Oddbean

There is no amount of changes that bitcoin can do that will make Lightning scale to visa level payments. Lightning is cool, kinda works now, I use it all the time. But doesn't scale. Maybe it's how we clear ecash. We need something else. Eye on the prize.

The prize: https://files.sovbit.host/media/public/0aa0005f045130fcfd136f4dfed624ed033eff8a39f3b69ccbb06adf45207555.webp#m=image%2Fwebp&dim=192x192&blurhash=UAHn2W%25801D%7BN5-yV%3DD%5B00M%3BX%3Fx*%7EMIJE7%25Y&x=159195e36b9da58c98619545646efeba566d2dc1b99776b50b275cafec67f3c7

All depends what we're solving for. We're not within striking distance of Visa. How can bitcoin/Lightning compete with instant settlement 3-5% cash back credit cards? When on-chain fees are 600 sats/vbyte, we'll all be thankful lightning is an option.

People can charge back Visa for like 6 months I think. It is not instant settlement. And that 3-5% isn't free, and it's usually more like 1-2%. And you're paying an extra 3% to use it at stores. So it's not as great as you make it seem. People have been fooled.

I agree, we don't have to change #Bitcoin to scale Lightning it's not necessary but Lightning can be scaled with simply enough liquidity on channels. How much did Lightning grow last year? How much will it grow next year? Any one? Saying LN can't scale is same as saying #Bitcoin can't scale. The technologies will be built on top of it such as: Fedi, Cashu,..

I think Lightning plus proprietary payment systems between the users of the same custodial Lightning wallet is all that is needed. Basically Blink is all we need. Replicate it accross the world, and there you have the ultimate solution. Enthusiasts like us will also have our own non-custodial nodes as we already do. And that is it. nostr:nevent1qqsr5eguawmz7xspaxfl4mn8r4f4t3nfecyeex7d0la2dy5n8x9hvrgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyr5g56g7nrveslykg5salasqyhmqwqph3fy8jxqdewa555p8s5zpzqcyqqqqqqg57n2nd

I think lightning is clunky right now because we need a dollar/Satoshi parity. When 1 sat = 1 dollar lightning will be bank infrastructure. CTV looks like the codebase that will provide exchanges the digital infrastructure to operate this way.

Interesting, so are people calling ecash a layer-3 @AVERAGE_GARY? I hadn't thought about it that way but it kinda makes sense. nostr:nevent1qqsr5eguawmz7xspaxfl4mn8r4f4t3nfecyeex7d0la2dy5n8x9hvrgpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejsyg8g3f53axxenp7fv3fpmlmqqf0kquqr0zjg0yvqmjamffgz0pgyzypsgqqqqqqsweenyw

I would like to here what Rene Pickhardt has to say. For me lightning has been working great, but I do use non-custodial lightning a lot. https://opensats.org/blog/rene-pickhardt-receives-lts-grant

All Visa, MasterCard, Amex need to do is unplug Fiat and plug in on chain Bitcoin multi-signature. The day they do this Fiat will slow down and Bitcoin will equalize as the denominator by L2 2.1 quintillion. Micro payments will flourish and people will also find real price discovery. Miners will reduce fees because power is purchased in sats.

I would compare it to the internet or electricity. If we were able to scale physical cables. We can scale digital cables. Contents are connected with huge fiber optics cables. These are large single lightning channels. > then ISPs. > homes > WiFi. That’s how i think it will scales. I don’t think it will be a global mesh network.

Lightning works well only with custodial wallets, which kinda sucks. Also lightning fees are already far from "fractions of a penny", more like 0.5 - 1% of the amount you spend. Agree with you, we need something else. And something really private.

My problems with lightning: * must be online to route payments * node wallet keys must be "hot" * channel closures cannot be mitigated, one misbehaving node can eventually take down a major portion of the network * routing "netsplits" are common and difficult to identify and diagnose * routed payments are not tolerant to lossy communication * the initiator of a channel can cause the partner to share in the cost of closure * open and close operations in a high fee environment can stall and lock-up funds indefinately * becoming a an effective "routing node" requires too much skill and up-front capital, therefore routing fees have not tended to zero as promised * opening and closing channels for the purpose of being a routing node is too costly for the individual * the system is generally not used for its primary use-case, which is to make frequent direct payments to a channel partner, where routing is a secondary side-effect of a network of partners and the primary attraction to lightning is not a first-class feature * submarine swaps and reverse submarine swaps require a third party and/or multiple onchain transactions * the reference implementation (lnd) does not provide sufficient visibility to operation and what information it does provide is obscured by piles of debug logs * switching node implementations requires dozens or hundreds of onchain transactions and fees This is my 80% list

A truly decentralized blockchain is not scalable, this is why layer 2 is necessary. The blockchain is the "value" layer, and frequent transactions (to maintain decentralization) must happen through a different mechanism. Lightning has the right idea: use smart contracts to enforce an auditable trust network. This is the value component of lightning's core architecture. It takes time to identify the problems with this first implemenentation. We likely will need to start over with a new and improved architecture where tradeoffs are hopefully minimized.

lightning is not scaleable. it is a different architecture than bitcoin. i do not like the architecture and the technology. it is retarded. you need to convert to satoshis. pay a fee for the conversion. if you need to convert and pay a fee for the conversion, you can use a more modern, better designed micro payment solution.

For me the goal is that bitcoin, LN, or ecash is a P2P process that is accepted by the masses as payment for their labor, services, and/or products. When I can show up at a yard sale and by stuff using Bitcoin in some manner, the goal will have been achieved. Until then, don't be putting all your eggs into this basket. How corporations deal with it is at the bottom of my list. I've tried to buy a side of beef and hay from a local farmer with Bitcoin and the response was I don't understand that computer stuff. We are not there yet.

This occurred to me as well, specifically for cashu, Without knowing who or how much you could accidentally end up being the repository for a lot just running on a raspberry pi in the closet. Which on the one hand is great, but on the other hand if you need to take it down what happens to everyone relying on it. I don’t think there is even a means to notify them directly just blasting communications. Atleast fediment has several so it’s more resilient to one thing going down. Looking to learn.

No, they've been fooled. Credit card companies have spent a lot of money on research and are smarter as a result. Most people spend more on average when using them. That far exceeds the ridiculous points. And the merchant does pay the fee, but they bake it into the sale total. So the consumer still ultimately pays it. Credit card companies aren't just giving away free money. They use research and statistics to convince people like you that they're a net gain when the reality is that they aren't. The whole points system plays on a reward mechanism to make you use them more. And they are a privacy nightmare. I'm sure they monetize that data somehow too. I never said charge backs weren't incredible for some consumers, but they also lead to higher prices for the rest of us. Companies don't just eat the cost. Besides, my actual point was that final settlement isn't fast. That doesn't sound like final settlement to me.