5 ms·

El Salvador uses Lightning Network

rvz 4y ago
Once again, The Lightning Network is not Bitcoin, and defeats the point of on-chain peer-to-peer electronic cash systems and payments using Bitcoin. It has been shown to be a centralized by design creation where the biggest nodes (The exchanges) can censor the payments. [0] Bitcoin has failed for on-chain payments as described in this article, this paper [0] and it's own white-paper. [0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba062 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba062
- arcbyte 4y ago
  A week ago I would have down voted you as a run if the mill bitcoin naysayers. Someone we see often who looked superficially at what the crypto market is doing and scoffed. There's a lot to scoff at, but the core proposition that is slowly rolling out is world changing. But over the past few weeks I've become really unsettled as I've dug into the history of bitcoin that I missed - the 2013-2017 Era say, when bitcoin really did fail at its core goal of being a currency. It has undeniably failed. That isn't to say it isn't finding a new use - but the whole ecosystem is missing that core currency use case. We're sort of seeing attempts at it with lightning network and stablecoins - but these are toys. All this to say, I agree with you, and I'm horrified that people will ignore and write off the experience and history offered by people who were there so they can jump on the latest fad - in this case a polarized bitcoin good/bad opinion.
  - randomhodler84 4y ago
    Nah rvz doesn’t know what he is talking about. I’ve made several Lightning network payments that have bought real world food for folks around the world. He keeps echoing failure, but I have seen nothing but success. If he used any of this tech instead of just complaining, he might actually learn something. The only thing that has failed is the detractors complaints, meanwhile actual things have happened in the world.
    - tobltobs 4y ago
      I believe you haven't read what rvz is talking about. He didn't say payments with lightning wouldn't work. He said that lightning nodes are a centralized system which open the doors to censorship and manipulation, which was the motivation for btc in the first place.
      - randomhodler84 4y ago
        And he is completely utterly off base with that. It just doesn’t match reality. Anyone can run a LN node; you are free to open channels and interact with the network without any centralized controller. For any definition of centralized I know (say, 1 big api provider, or a collection of PoS stake nodes), this does not apply to LN. There is no censorship possible in this construction — indeed the peers routing the payments don’t even know the originator, just liquidity levels between their channels. Analogous to onion routing — how can a peer censor a circuit if they don’t know the originating and destination endpoints? Calling Lightning centralized is something an ignorant precoiner would say. Really, rvz doesn’t know what they are talking about.
        rvz 4y ago
        > Calling Lightning centralized is something an ignorant precoiner would say. Really, rvz doesn’t know what they are talking about. And somehow you do? Assuming you have read both the paper I linked to and this article? I know it's difficult to read the cold hard truth and evidence on what the Lightning Network has become and will tend towards to in the future via the analysis and inspection. But of course, why would anyone expect someone who calls themselves 'randomhodler' or a Bitcoin maximalist to understand that? Since to them, anyone critiquing anything related to 'Bitcoin' will be like attacking their identity, investment and the technology all in one? So somehow according to you, it is not 'centralized by design' as the paper has clearly demonstrated, and Bitcoin has somehow 'succeeded' in on-chain peer-to-peer electronic payments as described in the white-paper, due to the Lightning Network which that is an off-chain L2 solution and doesn't directly use the blockchain? The problem with using anecdotes is that it is not evidence or a concrete refutation against the paper. "I can run one myself" isn't the point. The actual reality has been outlined by the paper on what happens when the Lightning Network grows and it leads towards inevitable centralization of these hubs with the most liquidity (take a guess who runs those hubs) - creating a worse version of the current traditional system without directly using the blockchain for on-chain payments with a volatile ' store of value' as a 'currency' and altogether contradicting the point of Bitcoin. The whole point of it is to be used for on-chain payments, a digital currency and a P2P electronic cash system and it is evident that in El Salvador, the paper I linked and the inevitability of the LN have clearly demonstrated that this experiment has failed in all of that. If that's not a failure, then I don't know what is.

