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A bitcoin is just an entry in the BTC blockchain ledger. And I think you are misunderstanding the concepts in what you call "layer 2". The idea of the Lightning
by PaulAJ 9y ago
A bitcoin is just an entry in the BTC blockchain ledger. And I think you are misunderstanding the concepts in what you call "layer 2". The idea of the Lightning Network (which I assume you are referring to) is that you can execute off-chain transactions without needing to trust anyone. Its not the same as an "unconfirmed transaction" which leaves you open to a double-spend attack.
- runeks 9y ago> A bitcoin is just an entry in the BTC blockchain ledger. I agree. > The idea of the Lightning Network (which I assume you are referring to) is that you can execute off-chain transactions without needing to trust anyone. Being off-chain, a LN transaction is not a bitcoin by your definition. While LN might be trustless, it's not the case than an LN-transaction is as good as a bitcoin in the blockchain. With LN, there's a race against time, whereby a node can lose funds received through LN, if it fails to settle on the blockchain. So the two (blockchain-tx vs LN-tx) are definitely not equivalent, but it's possible that future schemes can close that gap. Timeouts are a necessary part of payment channels, since if you just send your bitcoins to a 2-of-2 multi-sig address willy nilly, the owner of the other key can hold your funds hostage unless you give him half. Hence the timeout, after which funds sent to the 2-of-2 multi-sig address can be redeemed by just a single public key (the sender's). The receiver needs to publish a transaction (that redeems the same 2-of-2 multi-sig output) to the blockchain before this point in time, or the funds received through the channel are up for grabs.