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246 sats \ 4 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 24 Jul 2023 \ on: Lightning Everywhere bitcoin
Wicked article.
But I think I'm missing some base layer knowledge that I'd appreciate if someone could explain.
Honestly when I think about it I'm not entirely certain how lightning gets validated...
The article mentions offline payments. But BTC requires a consensus of nodes to agree that the ledger is correct right? But if you've got nodes trying to put (let's go with legitimate for the moment rather than delve into foul play) a bunch of transactions onto the block at one time that the other nodes knew nothing about would that bunch of transactions not essentially just get rejected by the network. Meaning offline transactions could never work? I must be missing something as lightning seems to work but that's making probably millions of transactions a minute, not 1 block every 10mins. So I think I'm getting my wires crossed somewhere. If someone could explain this in simpleton terms I'd greatly appreciate it.
Constructing and signing a transaction is not the same as broadcasting it.
For the former you don't need to be connected to the Bitcoin network.
Lightning takes advantage of that in the form of so-called commitment transactions.
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I see kinda how lightning does it. In simpleton thoughts because it's "hot" it's able to inform all the nodes that these transactions have been constructed and are ready to be processed fully. So no nodes should disagree the validity of those transactions.
But for an offline transaction I don't get it as that's "cold" and I'm a little lost how that could be broadcast with a consensus if it's been "cold" the whole time.
I mean it must work somehow else how would cold wallets be able to transact without keeping the network permanently appraised of its transactions... Making it no longer a cold wallet.
I'm going to need to look into this more as I think my understanding of transacting on the network with lightning or offline is just missing some fundamentals.
Thanks for taking the time to respond and help me out. I appreciate it.
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The offline payment solution is essentially just having LSPs on both side of the transaction (one on the sending side, one on the receiving side) and routing the payment from the sender to the sender's LSP. Then the LSPs will talk to each other to determine whenever the receiver comes back online. It's really just the illusion of offline, but payments can be "held" a lot longer without it hurting the network.
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Ok. I think I'm starting to piece this together. Kinda like pinging an IP address over and over until you eventually get a response. I think it's starting to become clearer for me. Thanks a lot.
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