https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7ojkoz/lightning_network_megathread/
created by codedaway on 06/01/2018 at 14:41 UTC*
966 upvotes, 45 top-level comments (showing 25)
Comment by [deleted] at 06/01/2018 at 16:14 UTC
38 upvotes, 7 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Prodigga at 07/01/2018 at 02:29 UTC*
11 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Alice and a coffee shop have a channel, Bob and Joe have a channel, Joe can't buy a coffee just because he and the coffee shop both have "a channel with someone on the network". Bob would need a channel with Alice to bridge the gap between the coffee shop and Joe. So when Joe makes a purchase, his purchase is routed from Joe>Bob>Alice>Coffee shop.
Assuming... of course...the channels between Joe and the Coffee shop have enough funds on "Joe's side of the channel" to purchase the coffee.
And what if Alice had paid the steep Bitcoin transaction fee to open the channel with the coffee shop and she had initialised the channel with just enough money to purchase 5 lattes.. if Joe purchases a latte and his purchase is routed through Alice, doesn't this use up one of Alice's lattes?
Could Alice rock up to the coffee shop on day 5, attempt to pay, and realize there's no money left on her side of the channel?
She'd have to micromanaging how much she has left with every retailer she opens a channel with.
Maybe she just opens a big channel with a major hub, which most retailers are connected to.. No more micromanagement.
So how does a retailer join this hub? My tiny coffee shop wants to join. The hub would have to be the one who opens a channel with my coffee shop and they would have to front hundreds, probably thousands of dollars to make sure the channel has enough money in it to handle hundreds of latte purchases. The channel only runs one way (people buy coffees, and there are no refunds) so eventually the channel will need to close (once all the money has moved over from the hub to the coffee shop).
Honestly I am worried, lighting sounds awesome on paper but it just sounds like an absolute mess in practice. Hopefully someone can shed some light on these concerns.
Comment by HeldAviation at 06/01/2018 at 16:10 UTC
22 upvotes, 5 direct replies
Let's say that user A have 0.3 BTC in wallet via micropayments (0.0000xxx amounts). If user A want to pay to user B via Lightning Network channel and after that channel is closed, who will have to pay the huge fee to have the 0.3 BTC in the main blockchain ? User A will pay the fee when will enter with 0.3Btc in the channel ? Thanks for those materials, but a payment from micropayments ,added in a channel, is not so discussed...
Comment by GibbsSamplePlatter at 06/01/2018 at 19:00 UTC
10 upvotes, 3 direct replies
As a general bitcoin/wallet dev, it's still pretty magical to see compared to legacy on-chain Bitcoin payments.
Comment by jose628 at 06/01/2018 at 16:51 UTC
6 upvotes, 3 direct replies
"What is the release date for Lightning on Mainnet?
Lightning is already being tested on the Mainnet Twitter Link but as for a specific date, Jameson Lopp says it best"
What is that supposed to mean?
Comment by bellw0od at 06/01/2018 at 17:12 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I hope that someone is already working on a functional, user-friendly wallet. If the goal is to make Bitcoin ready for widespread adoption, that's just as important as the underlying tech.
I want to be able to do the following:
That last point is crucial. Every single Bitcoin transaction that results in an exchange of value is subject to capital gains taxation. I want to be able to use Bitcoin for over-the-counter coffee purchases and the like, but I won't do it if I know it will lead to an accounting nightmare at the end of the year.
All of those things are possible in principle, right?
Comment by Maca_Najeznica at 06/01/2018 at 18:52 UTC*
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
What about this[1] concern that LN won't work due to inadequate incentive model? Edit: I'd like to add a general question, who is supposed to run hubs and what is his incentive?
