Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 02:19:55 +0000
To: ZmnSCPxj <ZmnSCPxj@protonmail.com>
From: Robin Linus <robinlinus@protonmail.com>
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Cc: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Coins: A trustless sidechain protocol
Precedence: list

> because all users must process all transactions within the blockchain

Reality shows, that's wrong. Bitcoin's security doesn't require verificatio=
n to scale quadratically with users. Since the whitepaper, Satoshi was expl=
icit about that phenomena. We can discuss nuances, yet it's overall plausib=
le and empirically it's true: Only a tiny minority of users ever verifies t=
he blockchain, still bitcoin works perfectly well. An honest economic major=
ity is sufficient.

Yes, if you can, run your own node. Let's lower the barriers and let's help=
 others to run their own nodes. Let's keep the blocks small and bitcoin's U=
TXOs set verifiable with consumer hardware. That's the core of decentralize=
d security.

But let's face it: most people on this planet will never run a bitcoin full=
 node. And it is not required.

Bitcoin-backed PoS-sidechains scale in terms of verification and storage ju=
st like any other blockchain. However, security is strictly better because =
double-spends are impossible.  A single honest validating user guarantees t=
hat attackers cannot do more harm than halting a sidechain. Thus, endusers =
won't have to validate all of each others' transactions at all.

For most endusers such sidechains' security is strictly superior to today's=
 LN experience.

Let's face it: The most popular LN apps are fully custodial.
They have to be custodial because there is no way to make LN usable for reg=
ular users on unreliable phones.

Any payment channel which requires you to be always online excludes 99% of =
the world's population.
Any payment channel which potentially requires you to be able to pay high o=
n-chain fees excludes most people, too. And on-chain fees keep rising.

Thus, no matter what Channel Factory constructions we build, they will not =
match most people's requirements. We will keep falling back to custodial so=
lutions.
Excel tables connected to the LN. The LN is awesome as a settlement layer. =
In particular for anything like bitcoin banks that have been discussed sinc=
e the beginning.
But why 1000 trusted Excel tables if we can have 1000 trustless sidechains?