I think the goal is to have more than 1 user per UTXO. See eltoo or multiparty channels without eltoo: https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2023/03/29/. If these schemes could allow trustlessly adding more participants to Lightning, then it'd be a huge boost, both for convenience and also reducing on-chain usage.
But I don't think that LN completely eliminates the need for block space. Right now I have about 5 USD locked up for committment fees across 2 channels. Considering I only have a total of $11 in my wallet at the moment (of which $1.42 is locked up in local reserve, and $5 is for paying on-chain fees), that's a not-so-insignificant amount right now that I have to keep just in case I ever need to settle on-chain. You could imagine what would happen if fees go to $50 or $100 for example.
Similarly, if the dust limit gets higher, then small Lightning payments won't be trustless anymore.
If eltoo/channel factories fail at scaling Bitcoin to billions of users, then maybe it's time to increase the block size (or consider alternative L2s like Ark, although that's still in the discussion phase AFAICT).
You could imagine what would happen if fees go to $50 or $100 for example.
but, but: "Will always be somebody willing to mine your low fee tx. This is actually creating more pressure on the market." (@DarthCoin)
let them mine low fee txs, if the type is: closing of LN channel :)
reply
Yes, I am excited to see how much on-chain usage can be reduced by multiparty channels and eltoo (if activated). Ark is an interesting idea, although Ark still has a pretty high onchain footprint the way I understand it depending on the frequency of coinjoin rounds (per Ark Service Provider).
I could see fees going to $500+ if Bitcoin were to have another 10x in adoption.
I've read about that issue with small transactions on lightning, but I don't think that it is too much of an issue because the attacker does not actually really get anything out of it, it just a grief they can perform. In lightning, node reputation is very important so it just seems like it would never make sense for the attacker. I'm not an expert though.
reply