1: https://medium.com/@homakov/why-lightning-and-raiden-networks-will-not-work-d1880e4bc294
Comment by andreyttt at 07/01/2018 at 01:18 UTC
7 upvotes, 2 direct replies
The average Joe can install an app on his phone and is capable of scanning a QR address at max... So what the hell are we all talking about here? Wake up for a sec, devs
Comment by foobarwho at 06/01/2018 at 23:30 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Honestly, I don’t think those answers are whole truths. Only showing the positive side without looking at arguments against fairly
Comment by [deleted] at 06/01/2018 at 18:32 UTC*
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
What effect will full blocks have on security of funds within a channel? Will you be able to prevent a cheating lightning transaction if the Bitcoin transaction time is higher than the CLTV timeout?
Edited for clarity.
Comment by bitcoind3 at 06/01/2018 at 17:13 UTC
6 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Probably worth having a point about "Will the lightning network be centralised / censorable?"
I'm not expert enough to know the answer to this one. However my instinct is that it will be fairly centralised. You need to connect to reliable well-funded well-connected nodes, all of these features will apply centralisation pressure :/.
Also:
Is Lightning Bitcoin? Yes.
I thought Lightning works on any concurrency so long as it has immutable transactions? LTC for example.
Comment by TheGreatMuffin at 06/01/2018 at 16:30 UTC
9 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Goddamit, once again superb work, sir!
Update request: you can make testnet instant swaps with bitcoin for different altcoins here: http://zigzag.bitlum.io/[1] it's as much fun as with Starblocks or similar! Even more so, cause you get to use testnets of some different altcoins :)
pro tip: if you wanna try swap for LTC f.ex., but too lazy to get a LTC testnet wallet, just get a random testnet receiving address by googling "[altcoin name] + testnet blockexplorer" and use one of the addresses there as your receiving address :)
Comment by benwayy at 06/01/2018 at 17:18 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How do on-chain fees work when opening and closing channels? Who pays the fee?
question I'm most interested in, along with how easy it will be for a regular person to open a channel
Comment by AxiomBTC at 06/01/2018 at 17:38 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This should be a stickied post. Thanks for putting this together, awesome resource.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/01/2018 at 18:59 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 06/01/2018 at 19:55 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by baltsar777 at 06/01/2018 at 21:11 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I got a decent grip of the LN network as non-technical guy. I wonder how the frontend and the user experience will be when using LN. I tried the testnet and I think it was too complicated to even pay for a coffee.
Comment by Korberos at 06/01/2018 at 23:19 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Example: A and B have a channel. 1 BTC each. A sends B 0.5 BTC. B sends back 0.25 BTC. Balance should be A = 0.75, B = 0.25
Don't you mean "A = 0.75, B = 1.25"? They each had 1 BTC each at the beginning.
Comment by [deleted] at 07/01/2018 at 06:38 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I have a question. To discover routes we rely on the information reported by each node to be correct. How easy would it be to disrupt LN simply by having nodes report false information about their states?
Comment by viajero_loco at 07/01/2018 at 11:44 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
this should probably be stickied and/or on github or some other more durable medium.
Comment by loremusipsumus at 07/01/2018 at 15:23 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
please add lightninggem.com and lncast.com
Comment by urza23 at 07/01/2018 at 17:43 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Especially looking forward to this:
Exchange Integration with the Lightning Network
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r38-_IgtfOkhJh4QbN7l6bl7Rol05qS-i7BjM3AjKOQ/edit
Comment by MrRGnome at 06/01/2018 at 16:12 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The idea of trading signed smart contracts off chain like cash is brilliant. Glad to see this thread reposted, unfortunately I think the learning material will be too dense for many resulting in provably false claims about trusting third parties and such nonsense.
Comment by BashCo at 06/01/2018 at 16:54 UTC*
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Looking great! Maybe this formatting works better for the Q/A section?
That's 6 hashtags before the question and a standard '>' before the answer (plus source at end). Maybe it's borked on mobile though.
Edit: format looks good on mobile.
Comment by mamacoin at 06/01/2018 at 20:22 UTC
0 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Question: Is Lightning Network part of white paper of Satoshi for Bitcoin ?