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Yup, last I checked there is so much resistance to increasing the block size that there was multiple forks about it. The hope for scaling bitcoin is on stuff l

Yup, last I checked there is so much resistance to increasing the block size that there was multiple forks about it. The hope for scaling bitcoin is on stuff like the lightning network and other more esoteric stuff like coinjoin. That being said lighting network could scale arbitrarily in theory, but the security properties depend on being able to tx on the main chain in a timely manner. In the case that there is a wide spread theft attempt on the lighting network we could see many LN channels trying to be closed at the same time and shooting the fees up beyond the attack value.

arcticbull 6y ago
Well a lightning channel requires 1 on chain transaction to open and 1 to close so it’d cost $12 and for everyone on earth to open and close a single channel would take over 70 years. So it’s not really a scaling solution. And L2 isn’t blockchain anyways, you could conceivably implement lightning with classical assets.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  Most people have been txing with a trusted source (e.g. coinbase). > you could conceivably implement lightning with classical assets. Not with the same security properties. The idea of building a money transfer service where you simply have many people with liquidity that transfer IOUs instead of the actual money has been around since at least the 8th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala There was no formal ultimate settlement layer though. I personally think that we need to continue to investigate ways to push what we trust and eventually have a workable system that actually trusts individual public keys to not double spend on pain of losing their reputation. Until that happens I'll continue to hold some BTC.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    > Most people have been txing with a trusted source (e.g. coinbase). That's not blockchain, and it's not crypto. You can do that right now with literally any asset in an InteractiveBrokers account.

arcticbull 6y ago

Well a lightning channel requires 1 on chain transaction to open and 1 to close so it’d cost $12 and for everyone on earth to open and close a single channel would take over 70 years. So it’s not really a scaling solution. And L2 isn’t blockchain anyways, you could conceivably implement lightning with classical assets.

X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
Most people have been txing with a trusted source (e.g. coinbase). > you could conceivably implement lightning with classical assets. Not with the same security properties. The idea of building a money transfer service where you simply have many people with liquidity that transfer IOUs instead of the actual money has been around since at least the 8th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala There was no formal ultimate settlement layer though. I personally think that we need to continue to investigate ways to push what we trust and eventually have a workable system that actually trusts individual public keys to not double spend on pain of losing their reputation. Until that happens I'll continue to hold some BTC.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  > Most people have been txing with a trusted source (e.g. coinbase). That's not blockchain, and it's not crypto. You can do that right now with literally any asset in an InteractiveBrokers account.