Quote from: zero3112 on January 09, 2018, 05:17:15 AM

Quote from: achow101 on January 08, 2018, 07:52:30 PM

Quote from: fhl182 on January 07, 2018, 04:26:24 PM

Some simple math.
Assume we have 30 mil bitcoin users.
Every user should open a LN channel and close LN channel.
Bitcoin can handle 300 000 transactions per day.
30 mil users should wait for 100 days so every one can open a channel, and 100 days to close a channel if there is no other transactions besides LN settlements in bitcoin network.
300 mil users should wait 1000 days, so every user can have openned LN channel.
Bitcoin can't even adopt Lightning Network without big blocks. LN official release will lead just to another huge fee spike, and since LN channels should be restarted regularly bitcoin network can be clogged by LN settlements.

It's extremely unlikely that every single user is going to attempt to open lightning channels simultaneously on the day that a fully released software for LN is available. It is extremely unlikely that every single user is going to attempt to close their lightning channels simultaneously. As with literally every other release of a new technology in Bitcoin, it's going to take months, probably years, before LN is actually widely used. Just look at how long it took for P2SH to become widely used. And how long it has taken for segwit. This situation you are describing is extremely unlikely to happen.

So is there any limit to how many transactions LN can handle. It seems like opening and closing channels would count as two transactions and theirs a limit for how much data that can fit in a bitcoin block. I am just trying to wrap my head around the LN it's confusing to me.

It seems you don't fully understand what LN is. Simplified:

1. You post funding transaction on block chain (that locks up your money for the channel lifetime)
2. During channel lifetime (it can be a day, a month or even a year) you are free to exchange off-chain transactions with other LN users. Those TX are same BTC TX messages, however they never got posted to blockchain unless dispute occurs (in case of dispute, person who initiates premature channel closure gets punished) or channel naturally expires.
3. After channel closes - second - settlement transaction being posted to blockchain.

So basically for casual users, with need to move smaller amounts more often it will be virtually unlimited transactions in between those 2 on-chain transactions because transactions are fairly small, and they don't need to be confirmed on blockchain you can send hundreds of thousands/s. In theory on-chain transaction will become much more scarce and used only to move huge amounts or fund payment channels.