Talk:Lightning Network

Supposedly, the purpose of transaction ${\displaystyle B_{2}}$ is to transfer 0.25mBTC from Alice to Bob, yet the difference between the two parts of ${\displaystyle B_{2}}$ is 0.50mBTC - twice the stated transfer amount. Is that a typo, required or what?

• What is the protocol purpose of the various transactions?

• What is transaction ${\displaystyle A_{1}}$ and ${\displaystyle B_{1}}$? Why are they necessary and/or how are they related to the 0.25mBTC transaction?

• Why are all the various steps in transaction 2 necessary?

Alice owns only 1.00mBTC yet she creates an outgoing transfer of 1.25mBTC, immediately overdrawing her account balance.

• Why is this allowed?
• Are these values arbitrary? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ArtKocsis (talk • contribs) 13:13, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

• Alice and Bob both "Funded" a transaction (on the Blockchain) with 1mBTC each, so the transaction has 2mBTC in total. Alice and Bob are then creating (but not publishing to the blockchain) new transactions to spend that initial funding transaction, that divides it up differently. It's not clear to me from the page how the revocation works though. They can't be publishing the revocation keys to the blockchain, so how can they trust each other not to use the old keys? 108.171.128.162 (talk) 15:47, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

What does it mean to "build upon" another network and what does it mean that "the Lightning Network" is built upon multiple different networks (some future stage of Bitcoin with segwit enabled and Litecoin, at least)?

Should this intro link to "overlay network?" Would LN be overlay? Or is more of an interconnecting mesh which only interfaces to these coin networks for purposes of settlement and penalization? JimD (talk)

I edited the article to clarify this with trivial reasoning. --Ysangkok (talk) 19:13, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Is the term "punishment" really appropriate for this article? Are these semantics more aptly described as "penalties" rather than "punishments?" Is the term being used here, in Wikipedia, because it matches terminology in the drafts, proposals, documentation or implementations of LN? JimD (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

I changed it to penalty to match . --Ysangkok (talk) 19:07, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Penalty is used in the lightning bolt spec: https://github.com/lightning/bolts/blob/d975de1ba5d3e8aca586154ae0cae8f1b3181495/05-onchain.md#penalty-transactions-weight-calculation — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dusty daemon (talk • contribs) 20:56, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I'm new to editing wikipedia pages, so I thought that I'd make the suggestions in the talk page rather than on the Lightning page. It dawned on me the other day that CloakCoin was refactored using Litecoin's recent codebase which included segregated witness support. I'll post this on the Segregated Witness Wikipedia page as well.

It seems there will need to be a place where there is a table of cryptocurrencies with Segwit and Lightning support. I'll be checking my facts, but you can see from the cloakcoin announcement (https://www.cloakcoin.com/en/news/update-2_1_0_0.html) that they have brought Litecoin's Segregated witness support. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joebitcoinorg (talk • contribs) 04:47, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree, this article needs to be more broad. I understand that lightning was initially proposed for Bitcoin, but eventually deployed first on litecoin. Maybe this article should focus more as a technology, rather than a 'bitcoin scaling solution'. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:58, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, this seems like something we should add. Litecoin, Bitcoin, in-development Cloakcoin - are there any others? Dr-Bracket (talk) 21:48, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I introduced a section called "Lightning Internetwork". The idea is that the original "Lightning Network" is the network of Poon Dryja payment channels. The internetwork is the network of networks that support HTLCs and BOLT11 invoices. I'm tracking submarine swaps, cross-chain atomic swaps (need altcoin list), and hosted channels as networks that need to be added to the internetwork section. Nerdyrugbyguy (talk) 14:23, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I suppose we are waiting for more WP:IRS but it seems that lightning is now live on mainnet. See the blockstream PR announcement and twitter , not to mention spec v1.0 . Was picked up by CoinDesk here , but I still dont know if it is live and i don't see anything saying it is live. Some sources are showing live nodes on mainnet and Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:27, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it live, more like testing alpha-code on a live network but that doesn't make it production ready. Some have called it out for being a bad move and that people are going to (and have been actually) losing real money because it's not production ready yet. Davidswiki (talk) 19:23, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@David.S.Wiki: I have twice reverted your efforts to add content that lack WP:IRS, see . Please read about reliable sources and then find some suitable ones. Specificlly medium.com, youtube, etc are not reliable sources. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:30, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

