Getting Onto Lightning
Hey Jessatoshis
The lightning network is a fairly new technology and side-chain hoping to off-load the smaller Bitcoin transactions and keep it off-chain. The network is aimed at the retail end-user and wants to facilitate cheap instant payments and payment streaming, and smart contract payments.
I've been messing with the network for some time now, learning how it works, its various pros and cons and why it's been held up as one of the scaling solutions for future Bitcoin use.
Like any decentralised network, it requires support from the community. Bitcoin's main chain is supported by miners and nodes; the lightning network is supported by Bitcoin full nodes that also run a lightning client.
The main-chain
The main-chain is supported by everyone running a full node, miners providing hash power, mining pools regulating the mempool, wallet providers, exchanges, users and businesses. It has formed a bit of a closed-loop economy first, and then it opened up to greater crypto with altcoins where people could trade between them and now even banks.
The main chain has now even added second layers like liquid and lightning, which I think also require the same level of support, if not more. I see lightning as a consumer portal of Bitcoin that could even be a closed system where you don't need to hit the base chain. You keep a certain value and use it as you need it every day.
Running a node
Remember, lightning is still only a few years old and is still an experiment, but If you wanted to support lightning and use it in the safest way possible, the best action to take is spinning up your own lightning node. That way, you control your sats, you make sure you're running the right software, checking transactions and control who gets to connect to your channels.
Loading up liquidity
If you're not that technical but still want to mess around, you may want to turn some fiat or Bitcoin into lightning Bitcoin. This can be used to play around with Lapps, trade between exchanges that support lightning. Since you can make trades quicker and cheaper, you can take advantage of arbitrage trades between these exchanges or keep your BTC with you and never leave it on exchanges.
Managing your UTXOs
Hitting the main-chain will continue to increase in price, and if you want to ensure that you're using the Bitcoin chain optimally, you need to keep your footprint as small as possible. Lightning allows you to consolidate transactions and value into a lightning wallet, and when you have a big enough kitty, you can lock it up on the main chain.
Using or building lapps
Lapps are just short for lightning apps, just like altcoins have dApps, but lightning apps don't actually work on chain; they only do the settlement of transactions with lightning. If you want to mess around with a few laps, you can find some to try here
If you have a site that could leverage Bitcoin, perhaps you could integrate lightning as a payment solution and upgrade it to a lapp.
Getting set up on lightning
Lightning is only getting started, and as the network effect of Bitcoin grows, it's shown to grow networks tethered to it as we see with the altcoin market.
Have your say
What do you good people of HIVE think?
So have at it, my Jessies! If you don't have something to comment, "I am a Jessie."
Let's connect
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Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Lightning has actually been around for years. I run a casa node for it but honestly hardly no one ever uses it nor do you collect any real fees for running it. Still semi risky in the possibility of losing your bitcoin being on the node as well if something gets configured wrong.
Yeah it has but with the nodes its tough you have to balance your liquidity and open up a lot of channels and manage your channels or connect to lightning pools to sell your liquidity its not very easy yet but I think a few million sats is worth the risk. I mean look how much wrapped Bitcoin is risked on other chains too, feel like lightning still has a wayt o go to attract that level of liquidity
Definitely needs to be made more user friendly
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I am guessing the second layers on top of the original chain will probably be the future of any chain that becomes big enough. In a kind of way, it makes things safer and cheaper to transact so I think it is a huge plus to the Bitcoin network.
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There are several layers, theres liquid, theres omni, theres RBG and theres omni bolt and theres counterparty all trying to give Bitcoin more use cases and features. I think eventually second layer interoperability is the next phase.
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if we break down thru 48K i'll be crying in my coffee ... but i also kinda don't give a F either ... i'm still on board either way
LOL i've been buying all the way down I think it's great elon funding the living day lights out of it, just shows how much weak hands are in the market and if they can do that with BTC what can they do with alts if he says tomorrow doge is a shitcoin or ETH what does that do to those more speculative bag holders
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i'm still trying to figure out what to do with ETH, Pal says he's 55% ETH now, 25% BTC and 20% ALTS ... i did up my $ADA and $LINK last week
PAL is a trader man, his got loads of disposable income from GMI and RV so he can fuck around with shit coins! I don't have that luxury so it's on me to do all the research I can and use what little capital I have as effectively as possible
that's smart ... still, I've been buying ETH this morn
Nope. Still don't get this lightning thing at all. 😂
No need to try and explain further. You've better things to do with your weekend.
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LOL take your time, its still not mainstream it may not even become the right second layer for Bitcoin, but I think it will be and think it will plug into the other second layers like RGB and Liquid and people will be using this second layer Bitcoin without even realising it in the future
The apps will do all the work, you just see your funds move up or down or at least that's what we all hope will eventually happen
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Sounds like it's something I don't need to clutter up my head with. That suits me. I'm having fun laddering down the dips with tiny bits of bitcoin. Dollar cost averaging has gone out the window! 😂
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LOL I still daily cost average and then I try to catch a 20% dip which I got over this past week which is great, now I just get back to what I know best, automated buying. As long as I have more sats than I had yesterday then i am happy
This looks cool and techy, as i am a software engineer so this interest me more for just as an experiment. I must check this one.
Thanks a lot for sharing the information.
!LUV 1
Yeah, its techy, its clunky its not great to use, but I like messing around with it, I think working with satsohis in your dapp is way easier than trying to get your own token off the ground as we see with projects like HIVE
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