Fiber: Long-termism, Feedback, and Scenario Imagination

Author: DaPangDun

After the previous analysis of Fiber technology, I still had some doubts, so I consulted with Teacher Jan about these issues and wrote this article.

I summarize this communication with three key words: Long-termism, Giveback, and Scenario.

Long-termism

Lighting Network is a manifestation of long-termism in the payment field

We often mention Lighting Network, but how many people actually use Lighting Network in Crypto? Very few! And how many people have tried running a Lightning Node? Very few!

In current Crypto, there are too many ways to pay, and various public chains can complete such tasks. I believe that 90% of people use TRON more often than Lighting Network, even 95%.

Is it because of the lightning?

Yes, although Lightning Network payment is very enjoyable (instant payment, no delay, extremely low fees), it is not good enough indeed. It has many problems, such as ‘Liquidity management problem’, ‘Node maintenance difficulty problem’, ‘Can only pay BTC problem’, and so on. Therefore, it is understandable that many people do not use Lighting Network.

However, if we take a long-term view, the ultimate limit of all public chains at present is likely to be close to the payment level of Alipay, while Lightning theoretically exceeds this level by several orders of magnitude.

So long-termism is about looking at the issue from a longer timeline, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, or even further. We need someone to constantly research, develop, and optimize technology solutions that may be suitable for the longer-term future.

2 Persistence in P2P is a manifestation of long-termism

Many services on the current Internet are centralized, and we are very accustomed to this architecture. In Crypto, this phenomenon also exists in large numbers, although we have always been talking about ‘Decentralization’, but in many ways it’s just talk.

For example, let’s consider payments. Payment itself is the “exchange of value” between individuals. Why do we need to use an intermediary to complete it? Of course, you can find many reasons: good user experience, short delay, high success rate, and so on. But this is not a completely valid reason to reject the P2P mode, because you will always encounter “specific scenarios,” such as private transactions, off-chain transactions, customized transactions, etc., and these scenarios require the use of P2P.

If we imagine again, with the development of technology, the development of machines and artificial intelligence will be faster and faster. In the future, machines that will fill the entire world may surpass humans many times over. Therefore, the future demand for payments may not be between people, but between machines. These machines, due to their off-chain computing capabilities, are very likely to meet specific interaction needs through P2P means.

At present, perhaps “copying chain is mainstream, P2P is weak”, but the evolution of technology is spiral, and the evolution of P2P is not over yet, which is worth exploring.

3 Fiber is the embodiment of CKB’s insistence on long-termism

To be precise, the majority of the design of Fiber is derived from BTC’s Lighting Network, and the storage optimization introduced by the Daric framework is a small innovation. Its distinct technical characteristics mainly come from the CKB network itself. I have introduced the specific details in the previous article. This design reflects Jan’s own considerations: security, maturity, compatibility, etc.

The points I follow are: With so many POW public chains, who is trying to build their own Lighting Network? And who is sticking to this P2P payment model? Therefore, Fiber is CKB’s attempt to adhere to long-termism.

Fertilize

1 Technology Feedback

There is already a Lighting Network on BTC, so what is the point of creating a Lighting Network on CKB? I believe this is a question that many people want to ask, because the basic framework of Fiber is not much different from the current Lighting Network.

But CKB network and BTC network are different. For example, the reason why the Eltoo proposal cannot be implemented in the Lighting Network of BTC is that it requires BTC to upgrade and enable a new signature mode SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT, while it can be directly implemented in CKB because it has already been enabled.

The ability of BTC Lightning is limited by the verification capability of the BTC mainnet. We can first see what happens without restrictions through Fiber, and then provide feedback to BTC Lightning.

So, from this perspective, Fiber can play a role in testing Lighting Network in advance.

2 Nurturing Confidence

As I mentioned before, the Lighting Network is currently in a “period of frustration”, and you can see this phenomenon from the current number of nodes, the BTC stock of the network, etc., and it seems that the Lighting Network has a feeling of being “slowly abandoned”.

So, if CKB can build many Fiber network Nodes, because Fiber is interconnected with BTC Lighting Network Nodes, then to some extent it can contribute to the confidence of BTC Lightning and promote the development of payment channels and State Channels together.

Scenario Design

1 Long-term and Short-term Brainstorming Ideas

Including me, most people actually follow specific scenes to see what they are. If not, then lightning will become a “geek’s plaything”, so this is also the key content I asked Jan for. Jan believes that the lightning scenarios need everyone to think and build together, of course, he also gave some short-term and long-term scenario examples:

For the short term, such as solving the problem of vampire Nodes, streaming payment…

Regarding the long term, Jan has a vision: for example, in the future, every car will be equipped with artificial intelligence and offline computing capabilities. While on the road, a car can communicate with other cars and pay for overtaking in a peer-to-peer payment form… This is a very interesting idea, of course, it may not be perfect, and in the future, it may not only be solved through the Lighting Network, but it can indeed provide us with some inspiration for building use cases for the Lighting Network.

In my personal opinion, the Lighting Network is suitable for scenarios that require continuous micropayment, specific examples need continuous brainstorming.

2 A Conceptual Idea

I actually have an idea: the combination of Fiber and Depin.

Let users first become a Fiber lightning Node, and then use some gameplay to make users accept and gradually get used to using lightning payments. This kind of gameplay needs to be combined with a special economic model, and even sticky design.

This solution can instantly unleash the imagination of Nodes, and because it is interoperable with BTC Lightning, any Depin device can provide support to BTC Lightning in terms of Node numbers; and it may connect several assets in the CKB and RGB++ ecosystems to form synergy. Of course, this is just a preliminary idea with many imperfections, and is only meant to stimulate further discussion.

Overall, Fiber is just a beginning in my understanding, and there is still a long way to go in the future. I hope it can go further and further.