Bitcoin Q&A: Lightning Network Scaling

[@604RPM]

That long pause! I've never seen Andreas at a loss for words before. Great question, and great answer!

[@islandbee]

It looks like AA needs to defrag and reboot. Much deserved.

[@christo2690]

yea never thought id see him not have the most insightful and perfect answer instantly.

[@ConstructionRatesUK]

Excellent pause... The acceptance that the development advance on all fronts further builds on top of the previously developed foundations. All these developments are tying into and anchoring the network into real world solutions and this continues with every minute that passes. Without a time machine, this network is already beyond competition. Fantastic and it's probably an historic moment.

[@ashvecchio]

From what I gather LN doesn't even need BTC when all's said and done. LTC or any other coins that can be swapped can be used and will be. So LN is the only layer that matters if it can switch on the fly.

[@SAL-fs1mr]

you would still likely want your lightning channels secured on a reliable blockchain (and not a smaller coin like bitcoingold where it can be easily 51% attacked). Best to stick with the chains with the most security (mining power).

[@ashvecchio]

I don't think it will matter once there are massive HUBS as channels will never close and miners won't be getting any of the fees as they'll be all offchain on LN.

[@BitcoinHotShot]

@@SAL-fs1mr It doesnt have to be 51% attacked to perform double spend in Bitcoin. Google ''Bitcoin doublespend using ELectrum + RBF''', Core made it very easy to actually spend BTC twice. They just dont do any announcements so that you folks wont know about it.

[@SAL-fs1mr]

@@BitcoinHotShot well technically, it is easy to double spend ANY blockchain transaction before it makes it into a block. Rbf or not, I would wait for the confirmation that the transaction is in a block, or if it is done on lightning I accept it instantly.

[@lookatthetrees7494]

Are you sure you are not Shatoshi? My God, you are so awesome.

[@islandbee]

The whole comment about scaling towards the end reminds me of the whole Y2K dilemma that everyone in the mid 90s were running around frantically about. My IT instructor in college put it into perspective saying that the resources at the time when enterprises were developing systems would have spent much more in resources trying to scale for solving the Y2K problem in the earlier phases of its legacy systems. Once scaling became more cheaper to update systems for Y2K, enterprises made the appropriate updates and the whole Y2K scare went away. It's the whole mentality of "I'll cross the bridge when I come to it" in the IT industry when it comes to scaling.

[@friedrichhayek3683]

videos about LN are appreciated VERY MUCH!

[@mihirkumar8832]

Mihir asks: when will mainstream media stop attacking crypto every time there's a drop in the understandably volatile market that is crypto?

[@Scott-pm2qn]

Thank you Andreas for your answers.

[@mpiremdirect574]

In bear market days like this, our crypto community needs to refocus on what lies ahead. A huge thanks to the GREAT Andreas Antonopoulos for yet another very informative videopodcast! Mario

[@aliengreed]

Security risk with private keys can be mitigated with hsm. See latest released c-lightning version.

[@keibersanchez7372]

excellent video friend

[@omniver]

hard forking with a mature LN.....could it essentially forbid vital btc upgrades?

[@zoidsoft]

Lightning needs an installer like InstallAware or InstallShield (or Iceberg for Mac). It won't have mass adoption if the user has to use Terminal with bash and a long series of obscure commands to get running. This is not good business sense. BTW, I'm a programmer and CEO of my own software business now for more than 2 decades. I find it unfathomable that Blockstream couldn't find someone to create a dedicated installer (with checksums for those of us who worry about file tampering). I've been all over Github looking and can't find any. Please let me know if there's an installer I have somehow overlooked. Am starting to wonder if Blockstream has deliberately sabotaged bitcoin or if they're just inept.

[@aantonop]

The Lightning Network is still in the early stages. For the time being, the different teams have deliberately made it difficult for non-technical users to run their client implementations, to minimise the amount of accidental loss. More testing and feedback from developers comes first.

[@borrisbortrude8676]

Sounds like a new product for your company to develop😀

[@ishalyapin84]

Hi Andreas! Preveously you were saying LN has onion routing in it. And now you are saying it is not secure to create only one channel, because next node will see all transactions. So does LN have onion routing or not?

[@aantonop]

Creating only one channel is not *private*, and is not really routing. Onion-routing is multi-hop between a series of nodes, where each node only sees the previous node and the next node, and no node knows where they are in the route (except for the sender and recipient, of course). But if your node only has one channel open, then the person on the other end of the channel knows all the funds obviously came from you. So the idea is to open channels with multiple nodes, which in turn have multiple channels with other nodes, to build a mesh network. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mWW3m5mXgcytoJYm6s

[@ishalyapin84]

As far I understand, the person on the other end of the channel is receiver of payment, he should know where payment came from. Also as I understand LN is not anonymous, because routing is happening through series of HTLC contracts, all of them share the same secret R number. So it is quite easy to trace full route after state is settled on the blockchain.

