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Comment by centimeter | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin Lightning (and, in principle, similar netting layers) allows transactions with fees on the scale of a few satoshis (or on the scale of $0.0001) without any reason to expect they would increase very much over time. This sort of system (off-chain private netting) is kind of the only system that makes sense for substantial scaling, because

1. It allows you to forget (most of) the system's history without sacrificing the consistency of the system

2. It allows you to distribute/factor out the work of the system into lots of independent components

3. It maintains decentralization, whereas most "fast" "cryptocurrencies" actually just work by having a trusted central authority, once you peel back enough layers of obfuscation

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>Bitcoin Lightning (and, in principle, similar netting layers) allows transactions with fees on the scale of a few satoshis

The lightning whitepaper also says a minimum block size of 155mb is needed to work at scale. Bitcoin currently has a 1mb block size.

I dont see lightning network being useful on a large scale until thats resolved.

> The lightning whitepaper also says a minimum block size of 155mb is needed to work at scale.

Where? I just checked and can't find it. This statement also seems nonsense in isolation - positing block size requirements involves a lot of assumptions about network topology and load.

it is in the conclusion, 133mb not 155mb, my mistake

"If all transactions using Bitcoin were conducted inside a network of micropayment channels, to enable 7 billion people to make two channels per year with unlimited transactions inside the channel, it would require 133 MB"

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

Thanks for finding that.

If everyone on earth was using lightning, I suspect most users would be using custodial lightning wallet providers (e.g. "Wallet of Satoshi" is very popular now). I doubt even 1% of people would elect to host their own node (although it's important that they be able to). 500 bytes is also a high estimate of channel opening transaction size.

The socially efficient end state I expect looks a lot like the current state of affairs (in terms of payment network topology), except A) small institutions (including individuals) have direct access to the same financial network used by large institutions if they want it, B) the financial network is trustless, C) transactions are non-repudiable. This is to be expected - there's no reason to expect Bitcoin would cause a radically different experience for the typical end user, except insofar as they will capture whatever passive benefits may be associated with saving in a hard currency. Paypal et al is already quite convenient and technically amenable to microtransactions. The benefits of Bitcoin, while substantial, mostly occur at the margins.

>I doubt even 1% of people would elect to host their own node

The block size limit was kept small in order for everyone to be able to run their own node.

Bitcoin nodes are distinct from lightning nodes. I was talking about the latter. Also I think "everyone" is a hyperbole - surely some people will prefer custodial solutions.

bitcoin maxi position is not that block size can never increase. rather, block size increase is a last resort.

so far block size increase has not been necessary. if hyperbitcoinization occurs and there is a bottleneck with lightning, block size increase is ok.

with lightning factories this may never be necessary.

if it is, it is.

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