[Lightning-dev] LN without SegWit: less efficient or less secure?

Rusty Russell rusty at rustcorp.com.au
Mon Jan 16 02:30:48 UTC 2017


"Andrés G. Aragoneses " <knocte at gmail.com> writes:
> Hi there,
>
> Seems like the list is a bit dormant these days.

Yes, most of the activity has been on the github repository:

        https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lightning-rfc

> Is it because of the low chances of SegWit activation given that it stalled
> at ~26%?
>
> On this topic, I would like to ask about the feasibility of LN without
> SegWit, given these circumstances.
>
> Some has been said in the past, I've been reading through the archives. But
> in them, everybody seemed overly enthusiastic about the activation of
> SegWit (maybe given that OP_CLTV and OP_CSV activated without hassle).

If segwit doesn't activate, something is badly broken in Bitcoin.  This
is not really a lightning issue; there's been no significant technical
objection to segwit, and it really does make Bitcoin work better.

I'm glad that miners are cautious with their upgrades, and segwit
adoption will take time to roll out across products anyway.  Let's look
again in 6 months.

> Which one is more accurate? Is the security problems only related to having
> to watch the blockchain? If yes, why cannot one outsource this job to a
> server (e.g. the hypothetical server of your light-wallet) in level2?

Yes, the problem is outsourcing.  You can't hand the outsourcer a
penalty transaction signature if you don't know what the bad transaction
will look like.  And if the signatures are part of the transaction ID,
you don't.

Hope that helps,
Rusty.


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