7 ms·

Which third parties do you mean?

Semaphor 5y ago
My understanding of lightning is, that unless you run your own node (which requires a lot of funds and needs to be online 24/7), you are using a third-party node for these payments. The positive would be, that there are (I presume, don’t know) far more nodes/services available to choose from than there are credit-card firms. This is just what I remember from reading into lightning a few months ago.
- ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
  I'm in a similar, semi educated situation as you are. But my interpretation of what I have read so far is different: As far as I understand it: When a channel you have open is closed by the other side of the channel your wallet needs to know this within a certain time (24 hours? Can't remember). So to avoid having to read the blockchain updates once a day, you would subscribe to some service that tells you when one of your channels is closed. I also think you only have to do that if you distrust the other side of the channel. If you select a channel partner (a friend, a well known institution, a bank?) and only keep a small amount in that channel, I think you can just trust them and not sign up for any "watchtower" to watch if they try to cheat on you. PS: Looking up the growth of the Bitcoin blockhain it seems that even if you do the watching yourself, that would only mean to read less than 1MB per day? Here is the data: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/blocks-size https://www.blockchain.com/charts/blocks-size
  - RL_Quine 5y ago
    You're misreading the graphs, the chain size can grow at most by 576MB a day. A maximum of 4MB per block, 6 per hour, 24 hours per day.
    - ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
      Oh, it is "368.664K Megabytes", not "368.664K Bytes"? The day before yesterday it shows: 368.471K Yesterday it shows: 368.664K So "0.193K" up in that day. What does that mean? 193 Megabytes?
      - RL_Quine 5y ago
        I don't know, blockchain.com has a history of showing just complete garbage information.
        3np 5y ago
        My favorite block explorers (both self-hostable for the privacy-conscious): https://blockstream.info/ https://blockstream.info/ https://mempool.space/ https://mempool.space/
- RL_Quine 5y ago
  You don't need a lot of funds, or to always be online. You can run the software quite happily on a cellphone (I have previously), the requirement to be "online" is only in the scale of occasionally (once a day would be more than sufficient), and even that can be delegated (dork "watchtowers") with little to no risk.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    Ah, so you can leave the channel open without being online?
    - RL_Quine 5y ago
      Yes. You only need to be “online” periodically to check for fraud, which is a task which can be relatively trustlessly delegated if need be.
      - Semaphor 5y ago
        Well, that’s a big part of the puzzle that most introductions seem to omit :D
- ulzeraj 5y ago
  I'm curious about what made you reach that understanding. My guess is that you either tried or heard from someone who tried to open channels with some LN giant like Bitrefill. You shouldn't do that. Big channel operators don't want to dilute their liquidity with unreliable small channels. You should instead establish a channel to a smaller node that may be directly or indirectly connected to that merchant. LN is all about routing. Also in the thread's context we are talking about Visa and Mastercard banning merchants right? In a scenario where the LN is widely adopted that merchant can setup and run BTCPayServer (https://btcpayserver.org https://btcpayserver.org) to maintain his own independent LN or on chain payment process system. As for users, there has been work to facilitate nodeless operation on software wallets. Probably based on https://github.com/lightninglabs/neutrino https://github.com/lightninglabs/neutrino. I know Blue Wallet is building something based on a lightweight LN node so people can establish channels from their personal wallets (https://github.com/BlueWallet/rn-ldk https://github.com/BlueWallet/rn-ldk). There is an Android exclusive wallet that (https://lightning-wallet.com https://lightning-wallet.com) can do that and Muun (https://muun.com https://muun.com) is doing some smart tricks to provide nodeless and custodial LN experience.
lawn 5y ago
That provide liquidity, open or manage channels for you, watch your channel so you don't lose your money or even hold your keys (as is the case with some popular wallets people recommend). And the network itself centralizes around large hubs (otherwise route finding doesn't scale).
- RL_Quine 5y ago
  The repeated comments about "routing not scaling" are sort of weird, there's no real technical hurdle to overcome. Approximations of route finding are really all that's necessary, there's no strong centralizing force to be found there.
  - lawn 5y ago
    "no real technical hurdle to overcome" Uh, this kind of route finding is still an open problem, and there's not even an idea of how to address it. Approximations don't scale, as routes will start failing more and more as the network grows(due to liquidity issues). Therefore routes will go through well-connected and well-funded nodes, which is the centralizing force you're looking for.
    - ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
      Even if there were only as many nodes as there are countries in the world, that would make a more open payment network than the credit card systems. There are 195 countries in the world. And a user could pay via any of those 195 nodes. When you accept a certain credit card type (Visa, Mastercard etc) only users who are customers of that company can pay you.
      - lawn 5y ago
        The comparison should be with cryptocurrencies, which problems LN was supposed to solve, not the credit card companies.

