4 ms·

>However, getting the transaction confirmed can take many hours at the times of high demand and then it still fails because thanks to the volatility, the transa

>However, getting the transaction confirmed can take many hours at the times of high demand and then it still fails because thanks to the volatility, the transaction fees have gone up in the meantime. That is creating unsustainable problems for the customer support and makes BTC unusable for actual payments. This is precisely what Lightning aims to solve, and at least anecdotally so far, has done so in the case of LTC. (Though its hard to compare LTC to a chain with a market cap of over $200b even if the former has a skyrocketing trade volume)

jordigh 9y ago
Having used bitcoins as money, I really want the confirmation times and transaction fees to go back to what they were a year or two ago. I keep hearing that this mythical lightning will fix things, and I sure hope it does. I want internet money. I want to be able to send money to anyone, anywhere in the world, at the drop of a hat, as easy as email. I don't care about speculation or getting rich or avoiding taxes or sticking it to the man or anything like that. I just want to have a convenient way to get tipped on IRC by anyone at any time and to be able to repay in kind, to anyone at any time.
- Jach 9y ago
  10 minutes isn't really the drop of a hat. But why do you need your first confirmation in approximately the next 10 minutes so badly anyway, especially when it shows up in the mempool pretty much immediately? I paid around 20 cents on an approximately $200 transaction a couple weekends ago, it got verified after about 4 hours but I was expecting longer, it would have been fine. In the last 24 hours, 36,332 transactions were verified with at most 30 cents in fees. (https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/) The estimated time bounds for a transaction in that pool are 25 minutes to 14 hours.
  - TD-Linux 9y ago
    Just knowing it's in your mempool isn't a very strong guarantee that the payment will go through. Probably fine for reversible digital goods, but not much else. Some systems pay miners to look at their block templates to get a better assurance it will confirm (and that it won't be replaced), but it's still not very good, and given that Lightning is now running on mainnet there's little value in continuing in that direction.
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  We've mostly had this for years, in the form of PayPal. Your ID even is your email. The issues with PayPal have mostly been interfacing with fiat currency, which any system will have to deal with, and transaction fees, which any system will have. The real problem IMO is the lack of a de-facto service that everyone all around the world has, and we're kind of in this position: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
  - jordigh 9y ago
    Paypal doesn't work well across international boundaries. It's not convenient for IRC tipping. It's not internet money. And it's not my money, it's their money which they usually will give to me at their pleasure. Having family and friends in different countries who use different currencies, let me tell you, Paypal is not the solution I want.
    - sliverstorm 9y ago
      I avoid using PayPal internationally because they make it hard for me to pay in foreign currency denominations (they "helpfully" insist on being my exchange) but I have used it, it was no "worse" really than paying domestically. What makes them bad for you for international? I argue it's not convenient for IRC tipping simply because 1) software is not well-integrated for minimal clicks 2) the other person might not have PayPal. Don't get me wrong, I don't love PayPal, but I don't think Bitcoin brings anything really fundamentally important & new to the table, except maybe the decentralized part. Though, I suppose you could argue the decentralized nature of email was key for its universal adoption today.
      - xorcist 9y ago
        That "helpful" exchange also charges a 3% fee on all currency exchange, on top of their regular fees. You can insist that they charge you in the same currency as you wish to pay with and your bank will do the exchange at an order of magnitude lower fee. Not everyone knows this. The user interface also doesn't make it very clear (which perhaps surprised no one).
      - 9y ago
- ftlio 9y ago
  You can create a scarce token with all the qualities you desire in like 5 minutes. Creating 'internet money' with a stable value and network of potential transactees probably looks exactly like Bitcoin's development though.
  - jordigh 9y ago
    I'm mostly happy with bitcoins except for what I mentioned: transaction fees and waiting times. If those things can really be brought down by the lightning network, that's all I care about. Financial stability seems like a secondary concern that cannot be solved via computer code but might instead require other kinds of human codification, perhaps legal.
  - tbabb 9y ago
    Bitcoin is not set up to ever be "stable" by any definition. Real currency has a federal reserve to balance supply against demand and keep the value steady. BTC has entirely demand-driven value-- which is precisely as steady and predictable as the human mind.
    - stephengillie 9y ago
      Looking at the Coinbase graphs reminds me of reading CPU charts, comparing resource use between 3 web servers. Sometimes one coin will spike or dip independently, indicating higher utilization of one coin over the other 2 - an arbitrage opportunity; other times all 3 coins see a matching dip or raise, likely indicating a systematic cause.
    - JBSay 9y ago
      I wonder how real currencies existed before central banks...
      - tbabb 9y ago
        They weren't stable.
        9y ago
Laforet 9y ago
>This is precisely what Lightning aims to solve, and at least anecdotally so far, has done so in the case of LTC. Which LTC wallet support LN in production?

