[repomies691]

> Instead, all effort is going into a building a flawed second layer that is theoretically unsound and a usability nightmare.

I don't know much about LN and actually I'm quite sceptical about it. However I have tried it now couple of times with different wallets and it seems to work very fluently from user perspective. And saying this as a very old bitcoin user, so I'm used to sending bitcoin payments a lot, LN payments don't seem to differ that much from usability perspective. You scan the QR code/invoice and press send.

[arcticbull]

LN requires an on-chain transaction to open a channel and another to close a channel which means it'll take 70 years to open a channel for everyone on earth and then close it once, assuming the blockchain does nothing else. If an intermediate node loses power all your channel money is locked for over 48 hours. It's also not even Bitcoin and could work just as well with any other cryptocurrency or probably even dollars honestly.

Then of course there's the features people actually want like dispute resolution, the ability to charge back, and so on.

[xorcist]

Is the argument here that Lightning, or Bitcoin, is useless because everyone on earth can not use it at the same time? Isn't that moving the goalposts, even a little?

Even if only a couple of thousand people could use it, as long as it is useful to them it has a niche. It might not be enough to justify insane valuations, of course, but that's another discussion entirely.

[mamon]

Traditional banking serves pretty much everyone on earth, without running into performance issues, so if Bitcoin is going to replace those banks then yes, it must do the same. And it was Bitcoin fanboys who declared that Bitcoin is here to replace fiat money, so you set that goalpost yourself.

[alwillis]

No. Traditional banking doesn’t even serve everyone in the United States, with 55 million people unbanked or underbanked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbanked

[arcticbull]

This is the biggest misconception in the space (and that's saying a lot). They're un-banked and under-banked because they don't have money, not because the services don't exist. You want to solve this problem, solve wealth inequality and income inequality, don't pretend magic beans that cost $1-3 to transact will solve the problem for you. That's more than it costs you to use an Amex Bluebird or even a Green Dot card at an ATM, let alone a T-Mobile prepaid visa. And it's dropped half its value in the last two years (generously). Those are the people you want to disadvantage with a massively fluctuating currency?

Not to mention the low-income folks are most likely to have smartphones and therefore access to online banking with Ally or Schwab, which require $0 minimum balances and refund all ATM fees. You need a phone to use BTC, which means those same people can access Ally or Schwab and be objectively better off.

This is again a social problem in need of a social solution.

Postal banking is a great way to solve the access problem where it exists, too, like is done in the UK, and was in the US until the 1970s.

Sorry, this talking point is debunked, unless there's something I'm missing here.

[perl4ever]

Not having a bank account doesn't mean that the financial system isn't being used. If I get a paycheck and take it to a check cashing place, I'm still relying on the financial infrastructure and the banks and crypto isn't a viable alternative.

[girvo]

I think you'd be surprised by how large a proportion of the human population doesn't use traditional banking

[alwillis]

There's a lot of FUD here.

It's kind of a straw man to talk about opening LN channels for 7.5 billion people, as if that's something to be concerned about today. Not every man, woman and child has a cell phone or computer right now, so that's not really a concern in 2019.

Dispute resolution is built into the protocol: it's a two-way channel; both parties have to agree that the transaction in question took place and either party can close the channel if they wish.

And because LN is under heavy development, there are all kinds of new features being developed, like watchtowers that can monitor the channel on your behalf, etc.

You don't need chargeback if you can claim your money and close the channel if thing you want to happen isn't happening, right?

Yes, other cryptocurrencies (such as Ethereum) can create LN as a layer-2 feature.

No, you can't do this with dollars; since there's no cryptocurrency representation of USD with the required blockchain and scripting/smart contracts language required for LN—at least not yet.

[arcticbull]

> You don't need chargeback if you can claim your money and close the channel if thing you want to happen isn't happening, right?

And if the other person disagrees? Crypto falls down at the boundary between humans and the Blockchain every time.

[RustyRussell]

Your figures are about right, but 70 years is a long time to assume nothing else changes.

As to "it's not even bitcoin" you're flat wrong. Holding a valid Bitcoin transaction is definitely Bitcoin, and with Lightning you always do. This is why it can't be done without bitcoin.

And from a FOSS development perspective, bitcoin is the only project in the *cryptos" space I consider serious. I wouldn't base a project of mine on any of the other chains, and I think I've earned my graybeard enough in FOSS to make that judgement.

[Disclaimer, I work on Lightning standards and one implementation, since 2015]

[alwillis]

There are over 10,000 LN nodes right now, with a capacity of nearly $8 million and growing quickly. The site is called “1ML” because the goal is to get to 1 millions LN nodes: https://1ml.com

You have nodes running on smartphones now; as soon as you launch a LN app, the channel is opened. There are billions of smartphones out there, so the 70 years you quoted is not a thing.