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So far. If you spend any time in the research community you’ll realise that those problems are very likely to get solved. Lightning alone probably gets us there

So far. If you spend any time in the research community you’ll realise that those problems are very likely to get solved. Lightning alone probably gets us there. Its volatility and UX, as well as how negatively it is perceived currently (by some people) look like bigger blockers to me.

rvz 4y ago
> Lightning alone probably gets us there. Which that is not Bitcoin and neither is it on-chain. The parent comment is correct on Bitcoin's failure as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and all it is instead, is a store of value. This is how you know it has failed in its intended purpose.
redox99 4y ago
What advancements have happened regarding lightning? Last I heard about lightning was around 2017, and 5 years later it doesn't really seem to have gained much adoption.
- saalweachter 4y ago
  Fun fact: the Lightning whitepaper is now older than the Bitcoin whitepaper was when the former was published.
technobach 4y ago
The US adult population is ~250 million. With Bitcoin's ~300k transactions/day, it would take over 2 years for each of them to simply open a LN channel, if we dedicate the entire network just to onboarding. Lightning will definitely not solve it. edit: tps -> transactions/day
tsimionescu 4y ago
Ligthning is an alternative to Bitcoin, not a fix for it. It has a different security model (much much much weaker), it uses entirely different technology, it is essentially centralized. The fact that it uses Bitcoin on the back end is mostly a detail of Lightning.
- adastra22 4y ago
  There is literally not a single thing true in this comment. I would advise you seriously revaluate where you are getting your (mis)information from. Lightning is a way of using bitcoin. A way of cooperatively creating bitcoin transactions with multiple parties, in such a way that you can minimize the number of on-chain transactions required. It is bitcoin. It has the same security model as bitcoin. It uses the same technology. It is not in any way centralized (it's a p2p network of payment channel connections, with each operator running their own server).
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Lightning is a decentralised PayPal equivalent. Nothing more nothing less.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    If you and I have a lightning node and a channel between us, and I send 1 BTC to you, this transaction is NOT secured by the bitcoin network, nor any similar technology. It's basically just a regular ledger that my node and yours keep track of (there's a little more cryptography in place, but not much more). Even worse, if you saw my transaction, then sent me 1BTC worth of goods, then your node becomes offline and I forcefully close the channel with the original balance, I still have my 1BTC and there is no proof anywhere except your node that the transaction ever happened. So no security, unless both nodes are online. Finally, unless you open direct channels with everyone you want to transact with, you will rely on a 3rd party node that does have such a channel. In practice, this likely means you will use one of a few major nodes that you trust to stay online and not refuse transactions, so the payments are in effect highly centralized.
    - gitfan86 4y ago
      It is almost like 99.999% of the crypto people don't have computer engineering or computer science degrees or have never built a production system that requires concurrency and fault tolerance over a persistence layer. A system that validates new entries into a database can either be "very cheap and very fast" or "very fault tolerant and very decentralized". The speed of light in networking and the speed of modern CPUs make this unavoidable.

rvz 4y ago

> Lightning alone probably gets us there. Which that is not Bitcoin and neither is it on-chain. The parent comment is correct on Bitcoin's failure as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and all it is instead, is a store of value. This is how you know it has failed in its intended purpose.

redox99 4y ago

What advancements have happened regarding lightning? Last I heard about lightning was around 2017, and 5 years later it doesn't really seem to have gained much adoption.

saalweachter 4y ago
Fun fact: the Lightning whitepaper is now older than the Bitcoin whitepaper was when the former was published.

technobach 4y ago

The US adult population is ~250 million. With Bitcoin's ~300k transactions/day, it would take over 2 years for each of them to simply open a LN channel, if we dedicate the entire network just to onboarding. Lightning will definitely not solve it. edit: tps -> transactions/day

tsimionescu 4y ago

Ligthning is an alternative to Bitcoin, not a fix for it. It has a different security model (much much much weaker), it uses entirely different technology, it is essentially centralized. The fact that it uses Bitcoin on the back end is mostly a detail of Lightning.

adastra22 4y ago
There is literally not a single thing true in this comment. I would advise you seriously revaluate where you are getting your (mis)information from. Lightning is a way of using bitcoin. A way of cooperatively creating bitcoin transactions with multiple parties, in such a way that you can minimize the number of on-chain transactions required. It is bitcoin. It has the same security model as bitcoin. It uses the same technology. It is not in any way centralized (it's a p2p network of payment channel connections, with each operator running their own server).
- imtringued 4y ago
  Lightning is a decentralised PayPal equivalent. Nothing more nothing less.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  If you and I have a lightning node and a channel between us, and I send 1 BTC to you, this transaction is NOT secured by the bitcoin network, nor any similar technology. It's basically just a regular ledger that my node and yours keep track of (there's a little more cryptography in place, but not much more). Even worse, if you saw my transaction, then sent me 1BTC worth of goods, then your node becomes offline and I forcefully close the channel with the original balance, I still have my 1BTC and there is no proof anywhere except your node that the transaction ever happened. So no security, unless both nodes are online. Finally, unless you open direct channels with everyone you want to transact with, you will rely on a 3rd party node that does have such a channel. In practice, this likely means you will use one of a few major nodes that you trust to stay online and not refuse transactions, so the payments are in effect highly centralized.
  - gitfan86 4y ago
    It is almost like 99.999% of the crypto people don't have computer engineering or computer science degrees or have never built a production system that requires concurrency and fault tolerance over a persistence layer. A system that validates new entries into a database can either be "very cheap and very fast" or "very fault tolerant and very decentralized". The speed of light in networking and the speed of modern CPUs make this unavoidable.