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The part about Lightning making "higher throughput blockchains irrelevant" is correct though. Blockchains inherently do not scale unless you sacrifice decentral

The part about Lightning making "higher throughput blockchains irrelevant" is correct though. Blockchains inherently do not scale unless you sacrifice decentralization, and once you've done away with decentralization then you don't need a blockchain. You're better off for many reasons using a database instead.

seibelj 6y ago
Lightning is a complex piece of technology. It basically requires an ISP-like layer-2 solution where nodes peer with each other in order to route payments. This is not a silver-bullet solution to scaling. ZK rollups[0] are another solution and are live on Ethereum right now.[1] [0] https://docs.ethhub.io/ethereum-roadmap/layer-2-scaling/zk-rollups/ https://docs.ethhub.io/ethereum-roadmap/layer-2-scaling/zk-r... [1] https://loopring.org/#/protocol https://loopring.org/#/protocol
- grubles 6y ago
  Lightning is live right now too, and has been for two years. The "ISP"-like (???) layer-2 thing you're referring to is just the fact that Lightning is decentralized and also scales, which is probably why the author accurately claimed that it makes many-TPS blockchains irrelevant. ZK rollups are completely new and they do not scale nearly as well as Lightning, which performs at nearly 500 transactions per second /per payment channel/. So take the number of channels existing currently on the Lightning Network and multiply by 500 and you have a theoretical ceiling. It comes out to some multiple millions of transactions per second.
  - seibelj 6y ago
    As a typical client, when using the Lightning network you open a channel with a peer, which requires an on-chain (slow) transaction and locks up funds. If you don't wish to do this with every single person you want to transact with, then you select a peer who is a major node (exchange, payment processor, etc.) who already has channels with the other major nodes. This will allow you to quickly route payments to anyone affiliated with the large network. This is why it is like an ISP layer-2 solution. IP packets route through the internet in a similar way.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Its true that blockchains don’t scale, but it doesn’t follow that Lightning is the answer. Especially since it always seems like lightning will be ready for public use “soon”.
flarex 6y ago
It's not correct. A layer 2 network is bottlenecked by the throughput from layer 1. Higher throughput on layer 1 is very relevant.
- tromp 6y ago
  Number of channel creations/closures is bottlenecked by layer 1. Second layer transaction throughput is not.

seibelj 6y ago

Lightning is a complex piece of technology. It basically requires an ISP-like layer-2 solution where nodes peer with each other in order to route payments. This is not a silver-bullet solution to scaling. ZK rollups[0] are another solution and are live on Ethereum right now.[1] [0] https://docs.ethhub.io/ethereum-roadmap/layer-2-scaling/zk-rollups/ https://docs.ethhub.io/ethereum-roadmap/layer-2-scaling/zk-r... [1] https://loopring.org/#/protocol https://loopring.org/#/protocol

grubles 6y ago
Lightning is live right now too, and has been for two years. The "ISP"-like (???) layer-2 thing you're referring to is just the fact that Lightning is decentralized and also scales, which is probably why the author accurately claimed that it makes many-TPS blockchains irrelevant. ZK rollups are completely new and they do not scale nearly as well as Lightning, which performs at nearly 500 transactions per second /per payment channel/. So take the number of channels existing currently on the Lightning Network and multiply by 500 and you have a theoretical ceiling. It comes out to some multiple millions of transactions per second.
- seibelj 6y ago
  As a typical client, when using the Lightning network you open a channel with a peer, which requires an on-chain (slow) transaction and locks up funds. If you don't wish to do this with every single person you want to transact with, then you select a peer who is a major node (exchange, payment processor, etc.) who already has channels with the other major nodes. This will allow you to quickly route payments to anyone affiliated with the large network. This is why it is like an ISP layer-2 solution. IP packets route through the internet in a similar way.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Its true that blockchains don’t scale, but it doesn’t follow that Lightning is the answer. Especially since it always seems like lightning will be ready for public use “soon”.

flarex 6y ago

It's not correct. A layer 2 network is bottlenecked by the throughput from layer 1. Higher throughput on layer 1 is very relevant.

tromp 6y ago
Number of channel creations/closures is bottlenecked by layer 1. Second layer transaction throughput is not.