The Lightning Network for Beginners.. - page 3.

spartacusrex

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Quote from: CIYAM on November 10, 2015, 07:28:09 AM

Quote from: spartacusrex on November 10, 2015, 07:24:30 AM

If I'm only really going to be sending them some BTC once, how does LN help in that scenario ?

The concept is not designed to help with sending BTC to someone once (you'd do that using Bitcoin).

When you consider things like a "game table" people are likely to spend hours "playing" that would (if recorded on the main chain) just be blockchain bloat and luckily that is not necessary if you are prepared to instead use a payment channel.

Ah.. I see..

Can you join the 'room' after it has been created or do you need to be there at it's inception ? ( I have a feeling you need to be there at inception )

CIYAM

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Ian Knowles - CIYAM Lead Developer

Quote from: spartacusrex on November 10, 2015, 07:24:30 AM

If I'm only really going to be sending them some BTC once, how does LN help in that scenario ?

The concept is not designed to help with sending BTC to someone once (you'd do that using Bitcoin).

When you consider things like a "game table" people are likely to spend hours "playing" that would (if recorded on the main chain) just be blockchain bloat and luckily that is not necessary if you are prepared to instead use a payment channel.

spartacusrex

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Activity: 718

Merit: 545

This is not meant as a heavy technical discussion. That's why I posted it here.

Since there is a lot of talk about 'The Lightning Network' at the moment, and a lot of confusion about how it actually might be implemented in the real world, I thought a layman's description would be useful.

I'll start, and then some one, please correct me.. Tongue

As I understand it, and from other lively discussions, LN allows Bitcoin users to go into a private room, transact amongst themselves with 100% security off the main chain, and then when all is said and done, they leave the room, and post a TXN on the main-chain that is the culmination / sum of all the private TXNs.

So - we can all play poker in private, with bitcoins, off chain, and then at the end of the night send out 1 TXN, on chain, with everybody getting their final chip stack. Very nice.

What I don't understand is how this works when I want to transact with someone on the street, or in a coffee shop ?

If I'm only really going to be sending them some BTC once, how does LN help in that scenario ?

Topic: The Lightning Network for Beginners.. - page 3. (Read 1827 times)