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Board Development & Technical Discussion
Lightning Network: how to trace the path between the sending and receivin nodes?
by
Avz
on 19/01/2018, 01:22:45 UTC
As far as I understood the lightning network is a web of connected nodes that keep balances between them and when Alice wants to send btc to Dave she can update her balance with Bob (-1btc, for example) which will update his balance with Carol (-1btc as well, getting even), who will finally update her balance with Dave. If Dave closed all his channels now he would receive 1 btc more than he would had received before the transactions, while Alice would receive 1 btc less and Bob and Carol would not have their totals changed.
My question is: how do we find this route Alice-Bob-Carol-Dave? When Alice meets Dave they dont know what is the best path between their nodes, or even if there is one.
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Re: Lightning Network Question: Cost to open / close a channel
by
Avz
on 28/09/2017, 21:58:28 UTC
Quote from: achow101 on September 28, 2017, 03:34:09 PM
Quote from: Avz on September 28, 2017, 01:36:12 PM
As far as I understood a LN Channel is open and closed by their participants by broadcasting and confirming transactions on the chain, so they only pay those transactions fees and not all the other they may do while the channel is open.
Yes.

Quote from: Avz on September 28, 2017, 01:36:12 PM
If that is right, the LN would work only for recurrent payments and not occasional transactions, right?
Kind of. Having an open payment channel with one party is really only good for recurring payments. However the lightning network expands beyond the one channel. You can have a channel open with someone who has a channel open with other people, and they have channels open with other people and so on. One of the main ideas of LN is that you can send occasional transactions by routing a payment through multiple payment channels that people have open with each other.

Suppose Person A has a channel open with B, and B has one with C. If A wanted to pay C, they could send money to B and B sends money to C via their respective open payment channels. The transactions used for this sending are special and make it so that the money will only actually move under specific circumstances. These transactions are called Hashed Timelocked Contracts. They make it so that B can only get the money from A if they have forwarded the money to C.

that was very enlightening. Thank you very much!
It seems just a question of it being properly developed and largely adopted, so there is liquidity in the system
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Merits 1 from 1 user
Lightning Network Question: Cost to open / close a channel
by
Avz
on 28/09/2017, 13:36:12 UTC
⭐ Merited by ETFbitcoin (1)
As far as I understood a LN Channel is open and closed by their participants by broadcasting and confirming transactions on the chain, so they only pay those transactions fees and not all the other they may do while the channel is open. If that is right, the LN would work only for recurrent payments and not occasional transactions, right?

If I go everyday to the same coffee shop it would be worthy to open the channel with them, but not if I'm passing by one and decide to make a one time purchase. It seems that we are putting to much hope on the LN, but it wont solve a lot of problems. Is there anything I'm not getting right?