Lightning Network has surpassed 500 nodes already although we’re apparently still in the beta phase with the technology still being marked as “experimental”. There is this handy website that will show you the status of its growth….

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This reminds me of a talk Andreas did a couple of years ago about “bitcoin failing to scale gracefully”.

(credit - Andreas Antonopoulos)

Why I haven’t bought into Bitcoin Cash

The main issue here isn’t that there’s anything wrong with the technology, but that there’s vastly different allocation of resources. Although I do think the potential for dangerous level of mining centralization exists, that time has not yet arrived. The only question I have of bitcoin core is why they couldn’t have gone up to 8 MB last summer given that there’s now talk of scaling up the block size in addition to using LN. Granted, that code changes like this can be dangerous, but BCH has already successfully done so.

On the down side, Bitcoin Cash I think only has one full time developer (and maybe a couple of part time devs), whereas Blockstream has hired well over 200 developers. It seems that because the code is open source, that BCH just picks up the updates that are important bug fixes and features that they want from bitcoin core, but that they aren’t heavily invested in their own innovation. Some have said that this practice is stealing code, but technically this is not correct. I can download the code and compile it myself if I want and even declare a fork, but of course it would be a minority coin. Who would follow me?

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The more troubling issue is that with so few developers, BCH’s success basically goes with Bitcoin Core’s success and can’t deviate successfully on their own without increasing the developer base significantly. So it would take Core’s failure in some significant way for BCH to become the leader in the market.

There is also this conspiracy theory going around that LN is a banker controlled network, because Blockstream apparently has a few employees who have connection to the Bilderbergers. I don’t see the world in quite so connected a way. While I agree that authority will certainly attempt control wherever they can, the reality is that people are far less powerful than much of the public is inclined to believe. Would you rather that Blockstream didn’t consult any bankers on how to manage financial systems?

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I’ll let you in on a little secret. Did you know that many who work in banking institutions are fed up with the banking corruption at the top as well? They may not express this openly on the job, but it is the truth. Even my tax preparer could barely contain her glee in saying that the IRS “knows they have a problem and don’t know what to do”. The world is much more nuanced in the relationships people have to power.

Everyone who has ever worked for an employer knows this is true. Nevertheless, if anyone can point out the code that collects KYC information in Lightning Nodes, please let me know. I’m a programmer with over 20 years experience and still haven’t found it. The code is after all open source… You can also participate in the network to become a confirmation node.

Some people might have the mistaken idea that LN would be “rolled out” and that would solve scaling instantly. It depends upon the number of participating nodes, so this will be a gradual adoption.

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Donations (public bitcoin address):

3FwxQsa7gmQ7c1GXJyvDTqmT6CM3mMEgcv

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