rvz 4y ago

Once again, The Lightning Network is not Bitcoin, and defeats the point of on-chain peer-to-peer electronic cash systems and payments using Bitcoin. It has been shown to be a centralized by design creation where the biggest nodes (The exchanges) can censor the payments. [0] Bitcoin has failed for on-chain payments as described in this article, this paper [0] and it's own white-paper. [0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba062 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba062

arcbyte 4y ago
A week ago I would have down voted you as a run if the mill bitcoin naysayers. Someone we see often who looked superficially at what the crypto market is doing and scoffed. There's a lot to scoff at, but the core proposition that is slowly rolling out is world changing. But over the past few weeks I've become really unsettled as I've dug into the history of bitcoin that I missed - the 2013-2017 Era say, when bitcoin really did fail at its core goal of being a currency. It has undeniably failed. That isn't to say it isn't finding a new use - but the whole ecosystem is missing that core currency use case. We're sort of seeing attempts at it with lightning network and stablecoins - but these are toys. All this to say, I agree with you, and I'm horrified that people will ignore and write off the experience and history offered by people who were there so they can jump on the latest fad - in this case a polarized bitcoin good/bad opinion.
- randomhodler84 4y ago
  Nah rvz doesn’t know what he is talking about. I’ve made several Lightning network payments that have bought real world food for folks around the world. He keeps echoing failure, but I have seen nothing but success. If he used any of this tech instead of just complaining, he might actually learn something. The only thing that has failed is the detractors complaints, meanwhile actual things have happened in the world.
  - tobltobs 4y ago
    I believe you haven't read what rvz is talking about. He didn't say payments with lightning wouldn't work. He said that lightning nodes are a centralized system which open the doors to censorship and manipulation, which was the motivation for btc in the first place.
    - randomhodler84 4y ago
      And he is completely utterly off base with that. It just doesn’t match reality. Anyone can run a LN node; you are free to open channels and interact with the network without any centralized controller. For any definition of centralized I know (say, 1 big api provider, or a collection of PoS stake nodes), this does not apply to LN. There is no censorship possible in this construction — indeed the peers routing the payments don’t even know the originator, just liquidity levels between their channels. Analogous to onion routing — how can a peer censor a circuit if they don’t know the originating and destination endpoints? Calling Lightning centralized is something an ignorant precoiner would say. Really, rvz doesn’t know what they are talking about.
      - rvz 4y ago
        > Calling Lightning centralized is something an ignorant precoiner would say. Really, rvz doesn’t know what they are talking about. And somehow you do? Assuming you have read both the paper I linked to and this article? I know it's difficult to read the cold hard truth and evidence on what the Lightning Network has become and will tend towards to in the future via the analysis and inspection. But of course, why would anyone expect someone who calls themselves 'randomhodler' or a Bitcoin maximalist to understand that? Since to them, anyone critiquing anything related to 'Bitcoin' will be like attacking their identity, investment and the technology all in one? So somehow according to you, it is not 'centralized by design' as the paper has clearly demonstrated, and Bitcoin has somehow 'succeeded' in on-chain peer-to-peer electronic payments as described in the white-paper, due to the Lightning Network which that is an off-chain L2 solution and doesn't directly use the blockchain? The problem with using anecdotes is that it is not evidence or a concrete refutation against the paper. "I can run one myself" isn't the point. The actual reality has been outlined by the paper on what happens when the Lightning Network grows and it leads towards inevitable centralization of these hubs with the most liquidity (take a guess who runs those hubs) - creating a worse version of the current traditional system without directly using the blockchain for on-chain payments with a volatile ' store of value' as a 'currency' and altogether contradicting the point of Bitcoin. The whole point of it is to be used for on-chain payments, a digital currency and a P2P electronic cash system and it is evident that in El Salvador, the paper I linked and the inevitability of the LN have clearly demonstrated that this experiment has failed in all of that. If that's not a failure, then I don't know what is.