Quote from: malikusama on June 27, 2018, 08:58:28 PM

What are the facts on which they are claiming it to be centralized? Please provide a reference of this claim where you read this.
May be the people who are claiming this are not well aware of lightning network. Lightning network has nothing to do with the centralization in any way.
Up-gradation of network can't change the root characteristic of bitcoin i.e decentralization.

I once thought that the Lightning Network was centralized simply because the fees would rise to the point where ordinary people won't be able to open/close channels. However, I was enlightened by a few members of this community that Channel Factories and Channel Routing help prevents unnecessary increases in fees when opening/closing multiple channels at the same time, as well as giving users the ability to select other nodes on the network if they believe that a specific node is centralized.

Therefore, I believe that the Lightning Network would not affect the decentralization of Bitcoin whatsoever, due to such features. And even if it were to fail in the future, it wouldn't cause any harm to the main chain, since it's a Layer-two solution that operates on its own. Let's hope for a smooth and stable release of the LN for the masses to enjoy.

Quote from: d5000 on June 27, 2018, 09:34:52 PM

Me too ... however, if Bitcoin is very popular (>100 million users) and there is no block size increase at all, on-chain transactions will be expensive. For me, sidechains are an interesting "intermediate" layer between on-chain tx and Lightning. They are more trustless than LN but potentially more expensive, as all sidechain validators will also have to store the transaction history, and so they will try to charge a fee, too.

If we need sidechains or LN+on-chain is enough, in my opinion depends on the final user base. If Bitcoin is a "large niche" of a couple of hundreds of millions users, LN+on-chain (with channel factories) may be enough, while in a "world currency" with 1.000+ million users, some third layer (like sidechains) would be needed. For this case, my preferred model would be a network of inter-connected regional sidechains for operations with stores (brick-and-mortar or online) within the same region.

Yes. Well see how everything would turn out to become for the LN once it becomes fully adopted in the mainstream world. Of course, there's the concern of rising fees on the network according to usage, but I guess that developers would figure out a way to maintain Bitcoin as fast and cheap as possible. With the above features such as Channel Factories and Sidechains, nothing could go wrong IMO. Wink

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I mentioned channel factories as an example how miners could use their liquidity in BTC to get additional fees. However, they could also operate as "standard" Lightning nodes.

Interesting observation. I've never thought about this in the first place, but I'm glad that you've helped me clarify my doubts about this. I'm so excited to use the LN right away for quick and cheap transactions once the stable version is released.

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Yes. These swaps could also be the technology that ends making sidechains more usable, as a "sidechain-to-sidechain hop" could be instant (at least if no on-chain settlement is needed).

That's certainly interesting, mate. Atomic swaps are the way of the future, as it provides convenience to people for an instant exchange of one cryptocurrency to another. While I believe that both decentralized and centralized exchanges will exist in the future, atomic swaps may have greater usage as they eliminate risks of hacks, or theft of coins. Roll Eyes