The biggest concern that I've heard, is that Lightning Network could become effectively centralized in the hands of whales that control the biggest hubs in which most transactions would occur.
Since im not a programmer, I don't really understand if this is FUD or a valid concern, and im still yet undecided about it. I've heard reputable people defending LN and i've heard other pretty smart people criticizing it. As a non programmer it's hard to know who is FUDding and who is being genuine.
LN is by design decentralized, however there is no guarantee that it will stay that way. Just like you can have centralized mining pools in Bitcoin and big websites like Google and Facebook on the Internet, it doesn't mean that it is centralized. Not by design at least, but people can always centralize it by only using few hubs.
The bottom line is that it is second layer and is optional, now what will users make of it is another story, just like mining.
The biggest concern that I've heard, is that Lightning Network could become effectively centralized in the hands of whales that control the biggest hubs in which most transactions would occur.
That's the point, the decentralization must be centralized now? Another FUD that I wanna understand is the 2x segwit HF. Can it be some kind of corporate takeover? IF yes, how that's will occur?
For the time being, Segwit 2x did not reach the minimum support needed to be implemented. There's "35 in support, 9 ready, and 37 in opposition" according to
https://coin.dance/poliBut according to
https://blockchain.info/charts/ there's 85% of the Hashrate signalling for the New York Agreement over the last 200 blocks at this time. So if everything stays the same, would we have another altcoin on november 1, and the Bitcoin code stays the same with only segwit activated.
I think that for scalability in the medium term the activation of the HF to increase the block size will be necessary in any way. Unless solutions such as LN prove to be efficient, decentralized, and secure enough to make bitcoin technology process payments faster. What do you think is the best scalability solution for Bitcoin? How can Bitcoin reach VISA and Master Card capacity?
It can't really be a corporate takeover directly, it is just another coin that is decentralized by design. Now it might force users to use clients that are developed by companies and not Core, it might have even more centralization with the mining power, but none of that is by design. Ultimately it is always up to the users.
S2X has enough mining power to happen, but it has really small user support. We will have to wait and see what happens. I think we should wait and see how LN works out in practice and if the increase in block size is necessary and we have no other decent SF solutions, then we should HF. S2X is simply rushed to much.
Once you have the high capital hubs, then you can start fractional reserve banking. It's only a matter of time.
This is why the bankers and all the CEOs want this so bad. Lightning will be a middle-step to getting people off-chain and then other centralized hubs will spring up that aren't related to on-chain transactions except that you just deposit funds in them like you would an exchange. To the end-user they would be convenient and better than lightning.
Fractional reserve banking is technically impossible in the LN, as you can always spend your funds in it. What happens is that you open a channel that you can close safely anytime on the Bitcoin blockchain with your current balance. You can read more about it in this 3 part article
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/understanding-the-lightning-network-part-building-a-bidirectional-payment-channel-1464710791/ . It really isn't centralized nor does anyone hold your bitcoins, it uses blockchain to insure it's safety, it is just that it minimizes the amount of necessary transactions needed on the blockchain, that is all.