Understanding Lightning in Simple Terms and What It Means for YOU + GET 100SP delegated to you!

in #bitcoin7 years ago

Hi all!

The effects of lightning network coming online is really starting to show. In this video, I explain in layman terms what Lightning is and what you can do to capitalize on this new tech


Now that you've watched the vid, what did you think? I want to do my part to fight spam and promote insightful comments/discussions. I read every comment and value your feedback. Write something and I will pick the most insightful comment to delegate 100 Steem Power to you for a week.

You may earn curation awards using my STEEM manually OR use a service like SmartSteem to vote automatically for you. Just click "sell your votes" button, log in and you are set~

Here is last post's winner: Screen Shot 2018-02-17 at 4.08.43 PM.png
Congrats to @danieldyemusic! What a small world man. I was born in Tianjin and yes it is getting harder everyday for people in China to buy into crypto; that's why I made that video.

-Dan

Sort:  

This is a great explanation @ddangerwu. There is a lot of promotion of lightning network lately and the fuzz might be of the pumps for btc in the past hours. Finally the community moving forward on this issue. I cant believe huge players like coinbase doing absolutely nothing to improve the network, ridiculous.
Anyways, thanks for sharing.

Thank you for this simple explaination :)
I had many questions about lighting, but you answered them all in the video ^_^

Great video, I've seen a lot of explanation video's about Lightning Network, but this was one of the easiest to understand.

Also appreciate the neutrality of the video, something you see less and less of these days. Great work!

thanks man, I appreciate that. I try not to be political and just talk about the facts.

Hello @ddanggerwu, i won't try to pretend at all, i have only heard about Lightning network once once but your video did it for me.

Its explicitly clear even to the newbie. Thanks man. I appreciate that.

Nice explanation @ddangerwu. I read somewhere that the setting up of lightning nodes might reduce the decentralised nature of the network. I didn't full understand why this was thought to be the case.

Do you know something about it or agree that it might be true?

can you link where you read that?

That's refreshing to read. I still don't fully grasp the information but it worried me that it might not be truly decentralised.

There is more than one LN for bitcoin so no monopoly on the LN. Plus all the diff LN are compatible with each other.

I like your way of delegation of steem power.In this manner the real and quality content will be promoted.nice your approch once again!!!!!

I had not seen or even known what is lightning network. After watching your video I can now understand and also make people to understand the machanism of working of the it.
But I will replace the Bob with Jenny!!! Leaving jokes apart what I understood is our transactions will be quick and cost benefit ratio will be in our favor.
If a person like me who had never heard about the concept and can understand within three minutes and 13 seconds anybody can, because your method of explanation was too easy and helpful for layman.
Hope you will keep the good work doing, and help the people especially minnows like me (not by deligation but through videos like this) who are not familiar with digital life too much.
Also one thing that I forget to mention is that what ever I had seen in your video was an totally educational purpose, during whole video the neutrality was maintained that I don't see in any other video.
The concept I had about block chain needs to have an immediate updated, as I am a slow learner I think I must start reading now....!!!!!!

haha I gave you an Alice at the end

Thanks for reading my comment, but I love Jenny!!!!!!! and my whole hearted transactions happen with her!!!!!!

I glad you made this video :)
In fact there actually more scaling solutions to bitcoin that "core" will probably add :)
I made article about these issues :)

How segwit is actually a big block increase= https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@sames/how-segwit-is-actually-a-big-block-increase
Why big blocks are not the answer= https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@sames/why-big-blocks-are-not-the-answer
LN nodes are NOT banks or like banks= https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@sames/ln-nodes-are-not-banks-or-like-banks
What is Schoor signatures= https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@tipu/the-next-big-thing-in-bitcoin-network-schnorr-signatures or https://medium.com/@SDWouters/why-schnorr-signatures-will-help-solve-2-of-bitcoins-biggest-problems-today-9b7718e7861c
Bitcoin’s ethereum killer-rsk.co aka the power of sidechains= https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@sames/bitcoin-s-ethereum-killer-rsk-co
Bitcoin newest scaling method adding bech32 plus others= https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@sames/bitcoin-newest-scaling-method-adding-bech32-plus-others

wow those are some great resources you've made. you might think about making a giant post with all those info and explain a bit about each aspect

I aim to please FYI can you give me your opinion on my project chainmon?
https://steemit.com/card/@sames/chainmon-first-card-is-here

For now, I'm a proponent of onchain scaling.