[@miroslavvasilev4536]

Thank you Andreas!!!

[@un.garcon]

"Btw I'm not calling it bcash, I'm just reading you the question" a necessary disclaimer 😅

[@Roy_369]

What are your thoughts on bitmain 42% mining? Threaten decentralization properties? Possible solutions?

[@bigmikee.2819]

can you vlog china asic 51% attack risks? thanks also, bitcoin algo switch? #pleaseANDthankyou

[@astroid9087]

Thanks again

[@Chomikback]

Wow, it's a Bitcoin inside a Bitcoin!

[@nion456789]

Smashed the like....

[@Kesevar]

Are there any smart bcash supporters?? Sounds like a contradiction to me.

[@Earej]

It's OK to call it bcash, Andreas.

[@KainniaK]

Andreas is trying not to burn his bridges because off chain + on chain scaling has a higher rate of succes then only off chain scaling. If LN becomes a succes the max blocksize eventually is going to get raised anyways. If you don't increase the fee reward when the generation reward runs out because it is cut in half every 4 years then the incentive for securing the network stagnates. If you prevent an increase in tx with a fee then the security can only come from increasing the fees. But the higher the fees the less people can use to afford Bitcoin and then Bitcoin won't grow. People that understand this back of Bitcoin Cash instead of only Bitcoin Core. And smart investors just kept both coins and lets the market fight it out. Only stupid people would sell al their BTC for BCH or all their BCH for BTC. I know BCH has a higher chance at success but sometimes the inferior product works. Andreas right now makes most money from a pro BTC audience. When that money goes away he will probably try to appeal more to a pro BCH audience cause BCH ain't going away. Andreas is smart enough not to burn those bridges to much. And he is a good public speaker, not a very integer one cause he flips his positions all the time. But he speaks well. So the BCH community will probably eventually use his services to further promote adoption. Or maybe a better public speaker will be found ,one that also has some more character and integrity. Than AA will be forgotten.

[@jcmorin2007]

You can call BCH bcash I don't care. I don't solve the LN problems.

[@argel4785]

Elastos is the solution for this.

[@jcjensenllc]

Are you Satoshi N.?

[@gianluca.g]

if(andreas) likes++

[@gianluca.g]

dude, that's Javascript not C... semicolon is totally optional :-) :-) :-)

[@faboucha]

Thank you for your pragmatism, I love watching your videos. I am in agreement that we need second layer networks, you certainly cannot scale infinitely on-chain. I personally view the blockchain like the bank, it's the ledger. 2nd layer (or LN) is akin to cash, where the cash is taken out of the bank, completely untracked, can be exchanged an infinite number of times fungibly, and finally deposited back into the bank at a later date. I will be trolled by suggesting that LN is more p2p cash then bitcoin, but I am suggesting it - because cash is not tracked on any ledger in the real world as it changes hands, you can move it from one physical wallet to another without a cost, etc. On chain transactions being recorded immutably is actually the very antithesis of cash. Where I disagree with BTC (and ultimately why I support BCH), is that the community chose to not care - at all - about merchants or users who wanted to use bitcoin in commerce. Congestion creates a terrible experience for the internet (hence networks (not to be confused with access) are generally overdimensioned), it creates a terrible experience for city traffic, creates a horrible experience for banking - and ultimately created a horrible experience for Bitcoin. Despite accusations that there is no congestion problem and that it's all SPAM, there is a realy problem and the data supports it. If the community were committed to the merchants and users (instead of just HODLers), they would solve the issue of today (congestion) while working on the foreseen problem of tomorrow (infinite scale). Instead they chose the later - literally to spite the former, which I will never understand or agree with. Having a networking background I feel source routing for payment channels is very very hard and will lead to mass centralization - it's the only architecture which will make sense. Source routing works under the simplifying assumption that you always know the full state of the network, and it only works under the assumption that your routers will be up after you've determined the route and sent the packet. Even with other routing protocols such as BGP, this protocol breaks apart quickly if the state of the network changes too frequently - it is stable because ISPs who run them make sure they are up all the time - which is not the case for an end user cash payment system. We already know that bigger blocks will be required, accepting bigger blocks will require a hard fork - and you might consider that what stumped you in this video was exactly how a hard fork will become much harder once layer2 has wide adoption. It would be easier to grow the max block size while we develop the L2 solutions, then when L2 is very ready, slowly SF it back down.

