{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub1g5zswf6y48f7fy90jf3tlcuwdmjn8znhzaa4vkmtxaeskca8hpss23ms3l","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub1g5zswf6y48f7fy90jf3tlcuwdmjn8znhzaa4vkmtxaeskca8hpss23ms3l","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2017-12-27\n📝 Original message:\nGood morning Daniel,\n\n\u003e -------- Original Message --------\n\u003e Subject: Re: [Lightning-dev] General questions about channels\n\u003e Local Time: December 27, 2017 10:30 PM\n\u003e UTC Time: December 27, 2017 2:30 PM\n\u003e From: therealsangaman at gmail.com\n\u003e To: ZmnSCPxj \u003cZmnSCPxj at protonmail.com\u003e\n\u003e Andy Schroder \u003cinfo at andyschroder.com\u003e, lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org \u003clightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e I've only really been getting my hands into LN the past few weeks but\n\u003e I thought I'd share my thoughts here.\n\u003e\n\u003e ZmnSCPxj via Lightning-dev lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org wrote:\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003e Perhaps some day, in the LONG TERM, the limits may be increased\n\u003e\n\u003e I was always under the impression that the channel and payment limits\n\u003e were intended to be training wheels, this is the first I've heard of\n\u003e them intended to stick around long term. I find the channel limit to\n\u003e be particularly restrictive, as it hinders some use cases I'd envision\n\u003e where large payment channels between two parties are useful and can\n\u003e also be used for routing LN payments. Large payments afaik can be\n\u003e broken up into smaller ones without incurring too much cost or\n\u003e trouble,\n\nSplitting up large payments would require multiple invoices at least for now (whether this is troublesome or not may be a matter of opinion, bit I suspect juggling more than a few invoices would be painful as a user experience). Routing larger payments over multiple routes automatically while using a single invoice, is harder as multiple routes need to be set up, and each route must have different preimages: further it is likely you want the entire large payment to be done atomically, which would be harder to arrange.\n\n\u003e but that's not the case for creating channels. As the channel\n\u003e itself involves only two parties - and in sticking to my general\n\u003e political/philosophical mantra - there is really no justification for\n\u003e limits to be imposed on this. Which brings me to my next point.\n\nPerhaps our definition of \"long term\" is askew. A year after mainnet release, I doubt anyone would feel safe implementing removal of the limit; this is my \"long term\".  Five years, I imagine quite a few will use the nonlimited version and may form a subnetwork among themselves.  But possibly by then it would be unlikely that most people using Bitcoin at all would evem be capable of putting 150 mBTC in spending money on a hot wallet, in which case whether there is a 167 mBTC limit per channel or not is largely a moot point. Or perhaps I simply imagine hyperbitcoinization by then, with people putting entire bitcoins into hot wallets equivalent to people putting thousands of USD today in their back pockets as invitation to be attacked.\n\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e\u003e There is also again the wisdom, that one should keep most of the funds in\n\u003e\u003e cold storage, and only a small amount for spending in hot wallets like\n\u003e\u003e Lightning nodes\n\u003e\n\u003e I think this is a top-down way of thinking that runs counter to the\n\u003e spirit of bitcoin. The \"wisest\" thing to do in fact may be to simply\n\u003e buy inflation-adjusted treasury bonds and not mess with bitcoin at\n\u003e all, much less the experimental lightning network. As advice this is\n\u003e perfectly fine to share with others for them to follow on a voluntary\n\u003e basis, but I don't see why this ought to be enforced as a rule on a\n\u003e protocol level.\n\nPossibly.  At the protocol level, a limit encourages the growth of the network towards a mesh network rather than more central forms, however.  I merely put this since it is unlikely that most people following this \"wisdom\" would have an incentive to even run software with the limit removed: that is, by the time Lightning becomes fully deployed the limit may not even be reached in practice.\n\n\u003e\n\u003e Also, I personally can't see a reason why a node would reject a large\n\u003e channel being made with it, where is the downside or risk? The party\n\u003e committing funds to the channel is the one risking loss or delay of\n\u003e funds.\n\nBut the party committing funds to the channel is known via node gossip, and it is known also who the other end of the channel is. If you were to propose opening for example a 5BTC channel to me with the funds coming from you, I would consider the possibility that I might get attacked in order to get to your funds (and I might not have the resources to protect against such an attack on my end, even if you might). Further, putting 5BTC implies that at some point there is the future possibility, due to routing and so on, that the channel will have around 5BTC belonging to me, and at some point before you can spend the entire 5BTC I would want to close the channel and commit the funds that I now own into cold storage (so that the ability to channel 5BTC from you to me is a moot point).\n\nRegards,\nZmnSCPxj\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/attachments/20171227/fe1a36f2/attachment.html\u003e"}