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Topic: The Lightning Network FAQ - page 65. (Read 33287 times)

legendary
Activity: 3500
Merit: 6320
Crypto Swap Exchange
May 25, 2020, 09:31:20 AM
2) Why would you want a custodial wallet?
Compared to opening my own channels, a custodial wallet is:
  • easier to use
  • cheaper to fund
  • better connected
  • easier to empty
And for small amounts, I don't mind trusting a custodial wallet.

It's going to be interesting once big exchanges start accepting LN transactions, people trust them with large amounts already.

easier to use --> Yes.

cheaper to fund / better connected --> Tough to say, I can put BTC.1 into a channel between my node and a larger peer (say ln.pizza)  and then BTC.01 into a smaller one and be done. Never had any real issues spending / receiving except those that did turn out to be caused by me in the end. Not saying there were no issues, just that they all turned out to be "Dave can't read or follow directions" issues. But yeah, funding bluewallet and being done is probably easier.

easier to empty --> I use Ride the Lightning so it's just a click on a webpage.

Just my view. For a newbie it's probably easier. But, Loyce I have seen the work you do scraping data and putting stuff together it's amazing. You are manipulating a ton of data and have a ton of programming behind it. Don't tell me you can't have a Raspiblitz or mynodebtc server up and running in less then an hour. (Not counting sync time)

Stay safe.

-Dave
legendary
Activity: 3290
Merit: 16489
Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021
May 25, 2020, 03:38:29 AM
2) Why would you want a custodial wallet?
Compared to opening my own channels, a custodial wallet is:
  • easier to use
  • cheaper to fund
  • better connected
  • easier to empty
And for small amounts, I don't mind trusting a custodial wallet.

It's going to be interesting once big exchanges start accepting LN transactions, people trust them with large amounts already.
full member
Activity: 305
Merit: 106
May 24, 2020, 07:58:11 AM
It's not only about the merchant but also the consumer.
Companies want profit and pioneering is lower on the list. If your potential buyer is not that LN savvy might not be the right time to implement it I assume.
Most need serious market research before they can pitch LN to the board/investors. That's what you get when you have some stubborn old farts with serious equity in the company.
legendary
Activity: 3500
Merit: 6320
Crypto Swap Exchange
May 24, 2020, 06:50:09 AM
For those 1/2/3 sats/byte transactions waiting for DAYS in the mempool. If they were in Lightning, formed like an "organized mempool" waiting to be confirmed back onchain, they would be going back and forth instantly, possibly for lower fees. Why are merchants so slow in adopting it?

https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#0,24h

Old question, same answer :
1. There aren't many payment processor/gateway which accept LN
2. There aren't many wallet which support LN, personally i doubt custodial or web wallet will support LN at all
3. Trade-off between convenience or full-control when choosing LN wallet

1) True. But there are more then there used to be. Off the top of my head there is
    a) BTCPay
    b) coingate
    c) zap

2) Why would you want a custodial wallet? But they are out there.
   a) Wallet of Satoshi
   b) bluewallet

3) Would also add technical knowledge. We as a group are still introducing people to bitcoin. Now we have to explain lightning.

Stay safe.
-Dave
legendary
Activity: 2898
Merit: 1823
May 24, 2020, 12:52:17 AM
For those 1/2/3 sats/byte transactions waiting for DAYS in the mempool. If they were in Lightning, formed like an "organized mempool" waiting to be confirmed back onchain, they would be going back and forth instantly, possibly for lower fees. Why are merchants so slow in adopting it?

https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#0,24h
sr. member
Activity: 279
Merit: 435
May 04, 2020, 02:38:36 AM
Yes, the idea with the lightning network originally was that there were essentially 2 layers of nodes... The first layer deals with how to find people and routing information and the second deals with participating in the network (sending and receiving nodes but not necessarily routing).
Yep I'm aware, but I still don't understand the relation with being "more anonymous"?.. The only part of added privacy I can think of is your direct peer not knowing the full amount you want to transfer

Since acinq at least used to have the longest running nodes and were the main developers I was trying to work out if there's a way to disable funds going through any main servers (even though we can probably trust the developers of the ln, no device is completely secure and if you want to be fairly anonymous)...
Why would you not want the ACINQ node to be in your route ? If they aren't the first node they don't know you are part of it ..

In addition, regarding your sentence about trust in ln developers : you don't need to trust anyone in the network with your funds. Just the open source software you are running.
legendary
Activity: 2898
Merit: 1823
May 04, 2020, 01:45:15 AM
Hypothetical question. If I provide larger channel capacity in LN , but with moderately higher fees required, would you choose to pay my fee to complete payment "in a single shot"? Asking for a friend.


I am with darosior on this. Not going to pay higher fees for anything I can avoid.

