What to do with the new lightning token?
I understand the watchtowers now and what problem they are trying to solve.
I'm more interested in the token and also very uneducated about it.
Will it be tied to the Bitcoin blockchain in any way?
How are they created and what are the rules of this token?(i.e. is it inflationary?)
Who would want/use these?
What gives these tokens value?
Will the price of these be volatile?
Can you buy them?
Are they redeemable in Bitcoin? If not does this mean every exchange will need to accept this token now?
What if they do not?
Feel free to answer any or none of these questions.
Posted Jun 14, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC
07
If you're talking about the lightning network, there's no such thing as a lightning token. The lightning network is simply a network of bitcoin wallets. Those wallets are able to transmit bitcoin payments between one another instantly and cheaply. The speed and low-cost of these payments are not due to using a different token, they are due to the nature of how these wallets work: instead of broadcasting payments to the blockchain, the wallets that are part of the lightning network communicate with one another to independently construct and verify payment contracts denominated in bitcoin, and they only send those payment contracts back and forth without sending them to the blockchain for miner verification (except in rare cases when someone on the network tries to cheat). Since the majority of these payments aren't broadcast on the blockchain, they don't need to pay mining fees or wait for confirmations, which makes lightning payments faster and cheaper than "standard" bitcoin payments. But they're still bitcoin payments. There's no separate "lightning token." Just bitcoins.
I was referring to the new token that has been created to pay watchtowers on the lightning network.
There is no new token. That is just an hypotesis overblown by crypto-journalists who does not really know what they are talking about.
Really. One guy said once “sort of ecash token” and it went downhill from there.
Ah, I was unaware of that proposal. I've only ever paid watchtowers in satoshis, I'm surprised to read that some of the people on the LND team have suggested a different token for paying watchtowers, and I suspect it is a misunderstanding. I doubt the folks at c-lightning would put any altcoin into their implementation, for example.
Misunderstanding definitely: https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/c097qg/the_next_lightning_network_release_will_include/er4ll3n/
The "token" is more of a "service ticket" than an actual token. https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/c097qg/the_next_lightning_network_release_will_include/er4ll3n/