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A transaction is essentially just a signed cryptographic message broadcast to the network, just imagine that instead of broadcasting it, you keep iterating on i
by rawtxapp 5y ago
A transaction is essentially just a signed cryptographic message broadcast to the network, just imagine that instead of broadcasting it, you keep iterating on it, you pass funds around, keep signing these messages, etc. There are measures to make sure you don't broadcast an old/outdated transaction to the network.
It's not meant for buying coffee, for those you would use layer 2 or centralized entities like Paypal, etc. The blockchain contains every single transaction ever made forever, people in 100 years from now don't need to be aware of every coffee transaction, that just wouldn't be efficient.
- AlexandrB 5y agoThanks for taking the time to explain. I guess I remain skeptical as it seems like a lot of complexity that is slowly replicating the traditional banking system - just with transactions enumerated in a volatile equity instead of $currency. Perhaps I'm just getting old.
- hapticmonkey 5y agoThe key difference is this infrastructure is 100% trustless. Bitcoin transactions are backed by proof-of-work, and Lightning transactions are backed by HTLC (hashed timelock contracts) which are in turn backed by the proof-of-work. Think of the blockchain more like a settlement layer and the Lighting network an everyday transaction layer. That's the current goal of the developers of these systems, anyway.