With that being said, I am running two of my own lightning nodes so I may not be the best person to ask. Which, is my next point. Asking people in this thread may not be the best place to ask, because you are going to get the answer from a bunch of people who may or may not run their own node, but who do understand or are trying to understand the LN and will probably not want to pay more fees for very little benefit, and you would loose a bit of privacy (what jackg said).

Stay safe.

-Dave


For personal use, I believe you're right. For merchants to handle high-volume of transactions, I believe high-liquidity/higher-fee channels will be the right choice. They shouldn't let the customer wait.
copper member
Activity: 2856
Merit: 3071
https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory
May 03, 2020, 01:10:21 PM
is there a way to disable it if you wanted to be more anonymous?

To disable what ? MPP ? To be more anonymous how ?

Yes, the idea with the lightning network originally was that there were essentially 2 layers of nodes... The first layer deals with how to find people and routing information and the second deals with participating in the network (sending and receiving nodes but not necessarily routing).

Since acinq at least used to have the longest running nodes and were the main developers I was trying to work out if there's a way to disable funds going through any main servers (even though we can probably trust the developers of the ln, no device is completely secure and if you want to be fairly anonymous)...
sr. member
Activity: 279
Merit: 435
May 03, 2020, 12:55:16 PM
is there a way to disable it if you wanted to be more anonymous?

To disable what ? MPP ? To be more anonymous how ?
legendary
Activity: 3500
Merit: 6320
Crypto Swap Exchange
May 03, 2020, 08:26:01 AM
Hypothetical question. If I provide larger channel capacity in LN , but with moderately higher fees required, would you choose to pay my fee to complete payment "in a single shot"? Asking for a friend.


I am with darosior on this. Not going to pay higher fees for anything I can avoid.

With that being said, I am running two of my own lightning nodes so I may not be the best person to ask. Which, is my next point. Asking people in this thread may not be the best place to ask, because you are going to get the answer from a bunch of people who may or may not run their own node, but who do understand or are trying to understand the LN and will probably not want to pay more fees for very little benefit, and you would loose a bit of privacy (what jackg said).

Stay safe.

-Dave
copper member
Activity: 2856
Merit: 3071
https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory
May 03, 2020, 07:58:48 AM
There's the other question that you could be paying a higher fee to be deanonymised... One of the perks of the ln goes if everyone cna use a certain node to route through.

I know this was their plan and it takes a while for my phone to load all the routes even at the moment (to sync I mean) but is there a way to disable it if you wanted to be more anonymous?
sr. member
Activity: 279
Merit: 435
May 03, 2020, 07:48:40 AM
Hypothetical question. If I provide larger channel capacity in LN , but with moderately higher fees required, would you choose to pay my fee to complete payment "in a single shot"? Asking for a friend.

I think MPP will still only be used as a fallback for some time, so yes (your route will be tried first). However at some point if the sum of the base fee of the MPP routes is cheaper... No.
legendary
Activity: 2898
Merit: 1823
May 03, 2020, 05:12:50 AM
Yesterday, LND released lnd v0.10-beta. Aside from many small improvements, there are two notable features. Sending up to 0.167 BTC via multiple paths (multipart payments) is now possible. Eclair also has a full MPP support while c-lightning supports only receiving so as long as most nodes are up-to-date, the payments should go through without any problems. The other feature worth mentioning is support for Partially-Signed Bitcoin Transaction (PSBT). It is now possible to fund multiple channels using a single transaction directly from one's wallet if it supports PSBT.

Hypothetical question. If I provide larger channel capacity in LN , but with moderately higher fees required, would you choose to pay my fee to complete payment "in a single shot"? Asking for a friend.

https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/releases/tag/v0.10.0-beta

Quote

The splitting algorithm that is employed is a variation of "divide and conquer". First, lnd will try to complete the payment in a single shot. If that is not possible - because channel capacities aren't sufficient or other constraints like the fee limit are hit - an attempt is made for half the payment amount. After that htlc has been launched, a second path is searched for to pay the remaining amount (the other half). If further failures happen, amounts are repeatedly split until a minimum amount limit is reached or the payment succeeds.

We opted for this relatively simple strategy to begin with. It is expected to address various basic liquidity problems that arose in the past, but it is unlikely to always execute payments in a way that is optimal. The field of multi-path planning is still mostly uncharted and contains lots of challenges. Therefore we hope to collect valuable feedback with this release and use that to drive further development.

legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 3132
May 01, 2020, 06:52:32 PM
Yesterday, LND released lnd v0.10-beta. Aside from many small improvements, there are two notable features. Sending up to 0.167 BTC via multiple paths (multipart payments) is now possible. Eclair also has a full MPP support while c-lightning supports only receiving so as long as most nodes are up-to-date, the payments should go through without any problems. The other feature worth mentioning is support for Partially-Signed Bitcoin Transaction (PSBT). It is now possible to fund multiple channels using a single transaction directly from one's wallet if it supports PSBT.
sr. member
Activity: 279
Merit: 435
April 30, 2020, 05:17:17 AM
Thus, it might seem a bad idea to allow unenforceable amounts
We have the same in euros: most shops reject 1 and 2 cent coins, and yet most prices end on 9 cents.
This is not comparable at all, I think. Shops reject 1 and 2 cents coins because they can't automagically get a 10$ ticket out of a thousand of them. On LN they can.
And this was not about payments but about forwarding fees. Even if you can see an utility for payments too (pay-per-call on an API for example).