Onchain scaling, you say? Well, yes. Onchain scaling will mean that for usage by the whole global population we'd need multi-gigabyte block sizes to store all the transaction data.

And multi-gigabyte block sizes would be a very cumbersome thing unless internet speeds and storage capacities greatly improve. So why would I support onchain scaling?

That's simple. I just want to see layer 2 working in the wild before we start banking upon it.

You see, if I'd read Nakamoto's whitepaper in 2008, I'd have been skeptical too. "Sounds interesting", I might say. "Let's see it works in the wild".

And then it did. Nakamoto et al built the Bitcoin network, and I became a fan of blockchain. So when I hear Elizabeth Stark or Adam Back or Luke Dashjr talk about how wonderful they think LN could be in the future, I say: build it. Show me how great it is.

But to let the network degrade in the manner that Blockstream has—where median fees got to over $40 in December—because they believe that offchain scaling is necessary?

Well, that's absolutely sickening. Blockchain works as a decentralized low-fee electronic cash system. We know it works. I've read the lightning network whitepaper, and they envisage global usage of Bitcoin with lightning network. But they calculated that 133MB blocks will be necessary for that to happen, at current global population. Again, I'm open minded when it comes to second layer, because I don't want to end up in a situation with multi-gigabyte blocks. But if 133MB blocks will be necessary for global usage even with lightning, why in the hell aren't they willing to raise the blocksize from a paltry 1MB to 8MB like Bitcoin Cash?

I'll tell you why. It's because Blockstream don't want onchain to work at all for anything but big transactions, to incentivize use of layer 2.

And that's extremely frustrating for me, because right now we are still at the stage where onchain is fine. Bitcoin Cash raised the blocksize, and the fees dropped off a cliff.

Lightning network is an interesting idea, but there are so many things that could go wrong. The protocol in practice could turn out to be highly centralized, and expensive to access. It could turn out to have unforeseen security holes, or severe unreliability problems. That's why building tech in the real world is necessary before we even dream of becoming reliant on it. We have absolutely no idea how well or badly lightning will work in the wild given the problems that have occurred in the limited testnet trials thus far.

So, I hope lightning network (and similar things) are built. In the long run, I think we probably need something like this in order to scale to a global level. In the short run, we cannot neglect what works, which is blockchain. Bitcoin Cash, for me, is the real Bitcoin, because their devs are going for the low-hanging fruit of raising blocksize to keep the network functioning effectively, instead of banking on exotic second layer solutions which don't even functionally exist yet.

I want Bitcoin to be reliable, and useable, and $5, $10, $20, $40 transaction fees in order to incentivize people to migrate to the lightning network is an absolute ripoff. If the fees are anything like that, people are going to sell their BTC and buy BCH or ETH (or another altcoin) instead of waiting for a lightning network that may or may not ever function properly.

run your own lightning node and see $0.15USD transactions confirmed in 1 block
https://medium.com/@jadmubaslat/bitcoin-lightning-network-node-easy-setup-tutorial-for-windows-desktop-users-a-how-to-guide-9937b5a8a669

this is not in the wild or theory

From very near the top of the post in bold:

"Keep in mind, this is currently for testnet BTC ONLY right now. "

Yeah, OK.

Are you just shilling for Blockstream or do you actually believe this theoretical lightning that only is approved for use on testnet has solved Bitcoin scaling?

It comes with a lot of disclaimers, e.g. "don't use it or you're at risk of losing your funds."

Listen to Rick Falkvinge. He explains some of the potential problems with LN.

I know the problem however LN is now in mainnet and has been successful, it basically beta mainnet and based on current progress it will fully launch on April-June

Um that link is not a good main net LN node link. Here is a better one: https://medium.com/@dougvk/run-your-own-mainnet-lightning-node-2d2eab628a8b