100 sats \ 38 replies \ @HODL 11 Sep 2022 \ on: Lightning network centralization metrics bitcoin
Thanks for sharing @kobie, haven't came across the cut channels before.
Talking about visuals, a really nice visualisation of the channels right here: https://lnrouter.app/graph
To the haters: we have and always will have large nodes. But we also have thousands of small ones too (hopefully growing into millions/billions one day). And I believe that's all that matters if we're talking about decentralisation.
The government has legal precedent to regulate lightning nodes. Individual bitcoiners will be legally discouraged from setting up nodes with any meaningful amount of liquidity, which is necessary to route funds in an un-censorable way. Even then, what will people be funding those channels with? KYC coins. Eventually there will be no more "Virgin Bitcoin"
In any case, it's the large nodes that profit by recreating the traditional financial system (albeit with fewer steps). The small nodes are useless because they do not have enough liquidity or connections to route transactions.
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I do think that there is legal precedent to regulate lightning nodes, yes.
However I do believe that since LN uses onion routing, it's physically impossible to force KYC requirements onto node operators. This begs the question: what kind of legal requirements would be placed on node operators exactly?
As for funding channels, you could do that with KYC free coins that have been mined, traded P2P, mixed (although that's only semi-KYC-free), atomic swapped, etc. So I do think it's possible to run a decent node with large liquidity and remain anonymous, if you're very very careful.
it's the large nodes that profit by recreating the traditional financial system
This is a bit of a straw man. The payment rails of the traditional financial system operate on future settlement notes, glorified IOUs basically. LN payments are instant and final. It's also built on top of hard money, not fiat.
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I'll say this much: the LN is quite cheap (transactions are often 0 sat) and it's not owned by a single company that can hike up the fees, so the fee market is quite competitive. It is not bad compared to PayPal and others (it retains similar privacy characteristics), but it is pretty terrible compared to on-chain cryptocurrency.
As for "hard money", I don't know about that. My theory is that bitcoin mining will collapse in a decade or two, but I've argued this point enough here and I won't waste your time any further.
I also don't know about the finality. The whole LN is just a tradeoff between finality and bandwidth. The reason it costs less is simply because it delays bitcoin's finality. As the network congestion increases (assuming global adoption let's say), I guess that it will not be sustainable because not everyone will be able to reliably close channels in a secure way.
I am pretty skeptical of LN in general. It's already infeasible for me as a non-bitcoiner to open and close my own channels due to on-chain fees. I am forced to use LN custodially.
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"as a non-bitcoiner ... I am forced to use LN custodially."
As a person with no coins in my pocket, I'm forced to do x, y, z. Nobody is forced to use LN.
Of course, if you do not have the desired currency, you could always resort to asking if other methods of payment are accepted.
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I am forced to use LN to access this website.
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You can read the site without using LN. To post your bad takes, you need to use LN. Nobody is forcing you to do any of that.
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Who's forcing you to access this website?
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Are you blind or spreading misinformation on purpose?
It is not bad compared to PayPal and others (it retains similar privacy characteristics), but it is pretty terrible compared to on-chain cryptocurrency.
Can you send $1 over PayPal without KYC? You don't need KYC to send nor receive on the LN at all. As for the sender, their privacy is at a similar level of the shitcoin in your name. You can't trace back to the sender unless you have open a direct channel.
I also don't know about the finality.
The transaction on LN is final within seconds. If it wasn't, why would any exchange like Kraken or Bitfinex risk their whole businesses just to use it?
My theory is that bitcoin mining will collapse in a decade or two
Something is telling me you don't understand how Bitcoin nor mining works.
It's already infeasible for me as a non-bitcoiner to open and close my own channels due to on-chain fees. I am forced to use LN custodially.
Keep lying to yourself, I linked in another reply to you a recent block transaction cost - $0.03. If you can't open a channel that cost $0.03 for months to use, than avoid Bitcoin as well as your shitcoin completely, please.
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Can you send $1 over PayPal without KYC? You don't need KYC to send nor receive on the LN at all. As for the sender, their privacy is at a similar level of the shitcoin in your name. You can't trace back to the sender unless you have open a direct channel.
It is obvious to me that LN will become regulated in the coming years. In order to aquire LN Bitcoin to use this site, I had to use a KYC exchange. Even if you get bitcoin from a non-KYC exchange, it probably was associated with at least one identity at some point, so feds can work backwards to trace who gave coins to who.
The transaction on LN is final within seconds. If it wasn't, why would any exchange like Kraken or Bitfinex risk their whole businesses just to use it?
This is a bold-faced lie. The transaction is not final until your channels are closed. Exchanges prefer LN because the on-chain fees are stupid high, and because they profit as a routing intermediary on the LN. It is in many ways a recreation of the existing financial system.
Something is telling me you don't understand how Bitcoin nor mining works.
The price of bitcoin will need to double every halfening in order for BTC mining to be sustainable. This is obvious to everyone in cryptocurrency with a functioning brain. I've argued this enough here.
Keep lying to yourself, I linked in another reply to you a recent block transaction cost - $0.03. If you can't open a channel that cost $0.03 for months to use, than avoid Bitcoin as well as your shitcoin completely, please.
Let's say I'm a non-bitcoiner and I have a dollar worth of bitcoin on an exchange. How do I put that dollar into a non-custodial LN channel that I control without doing an on-chain withdrawl and having my dollar eaten by fees? Obviously the only thing I can do here is use bitcoin cusodially by sending it directly from my exchange.
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It is obvious to me that LN will become regulated in the coming years.
More silly predictions? Stick to the facts, please
In order to aquire LN Bitcoin to use this site, I had to use a KYC exchange.
