So we are supposed to wait 10-30 min in stores till the transaction is mined/completed?
Discussion
If the seller insists on three confirmations: yes. Otherwise, if your experience is that you receive payments as soon as they are in the mempool, 30 seconds is enough. On the Internet and for invoices, it doesn't matter.
So that means going the way of ‚0-conf‘ like e.g. bcash or some bitcoin companies want for bitcoin too?
It depends on the amount and location (as already written). I don't expect confirmations for small amounts. What should happen? It is unlikely that someone will make a double-spend attack within two minutes. Then he might as well steal the goods without paying. How do you see it?
I think lightning fixes a payment related problem we currently have with Bitcoin that monero is not able to address without new or old problems reoccurring.
BTW: I know nothing and I am here to learn.
Monero might be a great privacy tool but lacks the power to recreate a useable finance system due to its untraceable character.
Afaik Monero can not fight or fix the fiat system. It can only protect your personal freedom if you buy illegal things.
Not only for illegal things, but in general. Monero protects the people who have nothing to hide.
Example
You want to sell your motorcycle to a stranger. Do you then prefer to accept Bitcoin, which may have last come from a drug deal? Probably not. If you accept Monero, you are protected because it is fungible like cash.
Anyway, we all have the same enemy: the fiat money system. But Monero is not here to replace the entire fiat money system. Monero is here to replace fiat cash and build a new economy based on digital cash.
If we want stocks, bonds, securities, tokens etc. we need something else. Maybe Ethereum is doing a thing here. Maybe Nym is coming. We will see.
If you are exchanging goods before the tx is sufficiently settled on the blockchain then you give up on exactly that transaction finality that cash advocates love.
30 seconds is still longer than I would like to wait at a busy cash register at a supermarket.
Lightning ⚡️ is about 10 times faster and also brings great sender confidentiality.
One should perhaps rethink checkout procedures in large supermarkets. I can imagine simply getting the receipt with an XMR QR code and amount. You leave the checkout and pay. After successful payment, you are allowed through the barrier, which is opened with the valid receipt.
In addition, Lightning payments are too complex and fragile and there is a higher risk of channels being hacked. And Lightning also has its scaling limits and can only perform a limited number and transactions per second.
False.
Lightning payments being to complex I don’t see what your point is here? Too many failed payments or too technical for the user to understand? The latter is not an argument since the end user doesn’t have to understand Lightning payments or Monero bulletproofs.
Lightning’s scaling limits are mostly about how many channels you can open on the Bitcoin blockchain in a given time. If every human being wanted to open a channel that would be quite difficult, yes.
Lightning does not however have a limit on how many tx are possible per second. A lightning tx is not broadcasted to the network and only known by the two channel partners.
Look at value4value streaming of sats over the lightning network.
I am not an LN expert and I like to learn. However, I see serious problems with LN. Transactions happen off-chain, but without trust of the network. There is neither a permanent ledger nor reliable records for accounting. The LN network cannot see where payments are coming from and where they are going. There are just too many concerns than LN becoming a means of payment that don't exist with Monero. But sure, Monero is also not perfect.
Anyway, I think we can end here for today because everyone is convinced of their cause. That's also good for making progress. Nothing is perfect and we do well to invest more time and work to build a decentralised world.
i dont know why people would go for instant settlement with the coin that has most liquidity, highest hashrate/security, decentralization, best UI/UX. (if you wana play privacy card look at jamapp, wasabi or many other options to use btc more private than monero can ever be)
money is a winner takes it all game!