Post by Gavin Andresen

Post by Adam Back

This is probably going to sound impolite, but I think it's pertinent.

Gavin, on dwelling on the the fact that you appear to not understand

the basics of the lightning network, I am a little alarmed about this

This is probably going to sound impolite, but I think it's pertinent.Gavin, on dwelling on the the fact that you appear to not understandthe basics of the lightning network, I am a little alarmed about this

bitcoin nodes with (tens? hundreds?) of Lightning Network hubs is better in

terms of decentralization (or security, in terms of Sybil/DoS attacks),

If I don't see how switching from using the thousands of fully-validatingbitcoin nodes with (tens? hundreds?) of Lightning Network hubs is better interms of decentralization (or security, in terms of Sybil/DoS attacks),

Post by Gavin Andresen

I don't mind a set of central authorities being part of an option IF the central authority

doesn't need to be trusted. On the blockchain, the larger miner is, the more you have

to trust them to not collude with anyone to reverse your payments or destroy the trust

in the system in some attack. On the Lightning network, a large hub can't steal my

money.

I think most people share the sentiment that trustlessness is what matters and

decentralization is just a synonym for trustlessness when talking about the blockchain

and mining, however decentralization isn't necessarily synonymous with trustlessness

nor is centralization synonymous with trust-requiring when you're talking about

something else.

then I doubt other people do, either. You need to do a better job of explaining it.

I don't mind a set of central authorities being part of an option IF the central authoritydoesn't need to be trusted. On the blockchain, the larger miner is, the more you haveto trust them to not collude with anyone to reverse your payments or destroy the trustin the system in some attack. On the Lightning network, a large hub can't steal mymoney.I think most people share the sentiment that trustlessness is what matters anddecentralization is just a synonym for trustlessness when talking about the blockchainand mining, however decentralization isn't necessarily synonymous with trustlessnessnor is centralization synonymous with trust-requiring when you're talking aboutsomething else.then I doubt other people do, either. You need to do a better job of explaining it.

Post by Gavin Andresen

But even if you could convince me that it WAS better from a

But even if you could convince me that it WAS better from a

Post by Gavin Andresen

a) Lightning Network is nothing but a whitepaper right now. We are a long

way from a practical implementation supported by even one wallet.

a) Lightning Network is nothing but a whitepaper right now. We are a longway from a practical implementation supported by even one wallet.

Post by Gavin Andresen

b) The Lightning Network paper itself says bigger blocks will be needed even

if (especially if!) Lightning is wildly successful.

b) The Lightning Network paper itself says bigger blocks will be needed evenif (especially if!) Lightning is wildly successful.

Its a source routed network, not a broadcast network. Fees arecharged on channels soDoS is just a way to pay people a multiple of bandwidth cost.I gave it a go a couple of posts up. I didnt realise people hereproposing mega-blocks were not paying attention to the whole lightningconcept and detail.People said lots of things about how it's better to work on lightning,to scale algorithmically, rather than increasing block-size todangerously centralising proportions.Did you think we were Gish Galloping you? We were completely serious.The paper is on http://lightning.networkthough it is not so clearly explained there, however Joseph is workingon improving the paper as I understand it.Rusty wrote a high-level blog explainer: http://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=450though I don't recall that he got into recirculation, negative feesetc. A good questionfor the lightning-dev mailing list maybe.http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/There are a couple of recorded presentation videos / podcasts from Joseph Poon.http://youtu.be/2QH5EV_Io0Ehttp://youtu.be/fBS_ieDwQ9kThere's a related paper from Christian Decker "Duplex Micropayment Channels"http://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/file/716b955c130e6c703fac336ea17b1670/duplex-micropayment-channels.pdfWe don't need to convince people, we just have to code it anddemonstrate it, which people are working on.But Lightning does need a decentralised and secure Bitcoin network foranchor and reclaim transactions, so take it easy with the mega-blocksin the mean-time.maybe you want to check in onhttps://github.com/ElementsProject/lightningand help code it.I expect we can get something running inside a year. Which kind ofobviates the burning "need" for a schedule into the far future risingto 8GB with unrealistic bandwidth growth assumptions that will surelycause centralisation problems.For block-size I think it would be better to have a 2-4 year or oneoff size bump with policy limits and then re-evaluate after we've seenwhat lightning can do.I have been saying the same thing ad-nauseam for weeks.Not nearly as big as if you tried to put the transactions it wouldenable on the chain, that's for sure! We dont know what that limit isbut people have been imagining 1,000 or 10,000 transactions per anchortransaction. If micro-payments get popular many more.Basically users would park Bitcoins a on a hub channel instead of theblockchain. The channel can stay up indefinitely, and the user hasassurances analogous to greenaddress time-lock mechanismFlexcap maybe a better solution because that allows burstingblock-size when economically rational.Note that the time-locks with lightning are assumed to be relativeCTLV eg using the mechanism as Mark Friedenbach described in a posthere, and as implemented in the elements sidechain, so there is not ahuge rush to reclaim funds. They can be spread out in time.If you want to scale Bitcoin - like really scale it - work onlightning. Lightning + a decentralised and secure Bitcoin, scalesfurther and is more trustless than Bitcoin forced into centralisationvia premature mega-blocks.To my mind a shorter, more conservative block-size increase to give afew years room is enough for now. We'll be in a better position toknow what the right next step is after lightning is running.Something to mention is you can elide transactions before reclaiming.So long as the balancing transaction is correct, someone online canswap it for you with an equal balance one with less hops ofintermediate payment flows.It's pretty interesting what you can do already. I'm fairly confidentwe're not finished algorithmically optimising it either. It'ssurprising how much new territory there is just sitting thereunexplored.Adam_______________________________________________bitcoin-dev mailing listhttps://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev