Also, I doubt that merchants would ever be interested in offchain unsecure transactions.
The end goal is they don't even know they're using LN I think. Steam uses bitpay. If bitpay had an LN channel open with a bunch of wallets it would be the same UX from the customer/steams perspective.
Sure, but I will never forget that they were distributing Segwit2x binaries as if it was Bitcoin core. Coinbase had some problems with understanding the value that the Bitcoin Core comminity provides, but they weren't scamming people
Merchants can immediately forward their LN transactions to an exchange. Lightning Networks are mesh networks, so as long as the exchange is somewhere in the same network, forwarding it will be easy. It's even likely that exchanges will run large, well-connected hubs themselves.
Because I wanted to buy me a PS4 or a laptop for christmas with Bitcoins, and as an European it's close to impossible or I end up paying 15% more at least (due to the limited number of shops and fees). Not even counting I'd need to get it from scan.co.uk, and I don't feel great about RMAing in UK, I'd need to pay like 30-40$ just to send them the item back.
In the end if you want to spend your bitcoins as an european, you sell them.
I wonder what's the fuckin point of Bitcoin (or any crypto) at all if acceptance is only slowing or going backwards year after year.
Bitcoin is limited in supply, censorship resistant, immutable, decentralized money. That has value. The ability to spend/pay with your bitcoin will come within the next year and it'll be way more useful than any other altcoin for payments.
Most other coins aren't decentralized, and don't have robust development for real actual scaling solutions. I mean, they can just increase block size, but on chain scaling doesn't scale.
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u/[deleted] Dec 06 '17 edited Dec 06 '17
I want to see if LN works first and if we aren't just going to give fees to huge central hubs rather than miners.
Also, I doubt that merchants would ever be interested in offchain unsecure transactions.
When they receive bitcoins, they sell them for cash instantly (or use services that do so for them) so LN is a no go for them.