very good analogy, but only tech savvy people will get it...

BTC>In my mind, when I think about layered software stack architecture, I always make an analogy with the Bitcoin network and the IPv4 network (IPv6 being another network).

They all have finite IPv4 addresses of 32 bits in size, IPv6 has 128 bits, and Bitcoin also has a finite number.

So, I see Lightning Network scaling similar to how I saw IPv4 address exhaustion.

“The IPv4 addressing structure provides an insufficient number of publicly routable addresses to give a distinct address to every Internet device or service. This problem has been mitigated for some time by changes in the address allocation and routing infrastructure of the Internet. The transition from classful network addressing to Classless Inter-Domain Routing delayed the exhaustion of addresses substantially. In addition, network address translation (NAT) permits Internet service providers and enterprises to masquerade private network address space with only one publicly routable IPv4 address on the Internet interface of a main Internet router, instead of allocating a public address to each network device.”

Source: Wikipedia

The problem with my analogy may not be the best, but I’m not here to impose my view, just to learn from each other in a respectful chit-chat..

im quoting stuff from actual regulators and task force
you are just crying like a baby that i dont spoon feed you every detail and instead i ask you to do more research

shows you dont actually care and dont want to learn..
but atleast i tried by actually quoting stuff.. you cant even be bothered to research to check things out for yourself

you are the one speaking BS
you cannot back up your assertions

https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/12-Month-Review-Revised-FATF-Standards-Virtual-Assets-VASPS.pdf

and as previously clarified miners due to special exemption(covered elsewhere under the recommendations) are not VASP

but LN(embedded layering/other scaling solutions) routing(conduct a transaction on behalf of another natural or
legal person that moves a virtual asset from one virtual asset address or account to another) IS considered as VASP  

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you self custody holding your own value and spending it to a destination for yourself is NOT A VASP
you acting as a middleman transferring value on behalf of another person IS A VASP (as is mixing and coinjoin)

get it yet, or are you going to play ignorance

..
i know you purposefully act dumb, ignorant and annoying to get spoonfed.. as toddlers do..
but you are older then that.. try to learn to do your own research and stop this childishness of doing these games to get spoonfed
DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH and stop acting like an idiot.. especially when you dont like being called it even when you earn the idiot label

if you dont want to be called an idiot. stop acting like one.

Thanks for confirming publicly that you have nothing in response apart from BS.

google the definition of MSB
google the definition of VASP
google the definition of payment facilitators

routing comes under the banner of being a VASP/MSB/payment facilitator

then google the regulations in regards to cryptocurrency(VASP)
and them look at how they are aware that there are payment facilitators/MSB/vasp not just on mainnet but that routing on subnetworks is in the regulations

ill give you a few highlights. but i wont spoon feed you like a baby, you should learn to do your own research.. you are old enough to feed yourself

https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/guidance/Updated-Guidance-VA-VASP.pdf

so yes they are fully aware of subnetworks (embedded layering or other scaling solutions)

being a vasp is not just cex on mainnet. its routing on subnetworks too

and like my previous post showed the explicitly exempted self custody self spending of own funds for self use as being a vasp.. and instead regulators are only going after those people acting as intermediaries facilitating payments for a fee(see definitions of vasp/msb/PF) on behalf of other people

which and to clarify mining is not a VASP activity(due to special exemption).. should you wish to dig deeper and feed yourself

So, let me get this straight. You notice that regulators are hostile on mixing solutions such as coinjoin, yet you're somehow under the impression that they will not be hostile on mixing via mining pools. Makes sense! 

Your proposal is not currently in regulators' remit, because first of all it is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard, and second, because there is no implementation and usage due to the former. Be certain that if enough people started mixing through mining pools, regulators would deem it as suspicious and enact it as illicit, just as with coinjoins.

