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What do you think is being exchanged on the Lightning Network? LN transactions are simply 2-of-2 multisig transactions made on-chain, where both parties can ch

What do you think is being exchanged on the Lightning Network? LN transactions are simply 2-of-2 multisig transactions made on-chain, where both parties can change the balance amongst themselves, and where settlement is possible at any moment. Bitcoin isn't being used as money on-chain. Why is this controversial? Bitcoin is the equivalent of gold, which was the hardest form of money that is accepted worldwide, before bitcoin was invented. Using it as a settlement layer for higher layers is the obvious scaling solution if you wish to remain decentralised.

Hamuko 4y ago
>Bitcoin is the equivalent of gold That definitely wasn't the original goal of Bitcoin though.
- _Algernon_ 4y ago
  Sometimes creators don't know what their creation is initially. surprised pikachu
- RileyJames 4y ago
  And surveillance capitalism wasn’t the original goal of the internet, yet here we are. What’s your point? A technology should achieve its founding goal or GTFO?
  - cowtools 4y ago
    Goalposts moved.
  - acdha 4y ago
    More that people who spend a decade dissembling about easily validated technical claims have a trust issue which is hard to reconcile with providing financial services. There were so many people selling this dream world where your life would be full of Bitcoin microtransactions who were unwilling to acknowledge that the system could not possibly scale to that level. Lightning is good for being potentially usable but I would not trust my assets to anyone who wasn’t saying something like it was necessary all along.
- azangru 4y ago
  > That definitely wasn't the original goal of Bitcoin though. What was the original goal of gold?
  - tvink 4y ago
    To quote the Bitcoin Whitepaper: >A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution It's fine that we've moved the goalpost as we've come to understand the limitations of this kind of blockchain, but it's also fine to highlight that "store of value that you can't directly transact with" was not what bitcoin was designed to accomplish, originally.
    - WinstonSmith84 4y ago
      Quote to take maybe with a pinch of salt. Having been smart enough to invent Bitcoin, one could assume that Satoshi knew that waiting 10 minutes for a block time to be finalized along with a speed of 7tx/s was not going to be practical to go shopping ... regardless of tx fees. Something had to be invented, and this was just not there at the time of this whitepaper
      - cowtools 4y ago
        Okay, so decrease block times or increase block sizes then. Satoshi was not afraid of hard forks.
        Geee 4y ago
        Payment channels were originally suggested by Satoshi. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Payment_channels https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Payment_channels
        freeAgent 4y ago
        He also suggested raising the block size limit.
- once_inc 4y ago
  This argument usually comes down to the "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash" quote from the title. I'd like to point out that the word "cash" is used differently in the cyberpunk community from before 2008. BCH and BSV both interpret it as "money used for every transaction" and thus advocate bigger blocks, while cypherpunks back in the day used it for "permissionless value tokens" (my phrasing here).
  - max51 4y ago
    The people using the intro of the whitepaper to justify BCH are also conveniently ignoring half the paper and pretends that entire technical sections are irrelevant and should be ignored. Ironically, trying to prove which chain is the "real" bitcoin by interpreting word from the introduction of the paper goes directly against the almost everything that is written in the rest of the paper.
    - freeAgent 4y ago
      It's absolutely not true that "the people using the intro of the whitepaper to justify BCH" ignore half the paper and pretend that entire technical sections are irrelevant and should be ignored. Please clarify.
  - freeAgent 4y ago
    How do you explain this: https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/929377620000681984 https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/929377620000681984 ? You don't get much more "cyberpunk OG," especially in the realm of Bitcoin than Gavin Andresen. It's one thing to disagree, but it's another to ascribe beliefs to people that they don't hold.
    - tfbkggjjji 4y ago

Hamuko 4y ago

>Bitcoin is the equivalent of gold That definitely wasn't the original goal of Bitcoin though.

_Algernon_ 4y ago
Sometimes creators don't know what their creation is initially. surprised pikachu
RileyJames 4y ago
And surveillance capitalism wasn’t the original goal of the internet, yet here we are. What’s your point? A technology should achieve its founding goal or GTFO?
- cowtools 4y ago
  Goalposts moved.
- acdha 4y ago
  More that people who spend a decade dissembling about easily validated technical claims have a trust issue which is hard to reconcile with providing financial services. There were so many people selling this dream world where your life would be full of Bitcoin microtransactions who were unwilling to acknowledge that the system could not possibly scale to that level. Lightning is good for being potentially usable but I would not trust my assets to anyone who wasn’t saying something like it was necessary all along.
azangru 4y ago
> That definitely wasn't the original goal of Bitcoin though. What was the original goal of gold?
- tvink 4y ago
  To quote the Bitcoin Whitepaper: >A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution It's fine that we've moved the goalpost as we've come to understand the limitations of this kind of blockchain, but it's also fine to highlight that "store of value that you can't directly transact with" was not what bitcoin was designed to accomplish, originally.
  - WinstonSmith84 4y ago
    Quote to take maybe with a pinch of salt. Having been smart enough to invent Bitcoin, one could assume that Satoshi knew that waiting 10 minutes for a block time to be finalized along with a speed of 7tx/s was not going to be practical to go shopping ... regardless of tx fees. Something had to be invented, and this was just not there at the time of this whitepaper
    - cowtools 4y ago
      Okay, so decrease block times or increase block sizes then. Satoshi was not afraid of hard forks.
      - Geee 4y ago
        Payment channels were originally suggested by Satoshi. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Payment_channels https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Payment_channels
        freeAgent 4y ago
        He also suggested raising the block size limit.
once_inc 4y ago
This argument usually comes down to the "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash" quote from the title. I'd like to point out that the word "cash" is used differently in the cyberpunk community from before 2008. BCH and BSV both interpret it as "money used for every transaction" and thus advocate bigger blocks, while cypherpunks back in the day used it for "permissionless value tokens" (my phrasing here).
- max51 4y ago
  The people using the intro of the whitepaper to justify BCH are also conveniently ignoring half the paper and pretends that entire technical sections are irrelevant and should be ignored. Ironically, trying to prove which chain is the "real" bitcoin by interpreting word from the introduction of the paper goes directly against the almost everything that is written in the rest of the paper.
  - freeAgent 4y ago
    It's absolutely not true that "the people using the intro of the whitepaper to justify BCH" ignore half the paper and pretend that entire technical sections are irrelevant and should be ignored. Please clarify.
- freeAgent 4y ago
  How do you explain this: https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/929377620000681984 https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/929377620000681984 ? You don't get much more "cyberpunk OG," especially in the realm of Bitcoin than Gavin Andresen. It's one thing to disagree, but it's another to ascribe beliefs to people that they don't hold.
  - tfbkggjjji 4y ago