2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Lightning Network Megathread
Thanks /u/ophelan - my point is that the Hubs will provide channels for users and need to hold them open with BTC. Therefore if many hubs have channels (I see this like a reserve currency) then that BTC will be locked up and effectively reducing the available supply. I realize that this "could" be temporary, but as I asked earlier for a vision of hubs, I could see some marketplace leaders with large channels open. Once could argue that this is just sitting in a wallet anyway but there is real impact. In fact, this mirrors the Bank Reserve Requirements https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/requiredreserves.asp[1] which affects the money supply.
1: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/requiredreserves.asp
Comment by ophelan at 03/01/2018 at 16:20 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's an interesting question, for sure. Like you say, the channels need funds to function. Some of that funding may be of further utility, but a functional network likely requires more than the bare minimum - if I open a channel to you, but only I commit funds, we have a uni-directional channel for the time being...not so great.
That said, I wonder if there's enough "idle" funds floating around to handle this burden without economic impact. For instance, if I need to tie up some BTC to maintain my Lightning node, I'm just going to use some coins that are sitting idle; it won't impact the amount I'm trading or transacting with. For bigger entities, it's unclear what the impact will be.