NOTE: This video was originally uploaded on May 7th but has been re-uploaded to fix an error.

What is the best way to manage Lightning channels? How usable is the Lightning Network, in comparison to email? How do you re-balance a channel? In what scenario are payment channels useful? Can you identify on-chain transactions for payment channels? Why will Taproot make this more difficult?

More about splicing in this episode of Let’s Talk Bitcoin: https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-389-revisiting-lightning-part-1

UPDATE: Pieter Wuille wrote about the BIPs for the upcoming Taproot soft fork here: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2019-May/016914.html

These questions are from the January monthly subscriber session, the Buenos Aires event, and the fifth session of MOOC 11, which took place on January 26th, January 29th, and March 1st 2019 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
Wallets, nodes, and monetary sovereignty – https://youtu.be/8Hb3tUn8s4E
Honest nodes and consensus – https://youtu.be/KAhY2ymI-tg
Node compatibility, Lightning, and incentives -https://youtu.be/x1on0sdTU4M
Why running a node is important – https://youtu.be/oX0Yrv-6jVs
Software distribution security – https://youtu.be/_V0vqy046YM
Protocol development security – https://youtu.be/4fsL5XWsTJ4
What is rendezvous routing? – https://youtu.be/vnDiJJoPESo
Unspent transaction output (UTXO) – https://youtu.be/ZCsakXHiwlw
Lightning clients, capacity, and dust – https://youtu.be/HFJRXYkbyPQ
How to get people to care about security – https://youtu.be/Ji1lS9NMz1E

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

Music: “Unbounded” by Orfan (https://www.facebook.com/Orfan/)
Outro Graphics: Phneep (http://www.phneep.com/)
Outro Art: Rock Barcellos (http://www.rockincomics.com.br/)

source

27 COMMENTS

  1. In the bowls example, if you have N channels open you'll have N bowls on your side (and N on the other sides), but the problem is you can't move peanuts between your bowls. So you may be able to receive 3 peanuts from Alice, but if you dont have other 3 peanuts in your Bob bowl you cant route the payment. Is there any tools that will allow you to send funds from one channel and receive from another, rebalancing without making a main chain transaction?

  2. I am an early Bitcoin user, but I still can’t quite get my head around this. Kinda want to jump in, but at the same time it just does not sound like an elegant solution – yet.

  3. For the bar example, the cost of the drink is the fee for the on chain transaction to open the channel which gives you the peanuts. So it actually works even better as an analogy ?

  4. It sounds to me like the lightning network is going to take to long to become popular and user friendly.
    Other coins might take off first.
    Last night I easily sent money back and forth in seconds at very low fees with Bitcoin Cash.

  5. Great work as always!

    Would you ever consider doing a 30-60 minute YouTube Livestream like many other Youtubers? A few of my other favorite YouTubers will do these once in a while. Could be a great way to speak more casually about things, and you could do it as new breakthroughs are discovered, or offering a theme for each discussion. Just a thought!

  6. Channels are confusing thingies. The perfect channel for routing would be one with an even local and remote balance so that it can serve in both directions. On the other hand, say, my "buy stuff channel", which is mostly used for payments to merchants by myself, does not require a remote balance at all (it will build up once I use the channel, of course). The local balance is all that is important to me. So, to have a smoothly working routing network, there must be quite some in advance funding on both ends of a channel and this always requires two parties to cooperate. I still don't get my head around all the implications of this design.

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