Wrong. You choose to buy it. If you choose to earn it, there would be no KYC.
Even if you get bitcoin from a non-KYC exchange, it probably was associated with at least one identity at some point, so feds can work backwards to trace who gave coins to who.
Wrong again. Sats over LN can't be linked to the sender. I already explained above. Keep up, please.
The transaction is not final until your channels are closed.
Wrong. The LN tx IS final at the moment it lands at your end of the channel.
Exchanges prefer LN because the on-chain fees are stupid high,
Wrong. $0.03 fees (mentioned above) on-chain aren't stupid high. Exchanges are also batching txs to save even more.
The price of bitcoin will need to double every halfening in order for BTC mining to be sustainable.
Wrong. It doesn't have to. "This is obvious to everyone in cryptocurrency with a functioning brain."
Let's say I'm a non-bitcoiner and I have a dollar worth of bitcoin on an exchange. How do I put that dollar into a non-custodial LN channel that I control without doing an on-chain withdrawl and having my dollar eaten by fees? Obviously the only thing I can do here is use bitcoin cusodially by sending it directly from my exchange.
Wrong. If you want to open a channel WITHOUT "doing an on-chain withdrawal", perhaps learn how LN or Bitcoin works. To get the dollar worth of bitcoin out of the exchange, you will have to do at least one on-chain transaction, unless you already have a channel open and the exchange does support LN.
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Merely stating that my argument is wrong does not make it so.
To get the dollar worth of bitcoin out of the exchange, you will have to do at least one on-chain transaction, unless you already have a channel open and the exchange does support LN.
Yes, of course. This is the problem. How long does it take for 7 billion people to make an on-chain transaction and then open a lightning channel?
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Does your 7 billion people, making on-chain transactions, include toddlers? That's exactly how ridiculous your argument is.
As I mentioned to you already:
What if some people choose to use self custody and some don't? Have you ever thought of that possibility?
It's already infeasible for me as a non-bitcoiner to open and close my own channels due to on-chain fees.
I recently paid $0.03 to open a channel. If that's prohibitive, then yeah, LN is probably not the right payment tool for you.
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The fee will increase dramaticially as more users join the network. I hope 1MB every 10 mins is enough for constantly opening and closing enough LN channel for everyone in the world to use bitcoin.
Will everyone in the world run their own lightning node? The more likely outcome is: either that everyone uses bitcoin custodially or bitcoin just never catches on and dies.
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How can you make so many wrong assumptions?
The fee will increase dramaticially as more users join the network.
Wrong. Bitcoin has much more users now than 5 years ago, fees are much lower. Stop predicting the future if you keep ignoring the past.
I hope 1MB every 10 mins is enough for constantly opening and closing enough LN channel for everyone in the world to use bitcoin.
Wrong. Bitcoin blogs aren't limited to 1MB for quite a few years. Keep up, please.
Also, nobody said they NEVER be any bigger, we just have to exhaust all other options prior rising the limit to keep the network as decentralised as possible.
Will everyone in the world run their own lightning node?
Nobody knows but EVERYONE sounds like an extreme. Some people hate being responsible.
The more likely outcome is: either that everyone uses bitcoin custodially or bitcoin just never catches on and dies.
More predictions, lol. And more extremes. What if some people choose to use self custody and some don't? Have you ever thought of that possibility?
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Wrong. Bitcoin has much more users now than 5 years ago, fees are much lower. Stop predicting the future if you keep ignoring the past.
This is not a fair comparison. You are talking about many existing on-chain transactions that were moved to lightning. I am talking about increasing the total number of transactions to accommodate the entire world's spending. You can obviously not extrapolate that increase in throughput due to LN adoption forever unless you think bitcoin will continue to invent ways to increase througput non-linearly.
The throughput of lightning is limited by the throughput of on-chain transactions, because you need to have at least some transactions to open and close channels reliably.
Wrong. Bitcoin blogs aren't limited to 1MB for quite a few years. Keep up, please. Also, nobody said they NEVER be any bigger, we just have to exhaust all other options prior rising the limit to keep the network as decentralised as possible.
There is no reason to exhaust all other options. "All other options" basically extends to Paul-Sztorc-esque sidechains. Using that principle, you will eventually force bitcoin to be soft-forked by miners in order to increase throughput on another chain. That is not any better than a hard fork, it's just more manipulative.
Bitcoin's 1MB block size limit is generally centralizing force, as I have argued earlier. The costs of storage are nothing compared to the costs of maintaining LN nodes, which must always be online, have liquidity, etc. Cost of storage/GB tends to decrease exponentially as tech improves.
More predictions, lol. And more extremes. What if some people choose to use self custody and some don't? Have you ever thought of that possibility?
As I have described, the network is not efficient enough to provide for that. If bitcoin takes over, the VAST majority of the global population is forced into custodial usage due to prohibitive fees. The trend is that cost will increase, not decrease as adoption increases. There is no possible way it could get better.
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This is not a fair comparison.
You just compared LN to PayPal and now talking about a fair comparison even though I showed you facts only.
Are you a troll??
...unless you think bitcoin will continue to invent ways to increase througput non-linearly.
Do you think Bitcoin is the final product with no more updates being done in the future? This takes me back to my previous question: Are you a troll??
Bitcoin's 1MB block size limit is
Do you know how to read?
Wrong. Bitcoin blogs aren't limited to 1MB for quite a few years.
Again: Are a a troll??
Addressed the rest above, you obviously skipping the reading part. Try to base your predictions on facts or don't do them otherwise you look like a clown, fighting against possibly the biggest revolution of this century - separation of money & state.