-1
The article "The Bitcoin Lightning Network Summary" by lightning.network mentions:
"Lightning enables one to send funds down to 0.00000001 bitcoin without custodial risk. The bitcoin blockchain currently enforces a minimum output size many hundreds of times higher(1), and a fixed per-transaction fee(2) which makes micropayments impractical. Lightning allows minimal payments denominated in bitcoin, using actual bitcoin transactions."
(1) Is there in (standard) Bitcoin a limitation for minimum amount of payment (output size)?
(2) Is there a fixed per-transaction fee for payments in Bitcoin? And if yes, how much is this fee amount?
Thank you, but really I did not get my answer. In LN doc, it's mentioned "bitcoin enforces a minimum output size, many hundreds of times higher than 1 Satoshi" that means minimum output size in bitcoin is very higher than LN (while this value in LN is 1 Satoshi, in Bitcoin is hundreds times higher). You may mean total amount of all outputs of a tx cannot be zero; And if so, what is value of this non-zero limitation? – Questioner – 2019-01-16T14:09:22.517
In second question, in LN doc, it's mentioned "fixed per-transaction fee makes micropayments impractical." You may mean this fixed fee is determined by miners; however, in that case the fees cannot be a fixed value. Can you explain in more detail? Thank you – Questioner – 2019-01-16T14:11:02.233
1
@sas I think the paper is confusing, there is a minimum total output which depends on the node-policy's minimum fee rate (for DoS prevention), but for individual outputs you can definitely do a zero output. Lightning in fact allows for millisatoshi transactions, see https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/master/lnwire/msat.go#L13-L18
– JBaczuk – 2019-01-16T15:33:37.620@JBaczuk Agree. There are some factual errors in the paper, without having read it in its entirety. – James C. – 2019-01-16T15:35:18.790
@JBaczuk , I think so too, however, this article is published in official Lightning Network website: https://lightning.network/docs/ (Lightning Network Summary)
– Questioner – 2019-01-16T15:39:12.520@sas the minimum output value is zero, but the point is you wouldn't send 1 satoshi on Bitcoin because the fee would be much higher than the payment itself. The fees are dependent on the node policy and the current market fee rate (satoshis/kb) and generally increase with transaction volume as users compete for block placement. – JBaczuk – 2019-01-16T16:10:58.693