But he has some truth in it as well. As from what I read, to get into top 15% holders, you only need 15BTC, which means, that majority of people have way less than that... So how much does it actually take to run a lighting network node?

Why to be top 15%? Makes no sense for me. Do you think that it will be only the top 15% who can earn on the (really small) transaction fees of the lightning network? If there will be fees at all in the beginning? Guys are running LN nodes on Raspberry PIs and opening channels with the amount of 0,01 or 0,05 BTC just for testing purposes now, so to start a node and be the part of the network is not a big deal at the moment. Maybe in the future there will be a need for big and reliable nodes to route the transactions with a high amount of BTC, but to maintain a bigger hub will cost real money and this will make the node to charge you higher fees compared to the average (or compared to 0 fees). If they will charge higher fees, the protocol will search for another route where your transaction will arrive with less fees. Or, if it's a really higher amount (not a coffee or a weekend shopping) and no hurry, the good old onchain transaction will be also an option still. So there's nothing with banks and giant nodes but an onion type network that will have real possibilities.

Until lightning network is going to launch no one can predit what is really is and how it is going to work because there arent a lot of informations about it so it is hard to even speak about it. It is possible that banks are behind network lightning and they want to take control of bitcoin but it is hard to belive that they went that far and they are going to create such a big project when banks dont even care very much about bitcoin.

LN is a giant raging disaster.  Scaling is not easy.  But Blockstream tries to takeover Bitcoin and act like it is the Daddy.  That is bank mentality. Sure to fail.  100% not going to work.  Ethereum is trying other scaling solutions.  Why do you think all the alts are rising so much over the last year?  Because nobody believes in the Blockstream approach to hostile takeover of Bitcoin.  No wonder they kicked Greg Maxwell out finally.  He is poison.  But I think it is now too late for Bitcoin to get back to its old philisophical roots.  Bitcoin bet everything on LN.  What could go wrong?

Your BTC wallet has to be pre-funded with money before you are able to use it. Same with your ETH and LTC wallet. So what's the argument?



Please expand on how LN is turning out to be disaster?



Indeed. Not as easy as simply increasing the block size, for example.



Blockstream is only one of multiple development teams working on LN. LN is decentralized both in regards of how transactions are handled and how it is developed. Using LN is and will remain optional. It does not lock out other scaling solutions that may turn up in the future.



Payment channels being one of them. Nonetheless as mentioned above, LN does not prevent other scaling solutions to be deployed in the future, instead of LN.



FOMO, greed and misinformation.



How is multiple development teams working on an optional scaling solution a hostile takeover of Bitcoin?

Well said OP and you got the first ever merit that i ever sent out here

Here is the network map of the banker hubs connecting up with each other on the
lightning network https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/ and also
here is the LN white paper https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf

Thanks for having the guts to stand up to the censorship that we often see going
on here and if deleted comments counted as merits then I would have more
than all of you !

100% agree but they have had 8 years to come up with a solution so the LN solution they
picked in the end looks like a case of problem-reaction-solutions to me and we are being
lead around by the nose if we let them.

if "On-Block" brought people to Bitcoin then LN "Off-Block" should have them leaving

why you are so much scared of bank ? you no understand how to use tool like this one to create better life for famaily ? this one no problem for us who understand true thing about bitcoin
you have say it several time you no use bitcoin instead you do trade thing with litcoin and etheriums so why this thing concerns you
instead you keep use eth to play game with the other small mens whoms are using this one to do childish game with eachother , etherium never reach same level with bitcoin even when i look on litceoin me and famaily we laugh so many time at that one
lightening network is future for us and we will enjoy this one , to me it no matter who behind of scenes working on this

Either banks, or big existing crypto entities like Coinbase. Coinbase already functions like a lightning hub in that transactions between coinbase users happen off-chain within Coinbase's internal database.

My prediction is that the first lightning hubs will be wallet providers like Coinbase, Blockchain.info and the exchanges. And then the banks will get in on the act.