Understand the implications of Bitcoin's downfall in El Salvador. Learn about the failed economic bet and its impact on the country's financial stability.
the lightning network still uses the blockchain, just less. it’s acts like an immutable public bar tab you can’t default on. once you have spent enough with another person that it is worth them conducting the transaction on chain then it does it. usually when fees are low too.
That is an extremely simplified explanation of how it works though, it is more complex than that.
Edit: another analogy i have just read is it’s like cashing in at a casino. you put some money in the house (the blockchain) and get some chips, you go in and transact with loads of people, then when it’s advantageous you can cash out and get your BTC on chain; to the house that is two transactions, cash in and then out, rather than a transaction for everyone you exchanged with on the network. that’s probs a better analogy than the bar tab one… but again, oversimplified
bar tab is more accurate, casino is easier to understand.
the actual functionality doesn’t really matter to the layperson though. basically, you put some of your bitcoin on the network (minimum amounts apply), and then you can spend that with very fast transactions and low fees. when you’re ready you can send what you have back to the chain
Stil though, how well does that work with a rapidly fluctuating value of the bitcoin? Prices would have to be superfluid for external good to have known value of some sort.
Stability of the value of savings and currency seems crucial to using it for trade.
Won’t the economy have to go flat (stop growing) since the supply of bitcoin is fixed? Otherwise the value of bitcoin will always be going up. Which leads to hoarding and speculating, which was part of the reason for dropping the gold standard.
Unrelated note: part of why humanity stopped making our money out of precious metals was because the metal was worth more and more while the dollar held steady. So people started shaving the edges off silver coins, and then recievers had to start weighing money at the time of transaction (which slowed it all down). Making money fungible was a huge advantage for commerce.
Bitcoin transactions feel a lot like having to double check that the coins you’re receiving are actually “real” and that you’ll be able to trade them later. The lighting network feels like a tab at the hardware store where anyone can skip town anytime they want.
When i stay stabilize i don’t mean it will stay the same for ever. it will just become less volatile the more it is uptaken. Value should continue to go up as the total supply is finite but should do so in a more predictable manner similar to gold. Of course this requires it’s widespread uptake as a currency.
Unrelated note: part of why humanity stopped making our money out of precious metals was because the metal was worth more and more while the dollar held steady. So people started shaving the edges off silver coins, and then recievers had to start weighing money at the time of transaction (which slowed it all down). Making money fungible was a huge advantage for commerce.
I’m not sure that’s really analogous to bitcoin, sure you can spend subdivisions of bitcoins but you cant shave sats off and still pass off a shaved bitcoin as a full one. a bitcoin is a bitcoin and a bitcoin with shaved sats is a bitcoin minus those shaved sats.
The lighting network feels like a tab at the hardware store where anyone can skip town anytime they want.
except with the lightning network, if your customer “skip[s] town” with lightning you can take the tab (channel) to the bank (blockchain) yourself and still get your payment. Opening a lightning channel requires staking the value of the channel up front. you can get unspent sats back but once you’ve made a transaction on the network then those sats belong to the person who you sent them to. You can try and close a channel with an older version of the channels ledger to try and “revert” the payment but there are mechanisms in place to stop this. if someone does that to you you can just broadcast the up to date ledger to the network and then you get everything in the channel including unspent sats as a penalty.
the lightning network still uses the blockchain, just less. it’s acts like an immutable public bar tab you can’t default on. once you have spent enough with another person that it is worth them conducting the transaction on chain then it does it. usually when fees are low too.
That is an extremely simplified explanation of how it works though, it is more complex than that.
Edit: another analogy i have just read is it’s like cashing in at a casino. you put some money in the house (the blockchain) and get some chips, you go in and transact with loads of people, then when it’s advantageous you can cash out and get your BTC on chain; to the house that is two transactions, cash in and then out, rather than a transaction for everyone you exchanged with on the network. that’s probs a better analogy than the bar tab one… but again, oversimplified
bar tab is more accurate, casino is easier to understand.
the actual functionality doesn’t really matter to the layperson though. basically, you put some of your bitcoin on the network (minimum amounts apply), and then you can spend that with very fast transactions and low fees. when you’re ready you can send what you have back to the chain
Stil though, how well does that work with a rapidly fluctuating value of the bitcoin? Prices would have to be superfluid for external good to have known value of some sort.
Stability of the value of savings and currency seems crucial to using it for trade.
It’ll settle eventually
Won’t the economy have to go flat (stop growing) since the supply of bitcoin is fixed? Otherwise the value of bitcoin will always be going up. Which leads to hoarding and speculating, which was part of the reason for dropping the gold standard.
Unrelated note: part of why humanity stopped making our money out of precious metals was because the metal was worth more and more while the dollar held steady. So people started shaving the edges off silver coins, and then recievers had to start weighing money at the time of transaction (which slowed it all down). Making money fungible was a huge advantage for commerce.
Bitcoin transactions feel a lot like having to double check that the coins you’re receiving are actually “real” and that you’ll be able to trade them later. The lighting network feels like a tab at the hardware store where anyone can skip town anytime they want.
When i stay stabilize i don’t mean it will stay the same for ever. it will just become less volatile the more it is uptaken. Value should continue to go up as the total supply is finite but should do so in a more predictable manner similar to gold. Of course this requires it’s widespread uptake as a currency.
I’m not sure that’s really analogous to bitcoin, sure you can spend subdivisions of bitcoins but you cant shave sats off and still pass off a shaved bitcoin as a full one. a bitcoin is a bitcoin and a bitcoin with shaved sats is a bitcoin minus those shaved sats.
except with the lightning network, if your customer “skip[s] town” with lightning you can take the tab (channel) to the bank (blockchain) yourself and still get your payment. Opening a lightning channel requires staking the value of the channel up front. you can get unspent sats back but once you’ve made a transaction on the network then those sats belong to the person who you sent them to. You can try and close a channel with an older version of the channels ledger to try and “revert” the payment but there are mechanisms in place to stop this. if someone does that to you you can just broadcast the up to date ledger to the network and then you get everything in the channel including unspent sats as a penalty.
at least that’s how i understand it