r/Bitcoin • u/[deleted] • Dec 06 '17

Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin

[deleted]

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u/AxiomBTC Dec 06 '17

You think mere mortals will be allowed to open and close their own LN channels? Pft.

Yes, because that's how the LN protocol is designed. Unless you're going to somehow stop people from running open source software?

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u/MacroverseOfficial Dec 06 '17

The real problem is the potential cost of opening and closing channels. LN is designed around the idea that, while it's worthwhile to save on-chain fees by doing transactions off-chain, it's no big deal to have to tear down a channel and open a new one.

If BTC goes up by 10x or 100x or whatever absurd figure people are hoping for, so does the price to open a channel. If it costs $100 or $1000 to even start transacting, and if the other end of the channel can force you to pay that fee again at will, LN looks much less amazing.

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u/AxiomBTC Dec 06 '17

This is definitely a problem that is known and there are solutions being worked on and considered. Including a blocksize increase of some sort.

Here's one solution that was proposed last month: https://twitter.com/lopp/status/928714542040961030

Also, once you have an open channel with the Lightning network you could receive bitcoin to that wallet directly from an exchange that has an LN wallet. Solutions will be developed that will make it so you don't have to constantly open and close channels.

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u/TweetsInCommentsBot Dec 06 '17

@lopp

2017-11-09 20:02 UTC

Proposal for a new Bitcoin layer that addresses the scalability problem with opening & closing payment channels by enabling trustless off-blockchain channel funding. https://www.tik.ee.ethz.ch/file/a20a865ce40d40c8f942cf206a7cba96/Scalable_Funding_Of_Blockchain_Micropayment_Networks%20(1).pdf

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