Can you explain how Lightning Network and payment channels work? Will the channels have scaling problems? Can Lightning be interoperable without SegWit? Is Lightning also for altcoins? Interoperability standards. Who runs Lightning nodes? The bigger it gets, the less we know about how big it is.

NOTE: On December 27th, a Lightning developer wrote “How Lightning Currently Cannot Work Across Assets, or, An Argument For Single-Asset Lightning Network,” about the “significant technical barrier[s]” and incentive issues when using HTLCs for currency conversions, which is something I talked about in this video starting at 11:42. Read it for more perspective on this topic: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2018-December/001752.html

These questions are from the MOOC 10.5 and 10.6 sessions, which took place on October 5th and October 11th 2018, respectively. If you want early-access to talks and a chance to participate in the monthly live Q&As with Andreas, become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/aantonop

RELATED:
Bitcoin, Lightning, and Streaming Money – https://youtu.be/gF_ZQ_eijPs
The Internet of Money: Five Years Later – https://youtu.be/6xIq0FdmsIA
The Lightning Network – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPQwGV1aLnTurL4wU_y3jOhBi9rrpsYyi
Advanced Bitcoin Scripting, Part 1: Transactions and Multisig – https://youtu.be/8FeAXjkmDcQ
Advanced Bitcoin Scripting, Part 2: SegWit, Consensus, and Trustware – https://youtu.be/pQbeBduVQ4I
The Lightning Network – https://youtu.be/vPnO9ExJ50A
Lightning’s security model – https://youtu.be/_GNsT_ufkec
Misconceptions about the Lightning Network – https://youtu.be/c4TjfaLgzj4
Eltoo, and the early days of Lightning – https://youtu.be/o6eFZ5aI9N0
Lightning Network scaling – https://youtu.be/4KiWkwo48k0
Lightning Network interoperability – https://youtu.be/1HYMWcJHGXc
Lightning Network game theory – https://youtu.be/7if0DuTtozY
Lightning fees and censorship resistance – https://youtu.be/DVF27my9V2w
Atomic swaps – https://youtu.be/fNFBA2UmUmg
Running nodes and payment channels – https://youtu.be/ndcfBfE_yoY
What is Segregated Witness (SegWit)? – https://youtu.be/dtOjjB4mD8k
SegWit and fork research – https://youtu.be/OorLoi01KEE
Smart contracts, sidechains, and Lightning – https://youtu.be/wfxticQHvaw
Sidechains and federated consensus – https://youtu.be/mHLgpX4VYBQ

Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a technologist and serial entrepreneur who has become one of the most well-known and respected figures in bitcoin.

Follow on Twitter: @aantonop https://twitter.com/aantonop
Website: https://antonopoulos.com/

He is the author of two books: “Mastering Bitcoin,” published by O’Reilly Media and considered the best technical guide to bitcoin; “The Internet of Money,” a book about why bitcoin matters.

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MASTERING BITCOIN, 2nd Edition: https://amzn.to/2xcdsY9

Translations of MASTERING BITCOIN: https://bitcoinbook.info/translations-of-mastering-bitcoin/

THE INTERNET OF MONEY, v1: https://amzn.to/2ykmXFs

THE INTERNET OF MONEY, v2: https://amzn.to/2IIG5BJ

Translations of THE INTERNET OF MONEY:
Spanish, ‘Internet del Dinero’ (v1) – https://amzn.to/2yoaTTq
French, ‘L’internet de l’argent’ (v1) – https://www.amazon.fr/Linternet-largent-Andreas-M-Antonopoulos/dp/2856083390
Russian, ‘Интернет денег’ (v1) – https://www.olbuss.ru/catalog/ekonomika-i-biznes/korporativnye-finansy-bankovskoe-delo/internet-deneg
Vietnamese, ‘Internet Của Tiền Tệ’ (v1) – https://alphabooks.vn/khi-tien-len-mang

MASTERING ETHEREUM (Q4): https://amzn.to/2xdxmlK

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Outro Graphics: Phneep (http://www.phneep.com/)
Outro Art: Rock Barcellos (http://www.rockincomics.com.br/)

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21 COMMENTS

  1. In case if you are reading this, I have a question. When a new balance transaction is created/exchanged, the users are supposed to exchange revocation keys which make sure no older balance transaction can be committed on-chain. What stops malicious party to not send their revocation key on the network level at the moment of exchange? I mean no network txs are atomic and parties send receive network packets few milliseconds apart, should be enough time to "drop" the connection in a hypothetical malicious client.

  2. Let’s say a complex web of transactions happens on the lightning network. If one node in the web closes his channel or cheats, does that cascade to the rest of the channels in the web that he has transacted with indirectly? Or is the settlement localized?

  3. So when the network scales, and these lightning nodes need to suddenly start settling large amounts of BTC and the fees become expensive again will the node owners loose money? How will they know what to charge users based on future fees? Some risk there?

  4. i have always been quite pessimistic about LN but this time my mind clicked. I always thought that "locking" funds was just very bad I wouldn't want to do that. Now I realised that its actually the good thing. The fact that these "locked funds" can propagate is amazing and that's what clicked my mind to think that bitcoin might actually work.

    AFAIK the LN capacity is now 500 BTC and it seems that a good UX is the only thing resisting adoption. Wallets are still migrating to segwit so it seems lighting support will take some time.

  5. Nicely put! What I could not find (yet) is the easy way Andreas mentions to set up a Lightning Node. I've been running a BTC core node for at least a year, that was straightforward. But the few tutorials I've seen on how to set up a Lightning Node were ultra-technical.

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