5 ms·

Doesn’t the Lightning Network scale to millions of transactions per second, which is what El Salvador will be using? Fees are miniscule on LN, as well.

CyberDildonics 5y ago
That would mean people aren't actually using bitcoin, they are using this wallet's centralized lightning network balance. If they want to actually send money to someone using bitcoin, they will have to get their balance on to the main chain, which means that they will have to take it off this wallet and then incur the transaction fees for getting to the bitcoin chain. Then they will have to take the hit of the transaction fees again to get their actual bitcoin balance somewhere else. This is what happens when you use a purposely crippled cryptocurrency like bitcoin. They could use litecoin, monero or bitcoin cash directly and not have any 'wallet app' that keeps their balance. Then they would be in control of their own money.
- atweiden 5y ago
  > If they want to actually send money to someone using bitcoin, they will have to get their balance on to the main chain Strike payment recipients can withdraw their USD balance as BTC to any Lightning-enabled wallet (or any other wallet, for that matter) [1]: How to purchase bitcoin with Strike 1. Open a Lightning wallet or Bitcoin wallet of your choice. (If you do not already have one, see our recommendations below) 2. Generate a receive address or invoice for the amount of btc you wish to purchase. 3. Scan with Strike and hit send. Done! You have just converted USD from Strike to btc in your wallet. [1]: https://strike.me/faq/howtopurchase https://strike.me/faq/howtopurchase
- Vecr 5y ago
  I don't think so, if I have inbound capacity on my lightning node (hooked to my full node, so not centralized), they can just send money to me as long as the routes through the network have enough capacity.
tomtomtom777 5y ago
> .. millions of transactions per second, which is what El Salvador will be using? Why would that be what El Salvador is using? That is such a weird notion, and one of the reasons Bitcoin is often incorrectly called unscalable. How many financial transactions do you think an average person does per day? I don't know but probably not much more than one, maybe even less. If you handle special B2B cases like high frequency trading separately, financial transactions ceases to be big data.
- wokwokwok 5y ago
  You think the average person does less than one financial transaction per day? O_o I mean, sure, not everyone is out getting a coffee every morning, but that strikes me as roughly an order of magnitude below reality. Let’s say, shopping three times a week, with 5 transactions per shopping trip; that’s already an average of 2 transactions a day, but worse, since it’s clustered in small time intervals. How do possibly get 0-1 transactions per day per person? That’s.. a society where people don’t use money. It’s not a thing.
  - yorwba 5y ago
    Over the last three months, I've made on average slightly more than two transactions per week, most of which is due to buying food every 3 or 4 days. Everything else is a rounding error. Now I won't claim my consumption pattern is typical, but it certainly shows that 0-1 transaction per day is possible. (What are the five shops you visit three times a week?)
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Working from home during the pandemic, I’ve been making 4.3 transactions per week. If I was still commuting, I’d add at least 5 a week for lunches, might add another 5 a week for train station Brötchen and cookie. If the restaurants were back to normal, might add two more per week for evening meals. I think I prefer my new normal of the bulk shopping being a once a week collection, so that probably won’t go back to my old habit of whatever/wherever, but even then the local doesn’t have everything I want, so there will be a few additional transactions with grocery stores. (My commute costs will likely be a once-per-year expense, so a rounding error for transactions per week).
ulzeraj 5y ago
Apparently they are already using it. There is a local company running nodes and publishing their wallet for people to use.

CyberDildonics 5y ago

That would mean people aren't actually using bitcoin, they are using this wallet's centralized lightning network balance. If they want to actually send money to someone using bitcoin, they will have to get their balance on to the main chain, which means that they will have to take it off this wallet and then incur the transaction fees for getting to the bitcoin chain. Then they will have to take the hit of the transaction fees again to get their actual bitcoin balance somewhere else. This is what happens when you use a purposely crippled cryptocurrency like bitcoin. They could use litecoin, monero or bitcoin cash directly and not have any 'wallet app' that keeps their balance. Then they would be in control of their own money.

atweiden 5y ago
> If they want to actually send money to someone using bitcoin, they will have to get their balance on to the main chain Strike payment recipients can withdraw their USD balance as BTC to any Lightning-enabled wallet (or any other wallet, for that matter) [1]: How to purchase bitcoin with Strike 1. Open a Lightning wallet or Bitcoin wallet of your choice. (If you do not already have one, see our recommendations below) 2. Generate a receive address or invoice for the amount of btc you wish to purchase. 3. Scan with Strike and hit send. Done! You have just converted USD from Strike to btc in your wallet. [1]: https://strike.me/faq/howtopurchase https://strike.me/faq/howtopurchase
Vecr 5y ago
I don't think so, if I have inbound capacity on my lightning node (hooked to my full node, so not centralized), they can just send money to me as long as the routes through the network have enough capacity.

tomtomtom777 5y ago

> .. millions of transactions per second, which is what El Salvador will be using? Why would that be what El Salvador is using? That is such a weird notion, and one of the reasons Bitcoin is often incorrectly called unscalable. How many financial transactions do you think an average person does per day? I don't know but probably not much more than one, maybe even less. If you handle special B2B cases like high frequency trading separately, financial transactions ceases to be big data.

wokwokwok 5y ago
You think the average person does less than one financial transaction per day? O_o I mean, sure, not everyone is out getting a coffee every morning, but that strikes me as roughly an order of magnitude below reality. Let’s say, shopping three times a week, with 5 transactions per shopping trip; that’s already an average of 2 transactions a day, but worse, since it’s clustered in small time intervals. How do possibly get 0-1 transactions per day per person? That’s.. a society where people don’t use money. It’s not a thing.
- yorwba 5y ago
  Over the last three months, I've made on average slightly more than two transactions per week, most of which is due to buying food every 3 or 4 days. Everything else is a rounding error. Now I won't claim my consumption pattern is typical, but it certainly shows that 0-1 transaction per day is possible. (What are the five shops you visit three times a week?)
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Working from home during the pandemic, I’ve been making 4.3 transactions per week. If I was still commuting, I’d add at least 5 a week for lunches, might add another 5 a week for train station Brötchen and cookie. If the restaurants were back to normal, might add two more per week for evening meals. I think I prefer my new normal of the bulk shopping being a once a week collection, so that probably won’t go back to my old habit of whatever/wherever, but even then the local doesn’t have everything I want, so there will be a few additional transactions with grocery stores. (My commute costs will likely be a once-per-year expense, so a rounding error for transactions per week).

ulzeraj 5y ago

Apparently they are already using it. There is a local company running nodes and publishing their wallet for people to use.