YOU are telling people to use mixing services such as coinjoin which are already considered by regulators as suspicious enough to delegate via active regulation that services to put funds on watchlists and investigate if it reaches thresholds

thus im saying use ways that are currently not in regulators remit and currently regulators have deemed mining as NOT A MSB
you keep promoting people should use things that do fall into regulators remit.. and you want people to avoid using things outside of regulators remit.. (you are the opposite of helpful)

as for LN:
i am saying about regulators already discerning that subnetwork routers are considered MSB

thus again when you promote LN routing you are trying to push people into things that fall into regulation
you are not helping those you advise

you are the one blubbering because you have not even done the research on the regulations to know whats good for users and not good for users


as for you then blubbering about "Regulators might as well say that doing self-custody is to be put on a "watch list"
you are blubbering about things that are not current regulations... you are not doing the research or talking about current active risks of users using services, features, functions, utilities..

in regards to blackhats blubber about his fear mongering self custody and peer to peer of non mixing transaction....
lets let the financial action task force clarify
https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/dam/fatf-gafi/reports/12-Month-Review-Revised-FATF-Standards-Virtual-Assets-VASPS.pdf
thus the blackhat blubber he got from oeleo where they were insinuating that bitcoin devs, bitcoin nodes and bitcoin miners are considered 'vasp(MSB) IS FALSE

they made that crap up to try to recruit people into using LN.. via fake scare tactics

Regulators might as well say that doing self-custody is to be put on a "watch list", I don't care. If someone wants privacy, then coinjoins and XMR is the way, and that's why regulators try to discourage their use as much as possible. If we switched to mixing using mining pools, then guess what; this process would then be considered illicit, and anyone mixing through the pools would be "put on a watch list".

By the way, you do know that their operation would then be considered a money transmitting service, right? I'm just saying, because I know you're blubbering about this when it comes to lightning.

Of course. LTC and XMR are often viewed by many as currencies. NOT a long-term investment or store of value. I guess their total supply has something to do with this. Bitcoin's limited supply and deflationary mechanism has led the majority to use it more as a Gold alternative than anything else. There's nothing we can do to change this, especially when "Wall Street" is involved. Only a small portion of people will use BTC as a currency for day-to-day payments.

Given that the majority is "hodling" BTC, the Lightning Network and other subnetworks/sidechains will remain a niche for the tech enthusiast. At least, people have a choice. Who knows where on-chain fees will be in the future?

if you think putting your value into a "privacy serviceX" that regulators demand/delegate other services to watch users of "privacy service X".. by you putting your value into "privacy service X" puts you into the targets/sights which you are pretending to evade

when regulators say that coins used in mixing via coinjoin is to be put on a watch list
AND THEN .. YOU then use coinjoin, thus puts your coins on a watch list
its YOU that becomes insane

however instead by disposing of your coin as a fee, and then getting FRESH coin from a mining pool from a mining reward.. is not mixing thus not on some watchlist nor treated as a target/not watched with same scrutiny
analogy
police decide they will put speed traps and traffic cops on highway101.. publish that anyone travelling on highway 101 will be watched and checked for multiple things.. (warrants, traffic/speeding tickets, anything to raise suspicion to need to investigate a driver)
and you decide to promote that everyone should drive down highway 101 "for privacy".. you are doing the exact opposite of giving good advice

i am in this analogy telling people to trade in their second hand car and get a new car with no gps history, no previous drivers and never had a speeding/traffic ticket

you dont need to give away your name and location to get bitcoin rewards from mining pools

Nice. So instead of refusing to buy this nonsense, let's just give up our privacy options like trustless coinjoins and XMR swaps and put trust on mining pools, as if these new coins are invulnerable to being called "tainted" again. 

Man, you're insane.

Apart from BSV which was an exception, we frequently notice altcoins like Litecoin and Monero being used more as a currency than Bitcoin. Check out this post from stompix: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.63402003.

To me the answer is crystal clear. People don't care about decentralization and censorship resistance that much for their financial transactions. They care about those properties when we're talking about the best asset there is. Bitcoin proponents view bitcoin more as an asset than a currency, and that's why it is not worth the risk to implement significant changes. It's that simple, yet we're making it seem so complicated somehow.

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.

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

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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

I'd love to make 20 times more Bitcoin transactions than I currently do, but I can't because of transaction fees. And even if I'd just pay the higher amount, that means someone else can make less transactions because blocks are full already.
At best, a merchant would use a generic payment provider that also accept LN, as part of a long list of crypto options.

That's why I like custodial LN wallets (for small amounts only). I don't have to open channels, which is easier and cheaper, and I don't have to deal with channel balancing. I'm okay trusting someone with a small amount as a trade-off.