@Davidswiki: I'm looking at some of your edits. I changed this edit as it contained your WP:OR in that you said "In addition when payment channels are opened, funding them requires two on-chain transactions (to open and close the channel) making managing Lighting Network payment channels more expensive than actually doing an on-chain Bitcoin transactions." Do not add content to a page that is not supported in the sources. There was nothing in the source that said it was "more expensive" or something even remotely similar to that. It might be obvious to you that it is expensive to open a close a channel, but what is obvious to you, doesnt mean it is allowed on the wikipedia article. Obvious to you or me is in fact WP:OR, and not allowed. I have changed that edit to cleanup that contnet to what is on the source. I also don't even see the source stating the lightning channel must be closed, it only says open it, but I might have skimmed too quickly. In this edit I removed the balance of what you added, as the only source that is an WP:RS is bitcoin magazine, investing.com, seekingalpha, etc is not WP:RS. As I mentioned to you on another talk page is that you need to add the source at the end of each and every sentence, and the source must validate all of the content you have added. I preserved a little content from the bitcoinmagazine source you added, as that is a good source. Feel free to add more content that is supported by the source. There was nothing in that source that said anything about the node having to stay online, etc. In general, you might see some content on other Wikipedia pages, that lacks sources, and is left alone. However, in other cases content will be challenged and the sources reviewed, especially when the content seeks to push a particular point of view, especially when the WP:POV is WP:FRINGE. Therefore, please add sources at the end of each sentence, or even copy the exact text on the talk page, and discuss with the editors before/after adding it. It saves a bit of time. Thanks and happy editing! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:10, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: Ok, still trying here to add in important information that is supported with the articles I referenced but yes I put them into my own words. As you requested it's probably better to just copy and paste them instead of adding my own interpretation. Maybe that is the mistakes I'm making, sorry about that. - Davidswiki (talk) 19:05, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@Davidswiki: what i meant was to copy paste to the talk page, then discuss, and work on it there. You cant copy paste to the article mainspace directly, as then people will delete it saying it is a copyright violation. So yes, everything has to be re-written in your own words, but you need to be very careful how you do it, to make sure you dont add your own WP:OR into what you are getting from the source. Make sense? Also please be aware of this WP:SOAP when making edits. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:25, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Please add a Legal issues section. Jidanni (talk) 21:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jidanni: please find us some WP:RS for this. We can't use youtube, not an RS. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:11, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: I see on YouTube it says

Sources:

.../ybko2f6h - Fincen Bitcoin mining

.../ycxwocmh -IRS Third Party Settlement

.../cd398vb - LN Node Map

Alas I cannot find any scripts (text versions of what he read to the camera) even on his http://bitthink.info/. I will try to tell him to on his YouTube comments.

Jidanni (talk) 02:34, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, keep digging, maybe you can find some RS. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:47, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Bitcoin Cash should be mentioned in the lead as the other alternative to the so-called "bitcoin scalability problem". That article's lead explains that BCH is the result of a disagreement over scaling and since LN is about scaling its inclusion here is appropriate. Any objections? - Shiftchange (talk) 20:41, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I think Bitcoin Cash should be only mentioned in context that it does not support Lightning Network (and probably never will) due to design decisions. - Dmitry Platonov (talk) 14:27, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I also object, dont add more trash here. You need to find sources for the content you are adding. WP:SOAP applies here. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:29, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Its not promoting a thing. It is providing context, explaining. The bitcoin scalability problem article lists the multiple solutions. The Bitcoin Cash article mentions Segwit. Once again bias is demonstrated against BCH. - Shiftchange (talk) 10:33, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Then keep BCH in bitcoin scalability problem, I have no objection for it to be there. Link to this article is in the first paragraph, anyone who needs context can get it there. Bias is demonstrated by trying to stick BCH mention in every article about bitcoin. Dmitry Platonov (talk) 09:32, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Bcash is irrelevant to the subject. Promoting them here is nothing but spam. 124.168.139.205 (talk) 22:18, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand how LN can be a scaling solution when the lead states that "Normal use of the Lightning Network consists of opening a payment channel by committing a funding transaction to the relevant blockchain". So to start to scale Bitcoin via LN users need to make a Bitcoin transaction? How can that scale with capacity limited to 7 transactions per second? - Shiftchange (talk) 10:36, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

