On Fri, 12 Jan 2018 19:39:25 +1100 Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net> wrote:
Sure, there's 1 BTC behind 1 LN "satoshi" or whatever they want to call it.
BUT, the whole point of LN is that any number of micro transactions (or any tx up to the channel MAX) can be transacted within that channel, and only the final result is updated to the public BTC ledger, "when the channel is closed".
This provides for the possibility of walled gardens:
* Amazog online retail market supports LN Satoshis, but not BTCs,
not sure what you mean by that. LN transactions are actually bitcoin transactions.
although they support tx of USD equivalent from your Amazog account to your SWIFT bank account, at an exorbitant fee which makes it not worthwhile.
* Googoyle online wallets also support satoshis, and tx to BTC, but within their own bank only;
again, not sure what you mean by that. It's certainly possible for the usual scum like amazon, google or cough cough coinbase to act as some sort of monopolistic gatekeeper, if people allow them to. But I don't think that's necessarily part of the protocol.
and also supports tx to Amazog, but only in LN Satoshis, since Googoyle and Amazog have opened a USD $10 million LN channel between them, and they honour each other's tx and do USD end of day balancing between themselves, each day; Direct USD → Googoyle Satoshis has a significant tx fee discount.
So, two partnered privacy-abusing government-supporting end-user dominating "LN Satoshi" ZOG-loving providers, constituting a Satoshi walled garden,
well yes, if you use them, then they will spy on you and reject your transactions if they don't like them. So hopefully people won't use those 'services'
end up never closing out their channel, except perhaps yearly, or simply never, since they do all their non-anon stuff out of view of the public BTC ledger, and who knows if their now internal-only satoshi's actually match up against their $10 million BTC "channel"?
it has to match unless the protocol is completely broken, which I assume it isn't. I haven't look at the details but I suppose when you get a LN payment you can trivially check that the funds come from the on chain transaction used to 'open' the channel.
And seriously, for those buying the latest Star Wars DVD, who gives a firetruck?
And the shareholders? They will praise Googoyle and Amazog for their "incredible" "billion dollar record profits".
And the tax man? They will praise the selling out of all the little guys for their non-payment of taxes, by the behemoths Googoyle and Amazog, in return for "favourable tax treatment with respect to off shore cash havens".
And everyone else? "Well, there's no real value behind it anyway, right, so why do you give a crap?"