5 ms·
What does "capacity" mean in this context?
by sunsu 9y ago
What does "capacity" mean in this context?
- Pada 9y agoThe sum of all channels capacity measured in satoshis.
- jerkstate 9y agowhat does capacity mean in that context?
- rymate1234 9y agoIt's the amount of bitcoins currently in the network
- Pada 9y agoWhen a user opens a channel it has to lock up some BTC. That is called channel capacity because for payments to be routed through that channel (even other people's payments) that channel at least needs to have the same or more amount of BTC available. If you want to route a bigger payment you need to find a channel with more capacity.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zik 9y agoLightning Network seems very confusing. It's unclear to a casual user what "capacity" is and what it means to them. Or what any of this means, really.
- Pada 9y agoI don't think the end user needs to know anything about capacities or other technical details the same way a user doesn't need to know their internet speed. The end user experience will be having a hot wallet in your computer/phone or online service like coinbase that will handle all the routing, channel setup, etc for you. Like when you use bittorrent you don't need to manually connect to peers, the bittorrent client handles that for you.
- sp332 9y agoI found this article very helpful in explaining generally what happens in the lightning network. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/bitcoins-lightning-network-a-deep-dive/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/bitcoins-lightni...
- mOneThousand 9y agoAlice and Bob each commits $5 to open a channel. The capacity of that channel is $10. They can make as many transactions as they want between them
- GranPC 9y agoWhere does the $10 come into play? Can they only transfer up to $10's worth of currency?
- shlorn 9y agoFrom what I understand--yes. They would need to "settle" their transfer on the blockchain and then open a new channel. The solution to this from what I've read is an IOU mechanism and a third party that has a channel with almost everyone. If the third party is rich then each channel is theoretically huge. ALICE --(IOU to bob for 10k)---> CAROL --(IOU from alice for 10k)--> BOB
- tCfD 9y agoWhat happens to the engine trustless selling point of bitcoin when the only plausible scalability solutions entail reintroducing trusted third parties?
- daurnimator 9y agoThe great thing about lightning is that it doesn't introduce trusted third parties: it only requires that nodes have commited funds.
- betawaffle 9y agoYou don't need to trust the third parties, that's the point.
- remarkEon 9y agoI'm a bit of a BTC novice here, so help me understand something: Does this not mean that on the LN there will necessarily be BTC that's essentially "floating" in the network, that hasn't settled on the Blockchain? What does this mean for liquidity and the integrity of the network in general?