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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) eac

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.
nikcub 9y ago
> You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it This simply isn't true. You open one channel and then payments are routed over channels to your destination. It's no different to TCP/IP in this way and the reason why that analogy is used a lot in describing the network Having a one channel single destination can be done with Bitcoin alone and the new timelock transactions - the purpose of lightning is automating these transacations and the routing between channels Opening a channel in lightning is no different to having a balance in a wallet or a bank account - you don't notice that it is "locked". Channels can also create other channels using channel factories[0]. This all happens under the hood much in the same way somebody accessing YouTube knows little about routing infrastructure. There really is a lot of FUD about Lightning and they get repeated a lot by people who should know better. There is now a series of simple infographics that explain what Lightning is and how it works so there shouldn't be any more excuses for such simple misinformation being repeated[1][2][3][4][5] Your specific claim about one channel = one receiver is addressed in [5] I think the HN audience should go out and try it themselves and read the paper. It's the most eye-opening tech experience i've had since reading the Bitcoin white paper. If you've been kicking yourself about not getting into Bitcoin early - you have a new opportunity with Lightning now. There are only hundreds of nodes at the moment and only a couple of vendors accepting payments on the testnet and a ton of opportunity to build an entirely new infrastructure around it. [0] https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/67158/what-are-channel-factories-and-how-do-they-work/67187#67187 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/67158/what-are-c... [1] https://i.imgur.com/L10n4ET.png https://i.imgur.com/L10n4ET.png [2] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/what-are-the-bitcoin-timelocks.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/what-are... [3] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightning-part-1-payment-channels-v2.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin... [4] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightning-part-2-shaping-the-network.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin... [5] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightning-part-3-going-offchain.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin...
- spookthesunset 9y ago
  > If you've been kicking yourself about not getting into Bitcoin early - you have a new opportunity with Lightning now. Why not just delete the rest of your post and just leave this? This once sentence is what really drives all of the rest of your breathless hype. Naked greed. It's the only thing the entire crypto "space" has. Lightning network is pure vaporware. It was "coming any day now" when Mt Gox collapsed. It's still coming soon. It will always be coming soon.
whalabi 9y ago
> You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it Bitcoin's lightning network doesn't require you to open a channel for each person you want to pay https://unlikekinds.com/t/bitcoin-s-lightning-network-doesn-t-require-you-to-open-a-channel-for-each-person-want-to-pay https://unlikekinds.com/t/bitcoin-s-lightning-network-doesn-...

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.

nikcub 9y ago

> You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it This simply isn't true. You open one channel and then payments are routed over channels to your destination. It's no different to TCP/IP in this way and the reason why that analogy is used a lot in describing the network Having a one channel single destination can be done with Bitcoin alone and the new timelock transactions - the purpose of lightning is automating these transacations and the routing between channels Opening a channel in lightning is no different to having a balance in a wallet or a bank account - you don't notice that it is "locked". Channels can also create other channels using channel factories[0]. This all happens under the hood much in the same way somebody accessing YouTube knows little about routing infrastructure. There really is a lot of FUD about Lightning and they get repeated a lot by people who should know better. There is now a series of simple infographics that explain what Lightning is and how it works so there shouldn't be any more excuses for such simple misinformation being repeated[1][2][3][4][5] Your specific claim about one channel = one receiver is addressed in [5] I think the HN audience should go out and try it themselves and read the paper. It's the most eye-opening tech experience i've had since reading the Bitcoin white paper. If you've been kicking yourself about not getting into Bitcoin early - you have a new opportunity with Lightning now. There are only hundreds of nodes at the moment and only a couple of vendors accepting payments on the testnet and a ton of opportunity to build an entirely new infrastructure around it. [0] https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/67158/what-are-channel-factories-and-how-do-they-work/67187#67187 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/67158/what-are-c... [1] https://i.imgur.com/L10n4ET.png https://i.imgur.com/L10n4ET.png [2] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/what-are-the-bitcoin-timelocks.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/what-are... [3] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightning-part-1-payment-channels-v2.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin... [4] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightning-part-2-shaping-the-network.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin... [5] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightning-part-3-going-offchain.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin...

spookthesunset 9y ago
> If you've been kicking yourself about not getting into Bitcoin early - you have a new opportunity with Lightning now. Why not just delete the rest of your post and just leave this? This once sentence is what really drives all of the rest of your breathless hype. Naked greed. It's the only thing the entire crypto "space" has. Lightning network is pure vaporware. It was "coming any day now" when Mt Gox collapsed. It's still coming soon. It will always be coming soon.

whalabi 9y ago

> You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it Bitcoin's lightning network doesn't require you to open a channel for each person you want to pay https://unlikekinds.com/t/bitcoin-s-lightning-network-doesn-t-require-you-to-open-a-channel-for-each-person-want-to-pay https://unlikekinds.com/t/bitcoin-s-lightning-network-doesn-...