the issue is how well its programmed.

some are seeing one LN using economics (fees) to penalize users for extortion, DDoS, closing channels early etc.
some are seeing one LN using code to prevent users for extortion, DDoS, closing channels early etc.

so its still too early to judge the public release, and we can only talk about whats in design and try shouting out the flaws so that the public release is functional and not stupidly engrained with things that are a barrier of entry.

pro's:
a free choice to sit beside bitcoin for those doing high transaction volumes such as gambling/daytrading/faucet raiding.
not to be used as a scaling future direction. just a tool those doing high volume can use.

cons
possible prepay fes and penaltyies to use, causing barrier of entry
stupidly considered the future direction of bitcoin by shifting people away from immutable transactions.
requires dual signing (permissioned funds) which puts users back into the 'banking' managed systems

The "Banks 2.0" stuff is just pure FUD. Forget it:


Yep, you send money to a 2of2 Multisig address to fund the channel. But that transaction is crafted using a clever bit of Bitcoin scripting: in the event that the other party won't co-operate with the transaction you want to make through the channel, you can trigger a refund transaction of the full amount as a part of the script. So in practice, you're in full possession of your BTC, because of that clever little mechanism.

_______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________

Now, there is a way for people to steal from you... but not very easily, it's only if you don't pay attention to whats going on in your channel. What another party can do is keep old copies of channel transactions and broadcast a refund to themselves of whatever old state is most convenient to them (i.e. maximum funds in an address that they control). But the refunds are time-locked, you will have a copy of the correct (i.e. most up to date) refund transaction (where the thief wants to use an older copy when they had more money), and that will overwrite the theft attempt. So long as you notice before the time-lock on the refund transaction expires (a few days, apparently)


The biggest problem I'm seeing right now is this: there's an even easier way to stop that attack working, pay someone to watch what's going on on the blockchain for you, and when someone tries to use an out-dated refund transaction, they do the job of kicking that transaction out of the mempool for you.

IMO the problem with this is, that it will encourage (unimaginative) people to think "hey, I don't need to run a Bitcoin node anymore, my Refund Guardian service is doing that for me, I'll use SPV for non-micro payments, and I can get my hard drive space back!" Obviously, that trend would not be good for Bitcoin.

LN is good for machines, exchange, supermarket.
LN can not compet Bitcoin usual habit.

Compare LN to plastic card payment network and Bitcoin to solid gold ... at the end of the deployment.

though it can be seen as fast 'processing'.. if the method for customer to get into a channel with <retailer>, locking in enough funds. and then only using it do a weekly shop... then i don't see so much of an advantage. (even using the multi-hop feature)


i see it having great utility for faucets, google adsense, kimDotcom, satoshidice gambling..
but the occasional spender who only does 4-42 transactions a month.. current concepts of 10day channel sessions and fee/penalties are not going to be "consumer friendly" for the retailer.

its like a retailer has and customer need to keep closing and opening a new 'bar tab' every fortnight. just so they can process payment in miliseconds. even if the customer only spends once a week..

its not really the utopian solution for everyones spending habits so should not be seen as the 'solution' for bitcoin.. just an addon service.. like BITGO have...

Nothing you've posted or linked proves your claim. None of that is an accurate description of how Lightning is designed to work.

ignoring kiklo's endless attempts to try selling his zeit altcoin as something better by shaming bitcoin..

LN can be considered a bank network.
afterall.. what is a bank

a system where your not in full control of your funds.
the bank can put limits on your spending habits by refusing to authorise transactions
customers require the banks authorisation/agreement.
the only recourse in a disagreement is to close the account

although LN is not a central bank. it is a next gen localised bank. where LN hubs become the new bank branch managers

you can glorify LN as being linked to the open bitcoin network should a customer want to close channel.

but thats just like saying a bank manager of a local bank branch is a glorified accountant supervisor who has no control of SWIFT/cheque clearing house should a customer wish to close their account and take funds elsewhere.

accepting what LN is.. a side option/service. rather then an endgoal solution to bitcoin.. is the way to think about it.
LN has utility for fast action users like satoshidice, faucets, etc. but its not the solution for everyone

---

oh and as i was saying about the 'concepts' the LN devs are coming up with that are CONS

if anyone wants to know about one of the ECONOMIC methods or thwarting DDoS (rather than code)
if anyone wants to know about one of the ECONOMIC methods or thwarting extortion/deceit (rather than code)
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2016-November/000648.html
half way down it says "results" where you can download their open office spreadsheet that displays the prepay buy in and all the penalty fee's

yea i facepalmed reading it
conclusion was the buy-in fee of 0.006(~$4) was not high enough to impact an attacker. (2nd facepalm: the whole posted didnt mention using CODE to fix risk)

without having a perfect knwledge and live demonstation of it, it is really hard to judge it but still if we analyse the runers then the pros do knew everyone. like it will make the bitcoin network faster with some amount of fees and on addition it will increase thw security amd stabiloty of the network but all i think is will the privacy and the irriversable feature still be like now?

It will not make BTC any faster, when using LN, you will be on the LN network which can exchange account balances faster, because it is not a standard crypto coin.
You are basically trusting the LN network like you trust (wait for it Frank)................... A Bank.  

 

Privacy will be enhanced: the individual Lightning transactions are not recorded in the blockchain, so the ledger will be more opaque than before. Surveilling all Lightning transactions would be difficult, you'd need a surveillance node in a majority of channels

Irreversibility is, in a limited way, compromised. There's an attack possible if you go offline. Some malicious user in your channel that notices you're offline can try to close the channel using out of date transactions from the channel you're both in, stealing whatever BTC they spent later back from the people they sent it to. It doesn't seem like a very easy attack to pull off with bi-directional channels, as all the other users in the same extended channel may be online to notice, even if you're not (because some of their money might be at risk from the same attempt, they're incentivised to keep watch). There's a separate protocol that's been developed to allow a third party to watch the channel for you, in the event that you're offline (or if you're not running a Bitcoin node at all), so it's not much of a risk, providing you understand it.

Hub Owners could sell your Private transactions data to marketing firms , just like banks sell your credit card transactions data.
This means all a hacker has to do is compromise a Hub to access your info.
Easier for courts to subpoena a hub to get your records.
Hire someone on the inside of a hub to funnel information. (How the Mob does it)

It will be less private, by far because LN will have more data to Cross Reference.