[@clayrab]

Andreas, are you willing to admit that LN can't scale yet?

[@brands2131]

4:23 aantonop.exe has stopped working

[@YnotHro]

great info. Camera is a bit too close to your face. Too much face, bring it back bud.

[@richarduk679]

Question for anyone out there. What are the fundamental differences between Ethereum & EOS? Do they compete? What are the pro’s and con’s of each?

[@gianluca.g]

www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-the-ETH-and-EOS-cryptocurrencies

[@Turbo_Tastic]

ETH is a crypto currency.. EOS was an ETH subtoken, and now it is its own blockchain, that can loosely be called crypto.. it really isn't, it isn't private, it is trackable and it is not decentralized, and not mined.

[@christo2690]

eos's chain is secured by 21 block producers. token holders vote who these guys are. so if they screw up they will be voted out. eos works on proof of stake. there is no gpu mining and all that in eos. despite the fact that eos is "centralized" around 21 producers.. its important to note that the eos network is not "owned" by anyone. even now dan is reccomending changes to governance. he cannot push them through. for ether.. I think if vitalik wants to recommend something people will instantly accept it and it can ve deployed the next day. at the same time ether uses classic proof of work. its mining is more decentralized than eos. but imho its governance not. as for scaling. ethereum died for me personally the day that cryptokitties clogged up the entire network. they got some cool scaling solutions on the way. but who knows how long thatl take to be ready. due to how eos works. it is a lot easier to scale and is already much more scalable than ether in its current form. remember do your own research and reach your own conclusions on things :) hope that helps :)

[@richarduk679]

Christo Thanks for that. I understand that the cultures under which the respective systems are run are different, but rather than the cultural/political differences, my question was revolving around the functional differences. For example is EOS to Ethereum what Litecoin is to Bitcoin? Understanding that the technologies entered the market at different times and have different evolutionary paths to follow before they reach maturity, ultimately are the technologies complementary or are they competing?

[@richarduk679]

mrunconventional Many thanks. Will look into it.

[@daniellurkin]

Axa pays blockstream .wake up.

[@KainniaK]

So let me get this right. Increasing the maximum block size is not a viable solution to scaling Bitcoin, because you'd run in to problems in the future. But LN is, even though there are problems that still need to be solved in the future? Now if you realize that LN can also work on BCH because segwit is not the only solution for the malleability problem then does that not mean that on chain + off chain scaling will yield a higher chance of success then only off chain scaling? If Bitcoin-BTC is ever going to raise their max blocksize people will say: Well BCH already did that years ago .... which would mean that BCH is the Bitcoin that is going things the right way because it allow both on chain and off chain scaling which gives everybody more freedom then when you prevent on chain scaling my keeping the max block size limit (non segwit) so low.

[@TRD-JDM]

andreas how long would it take for 5 billion people to open a LN channel? so much for scaling BTC with LN! Come on Andreas, you are so smart but you can not see the basic problems. you do not have to be a rocket scientist to recognize them.

[@silvrdome2385]

I will not be opening a LN channel.... EVER!!

[@2lua2lua]

Smash the like guys !!

[@集金pay]

M

[@moussaself7703]

How The Banks Bought Bitcoin | Lightning Network

[@nilskp]

Which banks specifically?

[@catstephens4759]

Which bank? BIS? Or commercial banks like HSBC? Which one specifically? Did they pay for it with Bcash?

[@SAL-fs1mr]

And don't forget that those banks are run by lizard people and that the earth is flat!

[@SAL-fs1mr]

The cultists are the ones who spout baseless conspiracy theories.

[@kyle.garrett]

That video that Moussa Test is referring to is loaded with misconceptions and inaccuracies. It should probably be taken down tbh. Just FYI.

[@DOO718]

..Or just use Digibyte. No need for lightning!

[@friedrichhayek3683]

bitcoin cash smears the competitor LN, WHAT A SURPRISE!

[@Filipe8019]

I know it's hard, but I'd be interested in knowing what Andreas thinks about XRP.

[@604RPM]

Carlos Filipe If I understand Andreas, his stance is that decentralization is vital to protect yourself, and the entire system, from bad actors. XRP is centralized. So my guess is that he would liken it to Fiat. Why use Ripple, when you could use USD?

[@moussaself7703]

why not use tbc coin to end the world poverty

[@faboucha]

Google andreas bubble boy - XRP would be a bubble boy crypto currency...

[@Filipe8019]

Robin Moore search for xRapid, and see the difference it will make in the international banking system. Also, I think even Andreas knows by now that Bitcoin is everything but decentralised, with more than 40% of miners being located in China.

[@erikh.9360]

Carlos Filipe no