[deweller]

A "few seconds" to pay in bitcoin? So the captain is supposed to be watching for a response via email with his finger hovering over the pay button? Is the recipient address static? Surely they would use unique payment addresses if they have any hope of obfuscating payments.

This all sounds more like a TV show script than an actual thought-out plan to me.

[bodiekane]

The payments are going to a government. They're not using bitcoin to hide the payments, they're using it because receiving USD or Euros or whatever would mean that a hostile government could seize the funds from the bank.

The tracking is unique though. I don't know who had the $20 in my wallet before me or what series of payments it was a part of, but crypto has the curious property that over time, essentially all crypto money will have at some point passed through wallets associated with controversial entities or transactions.

[gzread]

I thought they were using Chinese yuan. Bitcoin must be a fallback option for countries that haven't yet updated to the new global reserve currency.

[sanskritical]

Presumably these are lightning invoices, which can resolve in milliseconds.

[HWR_14]

Is there a limit on how much the lightning network can handle? Those are pretty large transactions.

[ProllyInfamous]

Transaction fees are based on the complexity of the inputs/outputs, not the value transacted. You are literally paying for the minimum amount of data necessary to prove you own the funded sending-address, paying to write those hashes and amounts into the blockchain. The institution handling this offchaing lightning branch can implement fees in whatever structure you agree to transact, including percentage based.

Lightning is just an off-chain out-branch, which will eventually be re-integrated onto the main blockchain (based on its original funding/terms). The benefit of this is that single entities can branch off the main blockchain, which is limited in its total blocksize/capacity.

The only limits are those by the handling lightning institution. This differs from bitcoin's main public blockchain, which rewards/creates approximately six blocks /hour, each with a limit of just a couple megabytes.

[HWR_14]

There are multiple competing lightning networks? I don't get how the lighting networks prevent double spending then.

It seems like a major issue when dealing with multimillion dollar transactions.

[derangedHorse]

Lightning is a protocol and there can theoretically be many disjoint networks. The biggest network is usually what's considered to be 'the' lightning network. Double spending, which would require 'settling' a superseded lightning transaction, is prevented by a penalty mechanism that makes it so the malicious party loses all the funds in their 'channel' when caught (which will be, at smallest, the amount the original payment was made for).

[HWR_14]

I'm still thrown. I don't see how an after the fact penalty can work.

Let's say I have 1 BTC. I buy something for 1 BTC on lightning network A. Simultaneously (within nanoseconds) I buy something for 1 BTC on lightning network B. I never plan to use BTC again (or if I do, I will use a different wallet, etc.) Do I just get two purchases? Is there a meta-network clearing house, and if so, why are there many disjoint networks.

Or do I need to have moved my BTC into the lightning network A or B before I spend it?

[derangedHorse]

> Transaction fees are based on the complexity of the inputs/outputs, not the value transacted

Not on the lightning network. Fees are used to incentivize or disincentivize routes across channels.

> The institution handling this offchaing lightning branch can implement fees in whatever structure you agree to transact, including percentage based.

No institution is needed. Even if one is used as an intermediary, when using lightning non-custodially, the economics of lightning are such that fees are determined by the nodes in the payer's desired route. If it's a custodial transfer from one user to another, no routes are needed.

[tim333]

The record for lightning is $1m recently https://www.tradingview.com/news/financemagnates:db022676a09...

I imagine the seconds to pay won't be true - if they are exchanging emails and inspecting boats it's going to be an hours to days long process.

[HWR_14]

No way they're boarding boats. They can get an accurate enough cargo weight within seconds visually (maybe minutes, depending on how computerized it is)

[lancewiggs]

WSJ reports they can pay in Chinese yuan instead of Bitcoin.

[Xx_crazy420_xX]

Why would you want to obfuscate payments if you can track how many ships entered the gulf using transponders? Regarding money laundering, you use Tornado Cash or Monero

[cmxch]

Then what prevents the US from just seizing or sinking any vessel presumed to have paid up?

[roryirvine]

That would be piracy or an act of war, depending on the specifics.

It would, at the very least, alienate the gulf states and would likely result in international sanctions.

[stronglikedan]

> So the captain is supposed to be watching for a response via email with his finger hovering over the pay button?

no, mate

[triceratops]

Is that a friendly response to the question, or are you saying it's actually the captain's second-in-command who watches the email?