The problem of Lightening Network is too cumbersome because the process of setting up the Lightening Network is not clear to most us. And I think I have seen this kind of thread before and the developers of LN were saying that the LN has failed so they will look for an alternative way for smooth and less fee transaction. And if that is done then bitcoin will not have any problem again because the main problem of bitcoin now is the congestion of it network. And I can't see Lightening Network is a fail network but they can make things easy for people to use. and the on-chain network is always over populated and that is the caused of the congestion.

Going by https://mempool.space/lightning and looking at capacity vs. channels we see the channel count dropping off a bit but capacity staying level in terms of BTC

But BTC vs fiat has gone up a ton.

IMO the dropping of the channel count is due to a lot of people running smaller nodes no longer bothering to connect to other smaller nodes.
I USED to have about a dozen channels open to people with limited BTC locked up and those channels never saw transactions run through them.
So I closed them.

I also know a lot of people were 'forced' to shutdown their nodes over the last 18 months or so as the BTC blockchain grew. You could no longer run a node on a 512 GB drive so you could either buy a larger drive and rebuild it or just shut it down. At a guess a while from now when the BTC blockchain + LN node databases + other needed OS stuff bump over the 1TB point we will see a bunch of people once again drop out.

According to the larger players that accept LN those numbers have remained level in terms of transactions.

-Dave

3. blockchains either solely used within a private group/company still solves something at a cheaper cost.
namely: the lack of ability of one employee from changing records at a bank branch via access of the bank servers, as blockchains verified/archived at all bank branches prevent one employee from changing the database..
also data redundancy/backups alleviates the need for a team of IT technicians to be on shift 24/7 trying to keep one server alive and clean from attack

4. stop imagining that a cryptocurrency needs to become the dystopian world of a "one world currency" everyone needs to use all at the same time.. and even then the numbers do not need to be "millions of transactions a second" extreme that i feel you have read and recited without thinking

the whole stupidity of "all 8 billion need to only use bitcoin" and "lets destroy, abandon all fiat and all currencies" is nonsense
but if followed leads to more stupidity of "all 8 billion cant use bitcoin for all payments, so lets make a subnetwork of less security for everyone to abandon bitcoin and use a shoddy network for all 8 billion peoples uses and then middleman charge them per unsettled/unconfirmed payment" is nonsense

bitcoin doesnt need to nor have to become the dystopian "one world currency"

1. Bitcoin, and the blockchain architecture generally, was intentionally designed to be slow and expensive in order to make up for the lack of a central authority on the network.

2. Blockchain solves one unique problem: thwarting government subpoenas into transactions. That's it. It you don't want to solve that problem, it's silly to use blockchain.

3. "Centralized blockchain" is an idiotic contradiction because it's using an architecture that multiplies your complexity and cost and doesn't add any other useful features.

4. A correctly decentralized blockchain-based currency will never, by definition, scale to mainstream transaction loads.

5. Seeing this, many projects (like say Lightning) tried to do some variant of #3 in order to create the appearance of solving the scaling problem, but all that did was: a) counteract the only benefit of using the blockchain architecture; b) not really solve the problem since even "centralized blockchain" won't get you there in terms of truly mainstream transaction loads.

6. Bitcoin and cryptos generally have been very popular and useful by performing the role of meme investment instruments. People love to invest in things like this, and Bitcoin and the others fill this role. Just because blockchain isn't the magical solution to every single one of the world's technical problems doesn't mean it's a "failure".

Like BRC20 which got initial hype and was trending in the same manner I guess LN hyped and now no one wants to talk about it. LN if done correctly would have helped Bitcoin in gaining adoption as of now it is not gaining any popularity. There are many issues behind it and one of the biggest I feel is the complexity of creating an LN network. The next issue I feel is the trust issue as LN has encountered vulnerability issues in the past which can be another reason. I do not think that LN would help Bitcoin gain adoption as it was proclaimed to do in the past.

LN's problem is not about lack of users.. LN's success is not based on adoption... it has actual technical flaws and exploits and bugs..


but if you want to ignore the faults, flaws and bugs of the code.. heres something you might want to learn about just the user adoption stuff..  the more people that use LN, the more bottlenecks LN will have because routes share/borrow liquidity meaning they can only cater to soo much value per route

LN has not failed for the reason that it has yet to see widespread adoption of the Lightning Network. We can see that there are a lot of users holding their coins on exchanges, where simple withdrawal fees may not be too much of an issue. They prioritize speed and convenience on the network used. Cheaper alternatives like the BSC or TRX chains seem attractive in that sense. Perhaps at some point a LN boom, rising online trading fees, and a security breach on a major centralized exchange could cause people to rethink how they store their cryptocurrencies. .