You can do an infinite number of transactions for that single on-chain ledger record. It's probably worth mentioning "Channel Factories" somewhere in the article. https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/67187/72577 These allow for a 90% fee saving. While channels can remain open for years and the base blockchain capacity will also increase over time. 124.168.139.205 (talk) 22:22, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Seems the POV edits have arrived on this page. I reverted this edit by Davidswiki (talk · contribs). Maybe this page needs more RS patrol as well (cited sources include youtube, medium, forbes contributor, and coindesk), all trash. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:50, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I've handed out a topic ban. It's not the first time that user has attempted to insert that content (see above). MER-C 20:17, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Reliability section has two sources: some anonymous study on diar.co (blog?) and word-for-word cointelegraph article. Some of the source data in diar.co taken from reddit ("Probability To Successfully Route A Payment Between Nodes (% vs. USD)" graph), and text does not match graph. --Dmitry Platonov (talk) 13:30, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Is cointelegraph not a reliable source? It is used in lots of other articles. Volunteer1234 (talk) 01:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)]]

I can see cointelegraph as passable source for news, but not for research. Their article is nothing more then rewrite of diar.co "study". If anything, their article does not claim facts in questionable section, just reports findings by the "study". So section should read something along the lines "in 2018 anonymous non-peer reviewed self-published article claimed such and such", but not present article's findings as facts. --Dmitry Platonov (talk) 10:15, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Cointelegraph is not an RS. Please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_242#Cointelegraph_source. They accept paid articles and dont disclose it. Costs about 2BTC if i recall. Thanks Jtbobwaysf (talk) 11:32, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

LIT is not compatible with other implementations, and does not target compatibility. https://github.com/mit-dci/lit/issues/140 Maybe we should not bundle it with others and clarify that LIT is another flavor of Lightning? --Dmitry Platonov (talk) 12:59, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

User Jtbobwaysf has removed the section of openly licensed teaching materials on wikimedia commons - which I have added to the article - with the statement "not suitable". c.f.: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lightning_Network&type=revision&diff=853437558&oldid=853161264

I am not very active in the english chapter of the wikipedia however I am curious: I think I frequently saw that there are references to wikimedia commons on wikipedia articles. Also as someone being involved to the development of the lightning network I can attest that the technology is very young and we need more educated people and thus teaching materials. I am currently trying to curate and create openly licensed teaching materials so I would like to know what the opinion of the community is. -- Renepick (talk) 11:27, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

@Renepick: I like the work you have done, and I think it is useful. However, I just felt it was user-generated content. Note, I could be totally off base on this though. I'll ping a couple of editors and ask them. @MER-C: or @Jytdog: do you have any comments on this? Was I correct or incorrect to delete this? Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 14:47, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes: the gallery was too much emphasis. I'd suggest {{commonscat}} or similar. MER-C 14:51, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I have just added the {{commonscat}} template. I know that this is rather common on wikipedia. However I see two problems with this. First I believe only users very familiar with wikipedia actually recognize and use that box. second on the long term there will be many media files in that category. So I suggest to add the gallery again with the 5 or 6 "best" media contents. Also on a side note: @Jtbobwaysf:: what do you mean with user-generated content? -- Renepick (talk) 19:33, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

