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: therealsanga...@gmail.com
> To: ZmnSCPxj <zmnsc...@protonmail.com>
> Andy Schroder <i...@andyschroder.com>,
> lightning-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> <lightning-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
>
> 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 lightning-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org 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
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