[37ef_ced3]

The above shouldn't be downvoted. It's an interesting statement

What do you think of the Lightning Network?

Lightning Network channels specify a blockchain hash, so Bitcoin is supported but other cryptocurrencies could be used (if the HTLC scripts, etc., were ported)

The Lightning Network web of payment channels looks good to me. You can see how it can form an efficient "overlay" on any cryptocurrency that provides sufficient scripting power:

https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf

[etrabroline]

Lightning is not reliable the way Bitcoin is, and correspondingly has not seen any real-world adoption. It is effectively dead.

[gruez]

>and correspondingly has not seen any real-world adoption. It is effectively dead.

but

https://blog.kraken.com/post/7225/a-need-for-speed-kraken-to...

and

https://coingate.com/lightning-network

[etrabroline]

> In 2021

So they are still putting money into the project and promising things in the future. Years ago, before venture capital took over BTC, I could buy games on Steam with Bitcoin. Can I buy video games with Lightning?

https://blog.kraken.com/post/7225/a-need-for-speed-kraken-to...

> https://coingate.com/lightning-network

Ok. What can I actually buy with it? There's tons of venture capital going into this project and no commerce happening. Bitcoin had more real commerce 5 years ago than BTC and Lightning combined do today.

[gruez]

>So they are still putting money into the project and promising things in the future.

I don't get it. A major cryptocurrency exchange says they're planning to adopt it, and that doesn't count as "real-world adoption"? I guess that's true if your original statement read as "not seen any real-world adoption ...[today]" but it certainly doesn't follow that it's dead.

>Ok. What can I actually buy with it?

One of the merchants I've made multiple purchases on uses coingate for payments so that's something for me, at least. That said I'll admit that I haven't used lightning yet because I'm quite happy with the status quo of waiting for a lull in transaction volume so I can pay pennies per transaction (my payments aren't usually urgent). Going through the hassle setting up a lightning node isn't worth saving a few pennies each month in my opinion.

>Years ago, before venture capital took over BTC, I could buy games on Steam with Bitcoin. Can I buy video games with Lightning?

To be fair, bitcoin was launched in 2009 and it took until 2016 for steam to accept it. How many years has lightning been around? Also, while looking up when steam first accepted bitcoin I also found https://twitter.com/udiWertheimer/status/952206482715660289, which answers your second question.

[aeternum]

You could buy Steam games years ago because Bitcoin volume was low.

Just try some math: How large would blocks need to be to handle just 50% of Visa's current US transaction rate?

[zhoujianfu]

VISA says they do 150M transactions per day. I’m not sure how many are US, but let’s say half. Avg BTC transaction is 250 bytes, so you’d need about 10GB a day (about 70MB) blocks to do what you propose.

A 3TB drive is $39 on Amazon right now. So maybe 13c a day in storage costs to run half of visa’s US transactions.

Not raising Bitcoin’s block size has got to be THE most insane technical decision in modern history.

[gruez]

>VISA says they do 150M transactions per day. I’m not sure how many are US, but let’s say half. Avg BTC transaction is 250 bytes, so you’d need about 10GB a day (about 70MB) blocks to do what you propose.

Your calculations are off. It's closer to 20GB per day: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=150%2C000%2C000+*+0.5+...

>A 3TB drive is $39 on Amazon right now. So maybe 13c a day in storage costs to run half of visa’s US transactions.

Redoing the calculations with the correct figures comes to 24.4 cents per day. That might not seem a lot, but that's also $89/year, which makes it a non-negligible expense for anyone wanting to run a full node. Not to mention, the data would have to be stored for eternity, so someone wanting to start a full node 5 years from now will need to invest almost $500 just to get started. That would put someone wanting to run a full bitcoin node into /r/datahoarder territory.

[splintercell]

I find LN's UX really painful. Ethereum's layer 2 solutions are far ahead in terms of user experience. The other day I had to settle an election bet, and either I settle it in stablecoin on high tx fees of ETH/BTC or try explaining one of the layer-2 solutions.

And no, I can't pay them in USDT on bch because that requires them to get a new wallet.

Raiden network which is Ethereum's LN like solution, faces the same problem. Whatever bitcoin folks envision, they will never get LN bitcoins to have the same network effect as bitcoin itself.

[nullc]

> I find LN's UX really painful.

What did you find painful, and which wallet(s)?