[not-satoshi]

The root problem with Lightning Network is that it is not settlement. Money must be settled to be useful.

Worst case, a client or protocol flaw is found, and everyone in the world is expected to close their channels (settle) at 7 transactions per second?

Please. Bitcoin Cash is the large block scaling we've needed all along.

[dane-pgp]

Not only is the worst case a disaster, but even the best case is: Imagine the usability of trying to onboard another 7 billion Lightning Network users at 7 transactions per second.

[stdcli]

Compared to what kind of payment onboarding system? Outside of free cash, anything related to setting up a bank account, or a credit card can take up to 7-10 business days if not more, post an application to do so. Do you know of any onboarding system of payment that is faster? It seems like this is just a random statement by itself that is not in the context of all the other onboarding mechanisms of every payment system currently used. Care to calibrate Lightening onboarding with any other mass payment system? Even if you use square, paypal, venmo etc, they need to be linked to real checking accounts, credit card, other verified (with long onbaording) payment systems etc.

Furthermore, 2-3% of all transactions on many of these systems are fraudulent, but the payment systems ACCEPT This as an acceptable level of fraud and cover the expenses, in order for faster transactions.

Square knows for example it won't be used in coffee shops over another competitor if Square on average takes 20 seconds longer to process metadata in conjunction with the transaction itself to see if its an attempt/fraudulent charge, so they consciously cut corners here and accept this liability so we can all get coffee 8x a day.

This is why bitcoin has industry standard confirmation blocks so the network can address and blacklist attempts at doubles spends and keep a master chain.

This is basic blockchain 101 compared to standard knowledge of onboarding to every en masse payment system we all anecdotally have experience with layered digital transaction technology and the losses associated with that.

The lightening network is as mentioned above with links, rapidly evolving to expediate this while still maintaining the underlying benefits of transaction consensus that avoids fraud.

You may deal with fraudulent exchanges as you will do with fraud around any new technology (heard of the internet before? there were lots of sites for fraud, and much worse when it came out, and still are, we just all get smarter about what we click, and hopefully in this case, who we throw our money at, which you should be doing anyways for any new technology...) but the fraud here is associated with like top ranked comment said, not the protocol but the flurry of business activity around it, and is really null and void to the technical conversation itself, which is really what evolves communities like this past these handwavy statements...

I really don't mind constructive criticism of blockchain based technologies, but the issue is the conversation rarely evolved because of cargo culting statements like this that ignorethe very benefits of moving to a blockchain based payment system.

[schmichael]

> Outside of free cash, anything related to setting up a bank account, or a credit card can take up to 7-10 business days if not more

You are forgetting concurrency. A bank doesn't stop processing transactions for 7 days while opening 1 account. Thousands, millions, or more accounts can be opened concurrently. If account demand skyrockets more branches can be added, more tellers hired, banks can compete on efficiency of service.

Bitcoin's 7 TPS rate limit is global and immutable (without a fork). You cannot add more nodes to satisfy demand. You cannot add more hash power to satisfy demand. You get 7 TPS or you try to get consensus on upgrading (which almost always means a fork, which ironically is an extreme form of fiscal stimulus as it doubles monetary supply).

[root_axis]

Unless you plan to trade cash for bitcoins in the street then a bank account or credit card is already a prerequisite for bitcoin on boarding.

[stdcli]

you don't have to do it in the street...but yes this is true for many exchanges if you are wanting to take an existing currency and turn it into another one, or if exchanges are how you are looking to transfer money, you can also receive btc without ever having bought it, and send it to addresses and never use an exchange.

Regardless, your point only further proves that the bottleneck for onboarding users to lightening en masse is, if a problem at all, not one unique to that network, or any other payment system we currently use.

[root_axis]

My point is that since its impractical for most people to use bitcoin without a bank or credit card it's not really a viable alternative since the system it is attempting to subvert is still necessary. If you're an enemy of the state and need to move your money covertly, bitcoin offers some limited utility, but for the vast majority of people it is a waste of time.

[imtringued]

You forgot that this initial on boarding transaction is just a tiny step in the complex process you have listed above but this tiny step is already a significant barrier that prevents more than 200 million users to open a channel per year. This is already assuming that those channels never have to settle and no other transactions happen on the blockchain ever.

[not-satoshe]

Bitcoin Cash can onboard faster. Post your address, receive money.

[Lordarminius]

Bitcoin is an alternative currency. It will not need to onboard 7 billion people. 500 million is quite ok.

Even if crypto were were to gain mass adoption it weight not be btc in it's current form that wins that lottery.

[imtringued]

In the state bitcoin currently is it wouldn't even handle the on boarding process of those 500 million users. The blockchain would be congested for years.

[Lordarminius]

Edit: ...Even if crypto were were to gain mass adoption it might not be btc in it's current form that wins that lottery.

[millettjon]

So onboarding users that have no other access to banking is a disaster?

[homakov]

You just need to support economic majority, not everyone who lives on $2 a day. The channels can be closed in a reasonable time.

Big blockers are new flat earthers.

[n0t-satoshi]

Three week wait, or pay $30 to settle. That was December 2017. The channels will freeze and a lot of people will wish they had money that works when they need it. Like Cash.

[homakov]

With 1m tx per day you need 3 weeks to close 21m channels. Reasonable for a protocol bug. If just one hub goes down however, it will sort out in a few days. Like I said it only should cater to economic majority aka 1% so 70m wealthy users need 2 months.

Btc’s current limits are far from optimal but layer2 itself is working great especially on other chains.

[imtringued]

Your numbers are incorrect. 1m transactions per day is almost twice as fast as the theoretical capacity of Bitcoin. (~600k transactions per day assuming 7tps)

[homakov]

I was citing eth's ones. Bitcoin is a poor platform for doing layer2 due to unfixable restrictions. What matters is it's about 600k~1000k (not 100m) and even with these it supports quite a lot of users. Supporting more than 1% is desirable but not mission critical.

[not-satoshi]

That's not Bitcoin. Bitcoin is electronic cash for everyone on the internet. See www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf

[millettjon]

Once there is a critical mass, there is less need to close. Also, in fiat banking, Argentinians had their pesos devalued 4 to1 overnight. Zero chance to withdraw in that case.