Quote from: RNC on February 27, 2018, 10:39:24 AM

Quote from: DooMAD on February 26, 2018, 07:09:10 PM

I don't recall any banks announcing that they were going to run Lightning nodes. That would be a pretty major headline I'm pretty sure I would have noticed. Like most people involved in Bitcoin, I'm not a fan of banks. I'd be dubious of anything that resembled traditional finance and fractional reserve making their way into Bitcoin. Thankfully, the closest thing we have to that are called Exchanges. If only people directed their misplaced vitriol at those instead of attacking Lightning, which could well lead to completely decentralised exchange. There are no banks in Lightning.

You have not taken the time to read the white paper and you are free to call lightning hubs what ever you like
but they charge both transaction fees and interest on BTC loaned out and the rest of the world tends to call these
"Banks"

Nothing about these bank/hubs is decentralised and if Bitcoin is so safe then maybe you won't want to read this
https://www.rt.com/business/419901-satoshi-sued-cryptocurrency-theft/
or watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g

While people have erroneously compared it to "interest on loans" in their attempts to understand all this, that's categorically not what's happening in Lightning. "Loans" and "interest" imply fractional reserve and there's none of that in LN. If that's the impression you were left with, perhaps it's you who needs to take another look at the whitepaper.

I don't see the relevance in your linked article about Craig Con-Man Wright. There was no weakness exploited in Bitcoin itself. Dave Kleiman was sadly just friends with someone he evidently didn't realise was a scumbag. If you do business with disreputable people, no choice of financial medium will save you. Whether it had been PayPal, credit card, crypto, precious metals, cash, or whatever, Wright still would have stolen it. Also, none of that has anything to do with Lightning.

Still yet to hear any compelling arguments about how payment channels are banks. I mean, sure, Bitcoin has definitely been marketed as a way to "be your own bank", but that's about as far as the analogy can go. That phrase was always more to do with highlighting the importance of removing the reliance on centralised banks, not coming up with a highly elaborate and convoluted way of creating new centralised banks. If you think that's what we're doing here, then no wonder you think we're crazy. We'd think that's an insane thing to do, too. So it's a good thing Lightning definitely isn't an attempt to create centralised banking. Try to understand that, or if you still can't, then maybe just give it some time, wait and see.

Banks rely on creating money out of thin air to lend at interest. Lightning will rely on source-routed payments of existing funds, with no magical money creation. Completely different concepts.