@Renepick: i thought that this gallery included links to powerpoint presentations that you had created (hence the user generated content comment). Another editor is above also suggesting adding a video he created. But frankly the diagram at the top of this page (in place of the logo) also appears to be user generated. Thus, I am a bit of a loss here on what to do. Note, I dont think this content is bad, I was simply just wondering if it complies with policy. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:14, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: yeah I had created the ppt but I don't see a problem. Wikipedia articles are also created by us. I mean someone has to do it (: If I find the time I wanted to actually extract some graphics from the ppt and include them within the wikipedia article. Just because it does not happen so often of wikipedia I don't think it is a problem to enhance wikipedia articles with openly licensed materials. Actually as an open advocate I think it is actually even good if it would happen more frequently. edit: of course only as long as the content meets the quality standards of wikipedia projects -- Renepick (talk) 12:20, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Just created a Lightning Network explainer video. Let me know what you think. Posting here first in case I got something wrong in the scope of a very high level explanation. @Jtbobwaysf: @Davidswiki: @Ysangkok: @Laurencedeclan: – Kjerish (talk) 07:01, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I like the video. I also liked the video's above done by Renepick (talk · contribs) and I deleted them as I was not sure of the relating policy. I will loop in MER-C (talk · contribs) and see his comment on this. MER-C, should we admit some of this content? I am a bit of a loss, as I find the comment useful, but then I feel guilty for deleting the content by Renepick and not really understanding your suggestion on how to add it through the category. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:35, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: Bitcoin had a similar video for a while. Not sure what happened to it. I actually agree with you on that edit. What you removed was a gallery of an 80 page pdf that is actually just a powerpoint presentation, and a half hour long lecture that's also on YouTube, that would probably be better viewed there. Don't get me wrong I love those formats, I just don't think they're the right "form factor" in this context, mostly because of the amount of time required to get to the point. Maybe they can be re-introduced with a different presentation. I do think we should change the flagship image at least though, because it's ugly, it's not in SVG format (or even transparent PNG), and it's about a related subject but not the core subject. – Kjerish (talk) 09:50, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Kjerish: Wow, i hadn't noticed the flagship image issue, you are right it is really strange. Is there a lightning network logo? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:54, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf: The lightning network is tough to emblemize because it's an abstract concept that's also decentralized so there's no single entity working on it and generally open-source so there's no traditional branding. Bitcoin was similar in the beginning, and the lightning network isn't mature enough for branding consensus. The closest thing it could be in a picture is a cryptographic data structure but it doesn't make much sense without a time component. I was going to encode my video as a gif but thought that would be frowned upon for ~1:30. It would be nice to find someone with a good enough voice for a voiceover. I have a really good mic but my voice isn't the greatest – Kjerish (talk) 10:03, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Kjerish: thanks for your video! this is great content and highly appriciated. I am currently planning to create more teaching materials over at Wikiversity where I will soon include your video. Where should I state errors in your video? For example you said the funding transaction is broadcast to the blockchain and then commitment transactions will be created. That is technically not true as the first pair of commitment transactions is created and signed before the funding tx is being broadcast to the blockchain. -- Renepick (talk) 19:28, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

@Renepick: I was under the impression that you CAN combine an initial commitment transaction to the funding transaction (and is indeed the typical case) but don't have to. I will re-upload to reflect those changes in a few hours or so. Are there any other errors? – Kjerish (talk) 00:54, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I answered to you on c:File_talk:Lightning_Network_Explained.webm --Renepick (talk) 12:17, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

here is a nice source from Financial Times on Segwit and Lightning. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:04, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I would take opinions of FT Alphaville authors with a lot of caution. It seems to be some sort of a blog related to Financial Times in some way. In particular, Izabella Kaminska, the author of this piece seemed to be quite confused about some things in the past. I would say it fine if she states facts, but opinions at least should be attributed. Retimuko (talk) 02:24, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I didnt know that. Thanks for the feedback! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:16, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

some quick additional WP:RS, as this article seems to be light on RS and heavy on primary

• https://fortune.com/2019/07/29/here-comes-the-irs-the-ledger/
• https://fortune.com/2019/01/17/unit-e-cryptocurrency-news-bitcoin/
• https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/12/04/1575457459000/By-Jove--Crypto-has-discovered-netting/
• https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/06/12/1560351485000/SegWit-and-the-bitcoin-transaction-fee-conspiracy-theory/
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-17/mit-stanford-academics-design-cryptocurrency-to-better-bitcoin
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-26/crypto-legend-who-bought-pizza-with-10-000-bitcoin-is-back-at-it

Should be more, this was just a quick source. The netting article in fortune might be good for content as well. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:34, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The Lightning Network is the biggest thing since Bitcoin, and will guide crypto into the next century for scalability, real-world applications, reduction in transaction costs, &c. Darn right it's notable. Get rid of that silly tag already. JLMadrigal @ 22:06, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

@JLMadrigal: You are welcome to share your thoughts on this article's deletion entry, especially if they are in reference to Wikipedia's policies. Otherwise, this talk page should be used for discussions on what changes should be made to bring this article up to Wikipedia's standards. — Kjerish (talk) 06:26, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Is there a wikipedia protocol for referencing implementations on github? A significant number of citations could be covered in the documentation for the protocol :

• https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lightning-rfc/blob/master/00-introduction.md

There are precedents that these types of links are acceptable in things like this listing C programming family implementations :

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C-family_programming_languages

I think the article could be improved by referencing the actual network protocol documentation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.221.29.212 (talk) 02:20, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The endorsement by Jack Dorsey isn't really cited. There's "a source", but checking it - it's a conservative tabloid in England with 1 throwaway line that isn't a quote - it's totally hearsay. Jack Dorsey endorsement should be deleted, or cited in a reliable way. - mattbots - I don't edit wiki much so apologies if I'm not formatting this well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.169.8.25 (talk) 17:37, 13 December 2021 (UTC)