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521 sats \ 8 replies \ @joda 21 Feb \ parent \ on: Bitcoin has a Scaling Issue bitcoin
What if after everyone was onboard, there was a huge disaster like a solar flare that knocked out electricity and tens of thousands of nodes went offline? All those channels get closed in the meantime, and then when power is restored, everyone is trying to reopen their channels at the same time, but it will take several years to get everyone back on.
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526 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 22 Feb
Bitcoin is not for everyone. Only for brave... not for the weak.
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34 sats \ 0 replies \ @_stacktoshi 21 Feb
Is that with or without covenants? Seems like there could be some sort of backup/restore protocol that gets added in the meantime.
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10 sats \ 5 replies \ @George203BTC OP 21 Feb
Sounds like a fair concern to me.
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11 sats \ 4 replies \ @xz 21 Feb
How would this not be a problem for global payments system today? So, we could imply this is a scaling problem for banks and payment processors, due to reliance on electricity. Maybe we should not be n a hurry to phase out cash (for ultimate scalability)
I've got nothing against covenants, federations or ecash mints. I stiill don't see that lightning is unscaleable. Most use it today without a node or channels of their own.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @joda 21 Feb
It is indeed scalable if you are willing to make that tradeoff and risk (sovereignty vs custodial).
Custodial solutions are vulnerable to KYC, censorship, rugs, fractional reserve, etc.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 21 Feb
Can't argue with that. I'm just concluding that when you stretch any system to it's logical maximum usage, you've got imperfections and vulnerabilities. Because we live in a political, human and mechanized system. They are all subject to error and exploitation.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @George203BTC OP 21 Feb freebie
No doubt it would be a problem. But channel states and backups are a different thing, and there are costs involved with reopening them, and the force closure of channels incurs fees. And scarce block space.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 21 Feb
But that's what I'm trying to say, it's not relevant if lightning is becoming a different kind of solution whereby most people transact using wallet solutions.
Sure there're trade offs, but as there's only 21/the global population, it's highly unlikely most will be throwing it onto lightning channels of 500,000 sats
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