Entire cents, currently worty far more than 100 satoshi, are lost due to rounding. And nobody cares Cheesy
Why would anyone care about possibly losing a fraction of a satoshi due to rounding?
Again, not comparable : my point that these tiny amounts may become valuable in a fraction of seconds. That is again true for a forwarding node or a payee for an autonomous service.


OR for example, the possbility of a more than 6 digit per Bitcoin world. Instead of breaking Bitcoin's social contract by adding more decimal places onchain, do it in L2. Cool
Absolutely, I think the need for those tiny amounts is already present today, and it might be even more with a price increase !
legendary
Activity: 2898
Merit: 1823
April 30, 2020, 12:36:44 AM
OK, is it as simple as changing the most basic unit of account from sats to millisats? How does that "transformation" happen in Lightning. Or is it simply because any rule can be made up in L2 networks?
Yes, and making it unenforceable onchain (as dust outputs once again!). Some are critic regarding that choice.

However, accounting for such small amounts are really handy : for example for the fees. Fees are denominated in msat and most are below the thousand msat, without such an accounting system how could fees that low (or that precise !) be enforced ? Paying one whole sat but once each X forwarded payments ? That's not viable.


OR for example, the possbility of a more than 6 digit per Bitcoin world. Instead of breaking Bitcoin's social contract by adding more decimal places onchain, do it in L2. Cool

legendary
Activity: 3290
Merit: 16489
Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021
April 29, 2020, 12:12:59 PM
Thus, it might seem a bad idea to allow unenforceable amounts
We have the same in euros: most shops reject 1 and 2 cent coins, and yet most prices end on 9 cents. Entire cents, currently worty far more than 100 satoshi, are lost due to rounding. And nobody cares Cheesy
Why would anyone care about possibly losing a fraction of a satoshi due to rounding?
sr. member
Activity: 279
Merit: 435
April 29, 2020, 07:36:55 AM
OK, is it as simple as changing the most basic unit of account from sats to millisats? How does that "transformation" happen in Lightning. Or is it simply because any rule can be made up in L2 networks?
Yes, and making it unenforceable onchain (as dust outputs once again!). Some are critic regarding that choice.

However, accounting for such small amounts are really handy : for example for the fees. Fees are denominated in msat and most are below the thousand msat, without such an accounting system how could fees that low (or that precise !) be enforced ? Paying one whole sat but once each X forwarded payments ? That's not viable.

Secondly, we need to bear in mind that channels may be (some are already) used at a high frequency : 10 forwarded payments paying 100msat each can be enforced directly at the creation of the next commitment transactions (at least in the fees), and they don't originate from the same payer.

Thus, it might seem a bad idea to allow unenforceable amounts while giving the system a quick look but things are more complex and there are also benefits Smiley
legendary
Activity: 3500
Merit: 6320
Crypto Swap Exchange
April 29, 2020, 07:19:37 AM
OK, is it as simple as changing the most basic unit of account from sats to millisats? How does that "transformation" happen in Lightning. Or is it simply because any rule can be made up in L2 networks?

Any rule that the L2 agrees upon.

Automotive version:

Think of it as having a car that is street legal that you can also drive on the track.
While driving it to the racetrack (L2 network) you have to obey all the local traffic rules (main chain), once you are the track there are a different set of rules. Still the same car (BTC) however, once you leave the track for the drive home, the local traffic rules apply again.

Probably nor 100% technically accurate but *I* feel it is a good example. Others will disagree.

-Dave
legendary
Activity: 2898
Merit: 1823
April 29, 2020, 06:41:58 AM
I remember franky1 going on a disinformation rampage about "Bitcoins in Lightning are IOUs because milli-sats", but I never researched how Lightning actually make milli-sats possible. Can anyone ELI5?

Yes, I'm ashamed.
They are accounted until it reaches 1sat (and rounded down to sat for transactions), at which point they are added to the fees. Once the amount of sats is enough to create an output (above the dust limit [1]), an HTLC output is created instead of adding the amount to the fees.

[1] The dust limit here isn't the "real" one (which can vary), it's a fixed limit agreed at channel creation by the peers.


OK, is it as simple as changing the most basic unit of account from sats to millisats? How does that "transformation" happen in Lightning. Or is it simply because any rule can be made up in L2 networks?
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