Why the lightning network isn't as bad as you think

Complaint 1: Lightning has failed / doesn't work.

This could also be rephrased as "The lightning network is hard". Unfortunately I think this has a lot to do with how many vocal cryptocurrency users think about changes to Bitcoin. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking the lightning network is simply a wallet upgrade, rather than an entirely new system built on-top of Bitcoin. So then once you move some btc to Eclair and see that you can't just instantly send satoshis to people is frustrating. To send/receive satoshis at the speed of light you require an open channel with the other party, or another node that connects you to them through one or many hops. The other frustration is that receiving incoming capacity doesn't seem to be a straight-forward task. The two simplest explanation's I've found are:

You need to spend some before you can receive that amount This reasonably straightforward, but also difficult for newcomers because the question ends up being "where"? Answer being, wherever you like of course but it doesn't explain how they can receive right away.
You can find nodes offering incoming capacity This is trickier to do when you don't know where to look, but has the advantage that whoever opens the channel with you is likely already reasonably well connected. This means that once you receive through that channel you can spend from it right away.

Getting started at anything on your own is challenging, so I do believe it's to the benefit of everyone if people who have the understanding, and the time to help people they think might be interested in doing this. Nobody can do anything about those who don't want to learn and just complain, but the more everyone knows the more solutions to problems that can be built and documented.

Attached: LN women.png (700x368, 295K)

Complaint 2: Lightning encourages massive 'hub' nodes that are centralized by nature

Imagine a scenario where every lightning user is connected to "Lightning Supernode" to route all their lightning transactions though. This supernode could do a ton of awful things, they could charge outrageous fees, they could censor transactions, or even track all the users and sell their information. These are all good reasons to be connected with more than a single node, regardless of cost/efficiency, but it also has downsides for the supernode. To have that many open channels of non-negligable size means that that node has an incredibly massive amount of capital that really can't do much. They can charge high fees, but they're competing against the blockchain. If it costs you more in lightning fees than onchain fees, you're better off sending it to them on-chain or opening a new channel with the party directly giving them the amount as a remote balance, which benefits you as now you can receive through that channel. Supernodes are also hurt by the non-negligible amount of less-active or dead nodes. They have to either close channels constantly and eat onchain fees, or let themselves rapidly build up dead, unmovable capital.

Complaint 3: Lightning wouldn't be necessary if we just raised the block size / lightning allows the block size to be kept artificially low

In the case of Bitcoin, each block is effectively a 10 minute auction on space in a presumably finite block. Bitcoin fees are generally expressed as a flat satoshi per byte value. Meaning that each Bitcoin transaction is waiting in an auction to be included in a block based off the fees, and the transaction size. There are many ways to attempt to reduce your on-chain fees, but in situations where you can afford to wait for confirmations it's often best to check out the current current fees and make a judgement on how much you feel like paying. Using wallets that choose fees for you will never be as efficient as having the time to wait for your transaction to be included. Increasing the blocksize (adding more items to the auction) will make peak times more demanding on full nodes and effectively waste that space when not utilized. I don't believe zero fee transactions are inherently spam or malicious, assuming you have no rush, moving your coins to a paper-wallet for zero fees is a legitimate use-case, but miners may not feel like including your transaction, and there is no way (nor should there be) a way to force them to.

The lightning network is an elegant solution to two different use-cases for Bitcoin:

Repeat transactions between two or many parties There isn't much point spending on-chain fees for many small transactions, but batching does help with this when neccesary.

Transactions where immediate validation is important From buying coffee to lambos there are situations where the vendor may not want to wait many minutes for an on-chain transaction to confirm. The lightning network allows high capacity channels to offer immediate transaction forwarding for some extra cost. If you want to ensure your transaction to be included in the next block, you usually have to pay quite high a fee. It's very likely that high capacity nodes would be happy to forward your transaction instantly for a much smaller cut. This will further reduce on-chain fees given enough liquidity.

Complaint 4: You can't gain anything from using the lightning network because each channel opening and closing requires an on-chain transaction.

If you and other party open a private channel with each other you can directly send and route transactions through them without being tracked via on-chain analysis (provided neither closes). Keeping a channel open may not seem desirable at first, but as you and the other party have more channels open, the more useful your private channel becomes. Other privacy, certain parties have incentives to do exactly this, there are already many services where you can move Bitcoin back and forth between Lightning and on-chain. I believe many people miss the point of channels because they believe that this means they have to migrate their entire balance onto the lightning network to avoid the blockchain entirely. Your lightning balance should resemble all the things you would use a "hot wallet" for and the blockchain is to secure your "cold storage". Most people recommend having a small amount of your coins in a hot wallet and I believe this applies fully to LN.

Complaint 5: People will eventually be forced off Bitcoin and be entirely stuck using custodial wallets.

At the time of writing you can open a lightning channel for a few cents if you are alright with waiting a while, the current minimum channel size is a bit over a dollar. If you're dollar-cost averaging when buying bitcoin it makes sense to accumulate your buys into a lightning wallet, then close the channel once you've acquired enough to justify moving the coins off-chain. People will notice it's advantageous to do some things on-chain and others on lightning, but nobody is forced to do either. Moving your coins back on-chain (back into cold storage) won't be an expensive process, all it would take is a service (or person you know) to batch a bunch of lightning balances into a large on-chain transaction to the different parties. The lightning network cannot and won't be able to keep you prisoner, and nor can the chain prevent you from opening channels with whoever you like.

Complaint 6: Lightning Bitcoin isn't "real" Bitcoin

This seems to be the largest point of contention for many people. Many big blockers like to say "Bitcoin core can't be Bitcoin because it's not peer to peer electronic cash", Lightning Bitcoin is:
Peer-to-peer: You can open channels with anyone directly, even anonymously through TOR
Electronic: I haven't found a different way of running my node
Cash: Money you can spend instantly at various values with very small fees seems to fit the bill for most people nowadays.

Does this mean that Lightning Bitcoin is more Bitcoin than Bitcoin? That's entirely up to you, I consider this more a philosophical question than a pragmatic one. You will effectively be able to convert Bitcoin on and off-chain easily that it ends up being a distinction without a difference.

Many of the frustrations people currently have with the lightning network are rooted in the fact that it's new, lots of experimentation and improvement is needed. This isn't the end of Bitcoin, things are changing and there are many reasons to be optimistic. Many of these problems are being worked on by far smarter people than you or I. I have a strong belief that the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem is resilient enough to ward off many of the disaster scenarios people are concerned about. Nothing I have said here is to lull you into a 'false sense of security' these are all valid concerns that people should always be vigilant of, just keep in mind that your own participation matters, and your actions always speak louder than your words.

Lightning summed up in one picture.

Now stop posting.

Attached: mh8hl5fzufk21.png (1400x1297, 1.99M)

Tl;dr OP is a faggot

Or you could just pay with Bitcoin CASH BITCH