27 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
View submission: ⚡️ needs you. Yes, you.
Can someone answer me this 1 question?
You tie up say 1 BTC in a Lightning channel. Takes a few days to get in the channel because well the network will still be clogged (don't kid yourself 7tx/sec is terrible even with 8MB blocks it's only 56). Great now you can spend it fairly easily, quickly and cheaply. Now, uh oh, the channel unexpectedly closed. You'll get your remaining balance back eventually. But in the meantime you have no funds to spend and even if you did have reserved coins it'll still take a while + fees to open another channel.
It's like locking up your debt card for a few days while you wait a week for a new one in the mail.
Please tell me where I'm wrong. And if your answer is something to the effect of the mempool won't be backlogged, please refrain from even commenting because that's asinine
Comment by o_oli at 24/12/2017 at 20:43 UTC
13 upvotes, 1 direct replies
As far as I make it - you’re not wrong. LN is clever, and will be useful in niche situations, but it’s not the widely useable network thats promised. BTC is going down a bad path putting so much reliance on LN and ignoring any other solution. At some point it will become clear LN doesn’t solve the scaling issue and we will just have to see if that is before or after other coins overtake BTC. I’m not holding my breath...
Comment by FinnMine at 24/12/2017 at 22:56 UTC
9 upvotes, 7 direct replies
This. So much. I can't understand why everyone here thinks that LN will magically solve the scaling problem. In addition to what you said, LN by design will create centralization. There's no monetary incentive to open multiple small channels to different people / hubs. Quite the opposite, the high fees will incentive people to open large and as few channels as possible.
LN might help a little bit when it comes to regularly sending funds to payment services or exchanges, but what about in the other direction?
Maybe I haven't understood this correctly, but why would anyone open thousands of channels (and tie their BTC into those channels) so that they can pay individual people?
Comment by Matholomey at 25/12/2017 at 02:52 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You can always close the channel even when it goes offline. You then have the funds back in the time of an onchain tx
Comment by token_dave at 25/12/2017 at 05:48 UTC*
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Under what conditions would a channel be unexpectedly closed?