jordigh 9y ago

Having used bitcoins as money, I really want the confirmation times and transaction fees to go back to what they were a year or two ago. I keep hearing that this mythical lightning will fix things, and I sure hope it does. I want internet money. I want to be able to send money to anyone, anywhere in the world, at the drop of a hat, as easy as email. I don't care about speculation or getting rich or avoiding taxes or sticking it to the man or anything like that. I just want to have a convenient way to get tipped on IRC by anyone at any time and to be able to repay in kind, to anyone at any time.

Jach 9y ago
10 minutes isn't really the drop of a hat. But why do you need your first confirmation in approximately the next 10 minutes so badly anyway, especially when it shows up in the mempool pretty much immediately? I paid around 20 cents on an approximately $200 transaction a couple weekends ago, it got verified after about 4 hours but I was expecting longer, it would have been fine. In the last 24 hours, 36,332 transactions were verified with at most 30 cents in fees. (https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/) The estimated time bounds for a transaction in that pool are 25 minutes to 14 hours.
- TD-Linux 9y ago
  Just knowing it's in your mempool isn't a very strong guarantee that the payment will go through. Probably fine for reversible digital goods, but not much else. Some systems pay miners to look at their block templates to get a better assurance it will confirm (and that it won't be replaced), but it's still not very good, and given that Lightning is now running on mainnet there's little value in continuing in that direction.
sliverstorm 9y ago
We've mostly had this for years, in the form of PayPal. Your ID even is your email. The issues with PayPal have mostly been interfacing with fiat currency, which any system will have to deal with, and transaction fees, which any system will have. The real problem IMO is the lack of a de-facto service that everyone all around the world has, and we're kind of in this position: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- jordigh 9y ago
  Paypal doesn't work well across international boundaries. It's not convenient for IRC tipping. It's not internet money. And it's not my money, it's their money which they usually will give to me at their pleasure. Having family and friends in different countries who use different currencies, let me tell you, Paypal is not the solution I want.
  - sliverstorm 9y ago
    I avoid using PayPal internationally because they make it hard for me to pay in foreign currency denominations (they "helpfully" insist on being my exchange) but I have used it, it was no "worse" really than paying domestically. What makes them bad for you for international? I argue it's not convenient for IRC tipping simply because 1) software is not well-integrated for minimal clicks 2) the other person might not have PayPal. Don't get me wrong, I don't love PayPal, but I don't think Bitcoin brings anything really fundamentally important & new to the table, except maybe the decentralized part. Though, I suppose you could argue the decentralized nature of email was key for its universal adoption today.
    - xorcist 9y ago
      That "helpful" exchange also charges a 3% fee on all currency exchange, on top of their regular fees. You can insist that they charge you in the same currency as you wish to pay with and your bank will do the exchange at an order of magnitude lower fee. Not everyone knows this. The user interface also doesn't make it very clear (which perhaps surprised no one).
    - 9y ago
ftlio 9y ago
You can create a scarce token with all the qualities you desire in like 5 minutes. Creating 'internet money' with a stable value and network of potential transactees probably looks exactly like Bitcoin's development though.
- jordigh 9y ago
  I'm mostly happy with bitcoins except for what I mentioned: transaction fees and waiting times. If those things can really be brought down by the lightning network, that's all I care about. Financial stability seems like a secondary concern that cannot be solved via computer code but might instead require other kinds of human codification, perhaps legal.
- tbabb 9y ago
  Bitcoin is not set up to ever be "stable" by any definition. Real currency has a federal reserve to balance supply against demand and keep the value steady. BTC has entirely demand-driven value-- which is precisely as steady and predictable as the human mind.
  - stephengillie 9y ago
    Looking at the Coinbase graphs reminds me of reading CPU charts, comparing resource use between 3 web servers. Sometimes one coin will spike or dip independently, indicating higher utilization of one coin over the other 2 - an arbitrage opportunity; other times all 3 coins see a matching dip or raise, likely indicating a systematic cause.
  - JBSay 9y ago
    I wonder how real currencies existed before central banks...
    - tbabb 9y ago
      They weren't stable.
      - 9y ago

Laforet 9y ago

>This is precisely what Lightning aims to solve, and at least anecdotally so far, has done so in the case of LTC. Which LTC wallet support LN in production?