The electric car dilemma.
You don't buy an electric car because there are no charging stations and businesses don't open charging stations because there are people buying electric cars!

Same with LN, nobody is rushing to implement it because there is no massive need for it, there was simply no progress in the number of people willing to spend crypto, I would say quite the opposite, it's less and less by day and during a bull run and an expecting price increase coming this year, there will be even less.
So why bother with something that is not used?


LN works, it does what it promised, the problem is that it solves things people are not really finding troubling anymore.
When you don't want to spend your coins at all and you keep them on an exchange all the time fees are like the last of your concern.

LN is not here to stay in the sense that its the default option.. it will find its niche, and when people finally wise up to the IOU truth of functionality i presume people will actually promote it as such EG as a visa credit system not a visa debit system. but the future of a proper subnetwork payment system of peoples value wont be LN it will be some other subnetworks yet to be built, but in the meantime bitcoin still needs to scale onchain even just to cater to the onramp/offramps. the idea of locking people into subnetworks and making it a headache/inconvenience/expense to re enter the bitcoin network is not the path to go. subnetworks will fill NICHE service functionality

Not failure, but rather has limited practical usage. At it's best, LN is great option when you frequently make small payment or want perform daily trading while avoiding storing Bitcoin on the exchange. Outside of that, i find on-chain TX is more practical.


Merchant or business whose customer doesn't make regular or frequent payment wouldn't see much LN usage. But exchange could see fair amount of LN usage.

I've always liked LN, and used to use it, but indeed, the lack of adoption is what gets me. I can use it at Kraken (exchange), but there's no point because I don't need to exchange micro transactions. And most micro transactions I do, don't accept LN.

I wouldn't call it a failure, but more of a problem in general: good tech doesn't mean people use it, and a hype gets more exposure. Compare the ICO/NFT BS with LN: LN is here to stay, the rest is a quick money maker until the guy who created it moves on to "the next big thing".
Another thing: many people still don't use Bitcoin for real payments, and many "Bitcoin users" only keep their funds on an exchange. As long as they don't use their own wallet, they won't use it for payments.

Most people think that LN is not a failure, but to me, something that has been around for a long time but is still not widely used is a failure. Until now, not many investors know and appreciate it, they are not even interested in it. If that's not failure, then what is?

In addition, talking about the development of L2 on the bitcoin blockchain, I think in the near future we will have more choices and LN is no longer the only choice. Many L2 projects are being invested by large funds and preparing to launch mainnet during this bull season. Let's wait and see which solution will be chosen and used by everyone.

Lightning network adoption is increasing but just that is is slow. More exchanges have lightning network deposit and withdrawal already. Binance included lightning network last year, there are other exchanges like OKX that has lightning network also.

https://github.com/theDavidCoen/LightningExchanges

If you don’t mind using custodial wallets, it works well but that’s one big if and I do mind it. I want to own my own private keys and I don’t want to depend on any centralized service so I am kind of moving away from LN lately. I’d like to use btc’s main layer for anything and If I can’t do that because of the high fees, I’ll be going to the next best project which has cheap and fast transactions. I think crypto loses its purpose if it loses its decentralization aspect. LN is fine if you don’t want to move away from btc but it is also like using centralized bank apps as long as you don’t own your own LN node and in my experience people who use LN usually don’t own a node. It is because they use LN for its low tx fees and creating a LN node ain’t come cheap. It is a paradox.

I don't think lightning is a failure at all.

Many people use it online for micropayments, and it is a really convenient way to spend sats in the real world.

It's a bit like carrying money in your wallet. You don't carry all your savings around, just a bit of cash. Same thing with lightning.