My understanding of lightning is, that unless you run your own node (which requires a lot of funds and needs to be online 24/7), you are using a third-party node for these payments. The positive would be, that there are (I presume, don’t know) far more nodes/services available to choose from than there are credit-card firms. This is just what I remember from reading into lightning a few months ago.

ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
I'm in a similar, semi educated situation as you are. But my interpretation of what I have read so far is different: As far as I understand it: When a channel you have open is closed by the other side of the channel your wallet needs to know this within a certain time (24 hours? Can't remember). So to avoid having to read the blockchain updates once a day, you would subscribe to some service that tells you when one of your channels is closed. I also think you only have to do that if you distrust the other side of the channel. If you select a channel partner (a friend, a well known institution, a bank?) and only keep a small amount in that channel, I think you can just trust them and not sign up for any "watchtower" to watch if they try to cheat on you. PS: Looking up the growth of the Bitcoin blockhain it seems that even if you do the watching yourself, that would only mean to read less than 1MB per day? Here is the data: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/blocks-size https://www.blockchain.com/charts/blocks-size
- RL_Quine 5y ago
  You're misreading the graphs, the chain size can grow at most by 576MB a day. A maximum of 4MB per block, 6 per hour, 24 hours per day.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
    Oh, it is "368.664K Megabytes", not "368.664K Bytes"? The day before yesterday it shows: 368.471K Yesterday it shows: 368.664K So "0.193K" up in that day. What does that mean? 193 Megabytes?
    - RL_Quine 5y ago
      I don't know, blockchain.com has a history of showing just complete garbage information.
      - 3np 5y ago
        My favorite block explorers (both self-hostable for the privacy-conscious): https://blockstream.info/ https://blockstream.info/ https://mempool.space/ https://mempool.space/
RL_Quine 5y ago
You don't need a lot of funds, or to always be online. You can run the software quite happily on a cellphone (I have previously), the requirement to be "online" is only in the scale of occasionally (once a day would be more than sufficient), and even that can be delegated (dork "watchtowers") with little to no risk.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  Ah, so you can leave the channel open without being online?
  - RL_Quine 5y ago
    Yes. You only need to be “online” periodically to check for fraud, which is a task which can be relatively trustlessly delegated if need be.
    - Semaphor 5y ago
      Well, that’s a big part of the puzzle that most introductions seem to omit :D
ulzeraj 5y ago
I'm curious about what made you reach that understanding. My guess is that you either tried or heard from someone who tried to open channels with some LN giant like Bitrefill. You shouldn't do that. Big channel operators don't want to dilute their liquidity with unreliable small channels. You should instead establish a channel to a smaller node that may be directly or indirectly connected to that merchant. LN is all about routing. Also in the thread's context we are talking about Visa and Mastercard banning merchants right? In a scenario where the LN is widely adopted that merchant can setup and run BTCPayServer (https://btcpayserver.org https://btcpayserver.org) to maintain his own independent LN or on chain payment process system. As for users, there has been work to facilitate nodeless operation on software wallets. Probably based on https://github.com/lightninglabs/neutrino https://github.com/lightninglabs/neutrino. I know Blue Wallet is building something based on a lightweight LN node so people can establish channels from their personal wallets (https://github.com/BlueWallet/rn-ldk https://github.com/BlueWallet/rn-ldk). There is an Android exclusive wallet that (https://lightning-wallet.com https://lightning-wallet.com) can do that and Muun (https://muun.com https://muun.com) is doing some smart tricks to provide nodeless and custodial LN experience.

lawn 5y ago

That provide liquidity, open or manage channels for you, watch your channel so you don't lose your money or even hold your keys (as is the case with some popular wallets people recommend). And the network itself centralizes around large hubs (otherwise route finding doesn't scale).

RL_Quine 5y ago
The repeated comments about "routing not scaling" are sort of weird, there's no real technical hurdle to overcome. Approximations of route finding are really all that's necessary, there's no strong centralizing force to be found there.
- lawn 5y ago
  "no real technical hurdle to overcome" Uh, this kind of route finding is still an open problem, and there's not even an idea of how to address it. Approximations don't scale, as routes will start failing more and more as the network grows(due to liquidity issues). Therefore routes will go through well-connected and well-funded nodes, which is the centralizing force you're looking for.
  - ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
    Even if there were only as many nodes as there are countries in the world, that would make a more open payment network than the credit card systems. There are 195 countries in the world. And a user could pay via any of those 195 nodes. When you accept a certain credit card type (Visa, Mastercard etc) only users who are customers of that company can pay you.
    - lawn 5y ago
      The comparison should be with cryptocurrencies, which problems LN was supposed to solve, not the credit card companies.