There’s no question that a flooding mesh network requiring global consensus for every transactions is not the way. It’s also clear that a routable protocol capable of compensating hubs is basically the holy grail. So what’s there to discuss? - Eric > On Jun 28, 2015, at 3:07 PM, Adam Back wrote: > > On 28 June 2015 at 23:05, Gavin Andresen wrote: >> On Sun, Jun 28, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Adam Back wrote: >>> >>> 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 >> >> If I don't see how switching from using the thousands of fully-validating >> bitcoin nodes with (tens? hundreds?) of Lightning Network hubs is better in >> terms of decentralization (or security, in terms of Sybil/DoS attacks), > > Its a source routed network, not a broadcast network. Fees are > charged on channels so > DoS is just a way to pay people a multiple of bandwidth cost. > > in terms of trustlessness Andrew Lapp explained it pretty well: >> 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. > > Gavin wrote: >> then I doubt other people do, either. You need to do a better job of explaining it. > > I gave it a go a couple of posts up. I didnt realise people here > proposing mega-blocks were not paying attention to the whole lightning > concept and detail. > > People said lots of things about how it's better to work on lightning, > to scale algorithmically, rather than increasing block-size to > dangerously centralising proportions. > Did you think we were Gish Galloping you? We were completely serious. > > The paper is on http://lightning.network > > though it is not so clearly explained there, however Joseph is working > on improving the paper as I understand it. > > Rusty wrote a high-level blog explainer: http://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=450 > > though I don't recall that he got into recirculation, negative fees > etc. A good question > for 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. > > sf bitcoin dev presentation: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QH5EV_Io0E > > epicenter bitcoin: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBS_ieDwQ9k > > There's a related paper from Christian Decker "Duplex Micropayment Channels" > > http://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/file/716b955c130e6c703fac336ea17b1670/duplex-micropayment-channels.pdf > >> But even if you could convince me that it WAS better from a >> security/decentralization point of view: > > We don't need to convince people, we just have to code it and > demonstrate it, which people are working on. > > But Lightning does need a decentralised and secure Bitcoin network for > anchor and reclaim transactions, so take it easy with the mega-blocks > in the mean-time. > >> a) Lightning Network is nothing but a whitepaper right now. We are a long >> way from a practical implementation supported by even one wallet. > > maybe you want to check in on > > https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning > > and help code it. > > I expect we can get something running inside a year. Which kind of > obviates the burning "need" for a schedule into the far future rising > to 8GB with unrealistic bandwidth growth assumptions that will surely > cause centralisation problems. > > For block-size I think it would be better to have a 2-4 year or one > off size bump with policy limits and then re-evaluate after we've seen > what lightning can do. > > I have been saying the same thing ad-nauseam for weeks. > >> b) The Lightning Network paper itself says bigger blocks will be needed even >> if (especially if!) Lightning is wildly successful. > > Not nearly as big as if you tried to put the transactions it would > enable on the chain, that's for sure! We dont know what that limit is > but people have been imagining 1,000 or 10,000 transactions per anchor > transaction. If micro-payments get popular many more. > > Basically users would park Bitcoins a on a hub channel instead of the > blockchain. The channel can stay up indefinitely, and the user has > assurances analogous to greenaddress time-lock mechanism > > Flexcap maybe a better solution because that allows bursting > block-size when economically rational. > > Note that the time-locks with lightning are assumed to be relative > CTLV eg using the mechanism as Mark Friedenbach described in a post > here, and as implemented in the elements sidechain, so there is not a > huge rush to reclaim funds. They can be spread out in time. > > If you want to scale Bitcoin - like really scale it - work on > lightning. Lightning + a decentralised and secure Bitcoin, scales > further and is more trustless than Bitcoin forced into centralisation > via premature mega-blocks. > > To my mind a shorter, more conservative block-size increase to give a > few years room is enough for now. We'll be in a better position to > know 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 can > swap it for you with an equal balance one with less hops of > intermediate payment flows. > > > It's pretty interesting what you can do already. I'm fairly confident > we're not finished algorithmically optimising it either. It's > surprising how much new territory there is just sitting there > unexplored. > > Adam > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev