7 ms·

FWIW that is the goal of the Lightning Network on Bitcoin: https://lightning.network/ https://lightning.network/

by eosrei 9y ago

Operyl 9y ago
I keep seeing this brought up over months and months, but how close are we even to using it? Is the technology a thing yet? Or is it all white papers.
- wyager 9y ago
  Working implementations exist and are usable, but they are being very cautious before releasing to the general public.
- Mahn 9y ago
  It exists in its early stages, but it's terribly impractical, hence no exchange or end user is in a rush to adopt it. Its design is almost like someone took a hard look at Bitcoin and concluded "Gee, this is not cumbersome enough for people, we need to make transacting a worse and more confusing experience".
- grubles 9y ago
  I demoed [0] receiving one tenths of a cent's worth of bitcoin (0.00000010 BTC) instantly, and on Bitcoin's mainnet (not a test network). I also demoed [1] purchasing swag from Blockstream's store [2] which is powered by their newly released Wordpress e-commerce plugin [3] that enables Lightning payments. I did not screencapture the videos because Qubes dom0 does not come OOTB with screenrecording software, and I don't want to enable networking in dom0 to install software that does. [0]https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/955611467889422337 https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/955611467889422337 [1]https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/954933507863863296 https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/954933507863863296 [2]https://store.blockstream.com/ https://store.blockstream.com/ [3]https://blockstream.com/2018/01/16/lightning-charge.html https://blockstream.com/2018/01/16/lightning-charge.html
- VarFarYonder 9y ago
  Here is a graph showing the number of lightning network payment channels on the bitcoin mainnet: https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1 https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1
- brokensegue 9y ago
  it's not useful for speculating on the price of bitcoin so few people will use it
- josu 9y ago
  You can buy coffee https://twitter.com/alexbosworth/status/955870434230132736 https://twitter.com/alexbosworth/status/955870434230132736
hmcdona1 9y ago
The lightning network will be far less effective than people are hoping. You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it, and b) each stake capital in that channel for it to be functional. This is useful only in specific scenarios like exchange-to-exchange transfers. Exchanges are going to be very unlikely to ever set up channels to customers. They haven't even implemented segwit yet, there's no way they are going to bother setting up the infrastructure needed to charge for and activate lightning channels.
- Paul-ish 9y ago
  > a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it I think you only need a path to the person you want to pay, not a direct channel. eg if Alice wants to pay Bob, and they both have a channel to Greg, then Alice can send money to Bob through Greg. > They haven't even implemented segwit yet, The wikipedia[1] page seems to say that most miners implement segwit now. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SegWit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SegWit
  - lhl 9y ago
    Segwit is still not fully supported in the Core wallet [1] - change goes to P2PKH addresses and there's no GUI support for generating (or even sending to AFAIK) bech32 addresses. While certain charts regulary show 10% usage [2], when analyzing UTXOs, the numbers are a miniscule 0.03% of transactions. [3] [1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/11403 https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/11403 [2] http://segwit.party/charts/ http://segwit.party/charts/ [3] https://twitter.com/dukeleto/status/954759096544124928 https://twitter.com/dukeleto/status/954759096544124928
- Natanael_L 9y ago
  It's named network because you do not need a channel with every individual user. You have a channel with one or more LN servers, they in turn have connections with yet more servers. As the other guy said, there only needs to exist a path of channels between you and the entity you're paying, and the payment will be routed through the network.
- 9y ago

FWIW that is the goal of the Lightning Network on Bitcoin: https://lightning.network/ https://lightning.network/

by eosrei 9y ago

FWIW that is the goal of the Lightning Network on Bitcoin: https://lightning.network/ https://lightning.network/

I keep seeing this brought up over months and months, but how close are we even to using it? Is the technology a thing yet? Or is it all white papers.

wyager 9y ago
Working implementations exist and are usable, but they are being very cautious before releasing to the general public.
Mahn 9y ago
It exists in its early stages, but it's terribly impractical, hence no exchange or end user is in a rush to adopt it. Its design is almost like someone took a hard look at Bitcoin and concluded "Gee, this is not cumbersome enough for people, we need to make transacting a worse and more confusing experience".
grubles 9y ago
I demoed [0] receiving one tenths of a cent's worth of bitcoin (0.00000010 BTC) instantly, and on Bitcoin's mainnet (not a test network). I also demoed [1] purchasing swag from Blockstream's store [2] which is powered by their newly released Wordpress e-commerce plugin [3] that enables Lightning payments. I did not screencapture the videos because Qubes dom0 does not come OOTB with screenrecording software, and I don't want to enable networking in dom0 to install software that does. [0]https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/955611467889422337 https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/955611467889422337 [1]https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/954933507863863296 https://twitter.com/notgrubles/status/954933507863863296 [2]https://store.blockstream.com/ https://store.blockstream.com/ [3]https://blockstream.com/2018/01/16/lightning-charge.html https://blockstream.com/2018/01/16/lightning-charge.html
VarFarYonder 9y ago
Here is a graph showing the number of lightning network payment channels on the bitcoin mainnet: https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1 https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1
brokensegue 9y ago
it's not useful for speculating on the price of bitcoin so few people will use it
josu 9y ago
You can buy coffee https://twitter.com/alexbosworth/status/955870434230132736 https://twitter.com/alexbosworth/status/955870434230132736

hmcdona1 9y ago

The lightning network will be far less effective than people are hoping. You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it, and b) each stake capital in that channel for it to be functional. This is useful only in specific scenarios like exchange-to-exchange transfers. Exchanges are going to be very unlikely to ever set up channels to customers. They haven't even implemented segwit yet, there's no way they are going to bother setting up the infrastructure needed to charge for and activate lightning channels.

Paul-ish 9y ago
> a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it I think you only need a path to the person you want to pay, not a direct channel. eg if Alice wants to pay Bob, and they both have a channel to Greg, then Alice can send money to Bob through Greg. > They haven't even implemented segwit yet, The wikipedia[1] page seems to say that most miners implement segwit now. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SegWit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SegWit
- lhl 9y ago
  Segwit is still not fully supported in the Core wallet [1] - change goes to P2PKH addresses and there's no GUI support for generating (or even sending to AFAIK) bech32 addresses. While certain charts regulary show 10% usage [2], when analyzing UTXOs, the numbers are a miniscule 0.03% of transactions. [3] [1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/11403 https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/11403 [2] http://segwit.party/charts/ http://segwit.party/charts/ [3] https://twitter.com/dukeleto/status/954759096544124928 https://twitter.com/dukeleto/status/954759096544124928
Natanael_L 9y ago
It's named network because you do not need a channel with every individual user. You have a channel with one or more LN servers, they in turn have connections with yet more servers. As the other guy said, there only needs to exist a path of channels between you and the entity you're paying, and the payment will be routed through the network.
9y ago