Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Fees and the block-finding process

From: Michael Naber <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 13:59:26 -0500

Lightning *depends* on global consensus in order to function. You can't use
it without a global consensus network at all. So given that there is
absolutely a place for a global consensus network, we need to decide
whether the cost to participate in that global consensus will be limited
above or below the capability of technology. In a world where anybody can
step up and fork the code, it's going to be hard for anyone to artificially
set the price of participating in global consensus at a rate higher than
what technology can deliver...

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Bryan Bishop <[email-masked]> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Michael Naber via bitcoin-dev
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > Note that lightning / hub and spoke do not meet requirements for users
> > wishing to participate in global consensus, because they are not global
> > consensus networks, since all participating nodes are not aware of all
> > transactions.
>
> You don't need consensus on the lightning network because you are
> using bitcoin consensus anyway. Commitment transactions are deep
> enough in the blockchain history that removing that transaction from
> the history is impractical. The remaining guarantees are ensured by
> the properties of the scripts in the transaction. You don't need to
> see all the transactions, but you do need to look at the transactions
> you are given and draw conclusions based on the details to see whether
> their commitments are valid or the setup wasn't broken.
>
> - Bryan
> http://heybryan.org/
> 1 512 203 0507
>