You can see that most of the transactions are between the US and Europe, but it is used worldwide:



Here's the live map: https://mempool.space/graphs/lightning/nodes-channels-map

when you do bother to use it and stop acting like an inexperienced PR guy of something you have not used. you will soon learn the real issues
all i see is you promoting something based on false promises you were told.. not based on experience

there are whole countries that tried it and dropped it in months (el salvador/nigeria) dont pretend those calling it flawed/failure are people who have not used it.. instead admit its those that have not used it FALSELY thinking it works perfectly due to them just reading false statements and then copying them as if false promises is experience..
try it and realise the problems, dont just promote something you have not experienced. we already have too many idiots that do that
if you dont want to try it. then dont falsely claim that it works fine. YOU DONT KNOW

even the people that have used it admit to its flaws. its those that sound like snake-oil salesmen* that are the only ones that say its works fine
*dont know the product, exaggerate the promises, havnt used it but just promote it

Op you really pointed out good observation that need great attention, but I can't necessary tag it failure for now. my opinion towards it, is for the team to come up with more advert creating more awareness over the exchange, possibly check and see if there is any unfavorable condition in their platform that is coursing their initial plan of building the exchange not actualizing.

Alternatively given more time can be an option, but is tide down to first seen if they have time frame on how the exchange supposed to have gone which failed with that they can't restrategize by checking the actual course of not meeting their target at the specific time schedule.

Failure seems to me a big word to describe what currently lightning network is, they haven't done any blunder yet and they're doing just fine with what they're currently doing, they seem alright to me though but I guess some people haven't used it or don't care what it is, I haven't tried using it but I've seen how to set it up and to me it feels a little too complicated to do so because I'm not the go-to guy when there's issues on the computer in my house or office so that's why I find setting up LN a bit difficult, maybe it's the same for other people too, they find it hard to set up. Or the obvious reason of them all, lightning network don't have enough visibility that people probably haven't heard of it.

just needs time? nah LN wont function better even if you plugged in an alarm clock or patiently waited 1,2,4,8,16,1000 more years.. it needs to go back to scratch and start again learning from its own mistakes.. i guess you mean "time machine" not just "time"

as for the other issues you dont understand:
their own units are called Msats.. which are several more decimals deeper per unit than a sat/bitcoin. thus not the same as bitcoin

LN does not need actual bitcoin locked.. even thor turbo(bitrefills) proudly presents its instant channel creations. this is done by opening channels with msat balance which is NOT using real UTXO references, but instead uses a different channel policy of 'temp-id'
many people can open channels with no balance just so they can be connected with another partner who offers inbound balance.. inbound balance that has not been locked at the channel creation side of the inbound balance provider..

even if they did us a UTXO peg reference:
there is no LN network wide audit to ensure channel users have balance thats actually pegged from bitcoin network UTXO and nothing stops channel creators using the same UTXO over multiple channels

LN is not even a network that requires the bitcoin network. LN can bridge/peg to different currencies, so dont pretend its a "bitcoin layer". its a completely separate network that is not locked to be a sole function advantage to bitcoin

the devs of those promoting their involvement of LN are highly funded/sponsored. so asking people to tip them/donate to them wont speed things up
if you look at how many millions things like bitfinex/river financial have sponsored devs purely for LN development. the answer is then not to ask people to pay devs. they are paid enough but have ADMITTED LN HAS FLAWS EVEN THEY CANT FIX

what needs to happen is BITCOIN needs to scale, and new (from scratch) subnetworks created that learn from LN mistakes

Not yet failure, it just that most people don't care with lightning network.

We need to know if most people hold their coins in centralized exchanges, if they want to withdraw Bitcoin, they will use the cheapest network to send. They could use BSC chain, Kucoin chain, Lightning network etc, they don't care it's real coins or fake coins.

The rise of Lightning network will begin when people can't afford to pay on chain fees and one of those centralized chains (BSC, KCC etc) hacked/ruined, this will make people to carefully to hold their coins.

I think that we are simply just too early.
Crypto exchanges are just slowly starting to adopt LN (of course, it's a balance between earning some extra money as withdrawal fees and making withdrawals - and deposits - smoother).
Afaik LN is still labeled beta. This also doesn't help, but, since LN is still not out of problems... yeah...

The point is that a solution is necessary if we want bitcoin used as a currency by everybody. One path would be to fix LN and help it get mature. Another path would be finding/inventing other alternatives (on and off chain).



You are anti-LN and extremely harsh. You are not so far from truth, yet, not actually true either.
All service providers tried and try to offer IOUs. See PayPal and Revolut. Or remember that people kept Xapo wallets because "sending money" to each other (off chain, Xapo to Xapo) was free. I think that's now the same with Binance (and Binance Pay).

But LN needs actual Bitcoin locked for the channel. Yes, LN uses it's own units, the fact they are called Bitcoin is only convenience, and easy math because the channels are built with bitcoins.
On the other hand, it's far better than sending the bitcoins to an exchange then spend whatever odd wrapped bitcoin (i.e. IOUs on a completely unrelated blockchain).



All in all, my opinion is that LN just needs more time.
Maybe forum tips or signature campaigns offering LN payments could get LN used more at least in our community, as a form of support. Maybe...

I wouldn't call it "failed" just yet, but it's definitely is having trouble in getting adoption because if it still being complicated(correct me if I'm wrong) and clunky that you can't really expect the masses to use it just yet.

Like I said in a previous post though, I wish there was something else that Bitcoiners would bet on, not just Lightning alone.

Or fiat currency, simply. Cryptocurrencies are mostly used as an investment, and if you have an investment, which you therefore expect to be worth more in the future, and a fiat currency, which you know depreciates, which one are you going to spend to pay for a coffee? Leaving aside the scalability problems that in a hypothetical future in which everyone would want to pay for coffees with Bitcoin there would be, since the channels have to be opened in the main chain.

And stablecoins have come to be used instead of paying for coffees to lock in profits and/or avoid volatility. So you buy a shitcoin that makes you a 50x and pass it to stable coin just in case the price goes down as fast as it has risen.

Lightning Network started with very low adoption rate but it increased a lot since 2019 till 2022. Since early 2023, it started to fall dramatically and I remembered about a report on weakness and security hole in Lightning Network. Don't remember publishing time of that news but from the chart, it can be some time from July to September 2023.
https://txstats.com/d/000000012/lightning-network?orgId=1&from=now-7y&to=now

Biggest challenge from Lightning Network for users is they have to spend on-chain fee to open a Lightning Network channel, before they can use LN off-chain.

I don't consider LN is a failure. It actually has good adoption and not only for Lightning Network but look back, news about LN in 2017, 2018 and after actually helped Bitcoin adoption too.

It is not perfect, not great success but not a failure for LN or for Bitcoin.

I had posted about this last year
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.60194703

When I first heard about lightning it was almost 10 years ago. I thought it was going to be amazing. However it never really caught on and I am surprised.

I think that most people just stopped using bitcoin for micro payments and which Switched to stablecoins on l2 networks like ETH, ARB, Polygon, etc.

ETH fees are high now but they weren’t when USDT launched on it many years back. I think many people utilized it. Then they switched to maybe Tron or Solana for near free transactions.

Hence why lightning never became larger.

many merchants did try it, seen it fail and stopped using it
heck even many 3rd world countries who had issues with bitcoin fee's being more then peoples daily salary tried LN direct or indirect or bamboozled into using it thinking they were using 'bitcoin but cheaper' and they also seen the problems and hundreds-thousands of merchants of these coutries seen the issues and decided to ditch it, within months of trying it..

LN devs then seen the failure and asked for sponsorship for new work-arounds like the latest large sponsorships to develop BTCPayserver
.. yet still problems present itself even when using BTCPayserver

yet devs are still within their sponsor contract so yet to reveal(admit) publicly the flaws of this latest "please be patient" development. but yep we will learn like we have already, all roads lead to "flaws have been found"

LN is not a scaling solution its a bitcoin abandonment scheme
LN is not a solution its a flawed niche network for people to syphon funds from each other using IOU

LN is not even a sole network that majority should use. (one world currency dystopia)

what will/should happen is scale BITCOIN
and have subnetworks(plural) as NICHE services for small service offerings of multiple feature/functions.. but using subnetworks yet to even be made from scratch(learning from LN mistakes)

right now we are in the same economic joke punchline as "why is there no cure for cancer". where the punch line is "why would scientists cure cancer and then do themselves out of a job, when they can instead keep developing new problems to keep asking for fresh sets of investment funding pots.

the "please be patient" and years later flaws get public, is just the advert they use to ask for more R&D funding for the next project repeating the same flaws

It's been years since the Lightning Network was launched, yet adoption has been quite slow. Most people are still transacting on-chain, despite the fact that sometimes network fees increase to undesirable levels due to the Ordinals hype. The L2 scaling solution promised to boost mainstream adoption for BTC with its ultra-low fees and blazing-fast speeds. It's still flawed, despite being established for a few years now.

What do you think? Is the LN a failure? If not, why? Should we give it more time to mature? What is the main reason most exchanges, merchants and/or businesses haven't adopted it yet?

Your input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.