Good morning Daniel,
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Lightning-dev] General questions about channels
Local Time: December 27, 2017 10:30 PM
UTC Time: December 27, 2017 2:30 PM
From: [email protected]
To: ZmnSCPxj <[email protected]>
Andy Schroder <[email protected]>,
[email protected]
<[email protected]>
I've only really been getting my hands into LN the past few weeks but
I thought I'd share my thoughts here.
ZmnSCPxj via Lightning-dev [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
Perhaps some day, in the LONG TERM, the limits may be increased
I was always under the impression that the channel and payment limits
were intended to be training wheels, this is the first I've heard of
them intended to stick around long term. I find the channel limit to
be particularly restrictive, as it hinders some use cases I'd envision
where large payment channels between two parties are useful and can
also be used for routing LN payments. Large payments afaik can be
broken up into smaller ones without incurring too much cost or
trouble,
Splitting 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.
but that's not the case for creating channels. As the channel
itself involves only two parties - and in sticking to my general
political/philosophical mantra - there is really no justification for
limits to be imposed on this. Which brings me to my next point.
Perhaps 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.
There is also again the wisdom, that one should keep most of the
funds in
cold storage, and only a small amount for spending in hot wallets
like
Lightning nodes
I think this is a top-down way of thinking that runs counter to the
spirit of bitcoin. The "wisest" thing to do in fact may be to simply
buy inflation-adjusted treasury bonds and not mess with bitcoin at
all, much less the experimental lightning network. As advice this is
perfectly fine to share with others for them to follow on a voluntary
basis, but I don't see why this ought to be enforced as a rule on a
protocol level.
Possibly. 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.
Also, I personally can't see a reason why a node would reject a large
channel being made with it, where is the downside or risk? The party
committing funds to the channel is the one risking loss or delay of
funds.
But 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).
Regards,
ZmnSCPxj
