I keep hearing about 'Lightning' here on Stacker News, and I’m a bit confused. Is Bitcoin on Lightning different from the Bitcoin I know?
If I have 'normal' Bitcoin in a wallet, can I send it directly to a Lightning address, or are they like two different currencies? I don't want to make a mistake and lose my small savings. Sorry if this is a basic question, I’m still learning the
You might find these Bitcoin Stackexchange topics interesting:
(Disclosure: my own posts.)
They are same currency, kinda different protocols for payment itself (although every lightning transaction creates new ordinary onchain bitcoin transaction, it's just not broadcast to the network). But you can use swap services, like boltz.exchange. Analogy would be euro payments with bank wire transfer vs euro payments with credit card vs euro payments in cash.
Thank you, I really understood what it is... It must be Lightning to transfer here? Does that mean I must have lightning to pay for posting and commenting and zipping others???
~lol
funny that after 40 posts on SN, OP came with this question...
As I said so many times: people are blindly just following others without even reading some basic documentation first.
And we wonder why they do not understand what the fuck is Bitcoin.
I remember feeling a similar confusion. They are both Bitcoin but you can only only send from one to the other in certain circumstances.
Here's why:
Bitcoin transactions are recorded in blocks on Bitcoin's blockchain.
Lightning transactions are a way of making an agreement with another person that you'll each keep track of the transactions you make with each other and only settle the net balance in a transaction on the blockchain every once in a while.
So bitcoin on lightning and bitcoin on the mainchain are both bitcoin.
Where it gets weird is if you have bitcoin in a lightning wallet you can't simply send it to an on chain wallet. This is because your bitcoin on lightning needs to net out with your channel partner before you move some of it on chain. There are lots of ways of dealing with this (swaps, splicing, closing your channel), but the main thing to remember is that bitcoin on lightning involves an agreement with another person and so you need am extra step or two before you can move your sats on the mainchain.
Many modern lightning wallets will let you pay an on chain address and will handle everything in the background.
Maybe he's using a wallet that displays ₿ instead of sats LOL
They did a very good job with that BIP177 to confuse noobs !
Search for and read the DarthCoin guides, and you will resolve all those doubts.
Bitcoin is an ultimate tool for peaceful revolution. The fairest form of money ever existed.
In simple terms:
Bitcoin Onchain is the settlement layer, while Lightning Network is the payment layer. Of course, for the same bitcoins.