but its not settled. its just "sent"

much like all unconfirmed payments
you can see it instantly but doesnt mean its confirmed and settled

lightning network deals in unconfirmed payments

bitcoin network has always had unconfirmed payments displayed in the same "instant"

dont be fooled into what the lightning salesmen tell you lightning is. because it doesnt work the same as what they say.

also in lightning you never set the fee you want to pay. instead when you insert the destination. it finds all possible routes and either only displays the cheapest or gives you the options

when you decide to finally broadcast.. that broadcast is THEN the same as broadcasting a unconfirmed tx onchain. because thats what you are then doing..
however before a broadcast, is even less like a bitcoin broadcast unconfirmed payment session
EG

e. confirm into block is confirm into block and deemed settled/final immutible/complete
d. broadcast onchain itself is not a blockchain confirm
c. close session itself is not a blockchain confirm
b. holding 'current state' is not a blockchain confirm
a. deciding on a route to take and having the recipiant sign acceptance is not a blockchain confirm

you making a payment to a restaurant (a) is 4 steps away from settlement
bitcoin relaying a unconfirmed tx (d) is 1 step from settlement

relaying a unconfirmed bitcoin transaction shows up "instantly" in lots of explorers and recipients mempool.

but lightning payment (a) and bitcoin relay(d) are not settled. thus both unconfirmed.

blackhat and his forum-wife doomad do not understand blockchains and what they represent. they dont like blockchain nor know about them. they love broken systems that dont use blockchains

you will see thempromote things to make bitcoin network less useful and more expensive just to recruit people over to sub par networks like lightning
they hate how i ruin their snake oil sales promises(that never flourish)

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moving msats via onion payments) on another network is not the same as moving bitcoin

if the current state is not in a bitcoin block. its not settled

.. black hats buddies game is to scam people into thinking people dont have to nor should settle their value back to the bitcoin network.. thus stay within lightning forever long term until people dont have value left on their side(nothing left to give back to themselves as change). thus have to close out to give out settled balance to others. and to refill more value.

its like old banking scheme
deposit all your gold. play with bank notes. but make it hard difficult expensive to try getting your gold back. and make it sound like you dont need to get your gold back..

If you setup your own channel, there should be no fee. Assuming you have your own node and connect to another node to set up a channel, the transaction you will make on that channel should be free. Fee can vary, the lightning network node runners are the ones that set the fee. The more the hubs to route your transaction too, the higher the fee.

Can you please clarify what desktop wallet you used exactly for lightning transactions, since Muun and Phoenix are both mobile only wallets?
Maybe it's possible to install them on computer using some Android emulator, but that is not exactly what you would call a desktop wallet.

The fee for a Lightning Network payment is not directly based on the amount sent.  Instead, it's based on a few factors, including the size of the payment channel and current network conditions.

  When you open a payment channel on the Lightning Network, you must commit funds to that channel.  This pledge transaction has a certain size, and the commission for opening the channel is based on the size of that transaction.  This fee is paid once, when you open the channel, and is not related to the amount of any subsequent payments you make through that channel.

Yeah LN is pretty sick. I haven't used it myself but I've watched videos of people using it and they hit the button and literally a second later (or less) the other person has received the money.

As a network protocol its got some tradeoffs and still seems to need work and improvements that will hopefully hide some of those tradeoffs, but in terms of being able to send cheap and instant payments with Bitcoin its pretty amazing.


Bitcoin base chain is great for storing wealth and moving money around and buying things on the internet, but LN makes Bitcoin work for buying things in person where you need that instant payment.

I believe it was January 2018 when it officially launched, if I'm remembering correctly, but it was in like super alpha stage for that first couple years. Even now it seems like it is in like a beta stage, it works but there is still plenty of development to do for it to be super reliable and easy for the average person to use and not have occasional issues.

I'm pretty sure it'll get better the more populated it gets. The liquidity problems are due to not enough...liquidity! This is a small network problem, not a large network problem. There's also split payments (don't know if they've actually been adopted yet but I heard about them a while ago) which would solve a lot of the liquidity issues. I mean unless you're just talking about the liquidity of needing to have bitcoin on either end of the channels to move money in either direction, but that's just an inherent property of the protocol and everyone understands that, and that just makes LN not be the ideal solution for all types of Bitcoin activity.

I do agree LN is not the solution for everyone's spending habit. As it does have tradeoffs, namely needing liquidity in your own channels, so for instance LN isn't something where you can just receive money without spending it, because it general you have to spend what you take in, and take in what you spend. It's a great solution for spending any money you receive, which is what the average person does anyway, but definitely doesn't work for all scenarios. But for the things it does work for LN is a pretty fantastic as a super cheap basically instant bitcoin payment network. I would say the main issue for users would be needing to keep the state or have a watchtower that keeps your state. I don't know if that is something that can be solved with some improvements or if that is just gonna be an inherent part of how it works. I would say that's the only major 'flaw' that will grow worse the more LN gets used because node's states will become large with all the tx records (at least from how I understand it works). I did hear in a podcast once that this could be fixed with an update to the Bitcoin protocol but that update would weaken Bitcoin itself so that doesn't sound like a good idea haha, but I have no idea what improvements and workarounds at being worked on for LN.

Notice when franky1 talks about the Bitcoin base layer, he pretends to care about third-world countries and people in poverty.  But the moment he starts talking about layers on top of Bitcoin, he only cares about people with thousands of dollars to throw around.  Seems a little duplicitous.

Lightning isn't really geared towards larger payments.  It's ideal for the repeat purchase of your regular morning 'coffee and a bagel' or whatever you might do in your daily routine.  But it's not remotely useful for making a one-off purchase of a $4000 gaming laptop, for example.  Just use the base layer for big purchases like that.  You'd likely want the extra security the base layer confers.

Using LN means you are trading some security for speed.  It's a compromise, so consider your usage carefully.