5 ms·

If micropayments have a future, it's on blockchains. https://www.x402.org/ https://www.x402.org/ https://www.8004scan.io/networks https://www.8004scan.io/netw

by spir 7mo ago

If micropayments have a future, it's on blockchains. https://www.x402.org/ https://www.x402.org/ https://www.8004scan.io/networks https://www.8004scan.io/networks https://www.x402scan.com/ https://www.x402scan.com/

Bratmon 7mo ago
Why? What does adding a slow database to the process help?
- CobrastanJorji 7mo ago
  The argument I had originally heard was "the transaction costs of credit cards is so high, we need a system that works for many tiny payments. But of course, most of the cryptocurrency transaction fees are still pretty high, and a dedicated "tiny transaction" company would presumably be able to offer the same service for less cost than a distributed equivalent.
  - littlecranky67 7mo ago
    Transaction fees for bitcoin sent via the lightning network (which is a layer 2 solution) are in the "less than a cent" category and are settled in a few seconds. This is not fiction, this is i.e. how Trump made his for-the-cameras bitcoin payment during his campaign.
    - sanswork 7mo ago
      Lightning isn't even a good solution for most diehard bitcoin users. It's a failed project. It would take 27 years to onboard every internet user to the lightning network unless you start adding level 3 aggregators and then at that point you lose all the benefit of it being on chain at all. It would take almost 2 years just to onboard every American assuming during that time there were zero other bitcoin transactions. Then you need to add the fees for the on and off ramps to the individual transaction fees to get the real cost per transaction noting that these would go up quite a bit as the competition between lightning and non-lightning uses of the transaction space would drive prices higher.
      - fruitworks 7mo ago
        The throughput is arbitrarialy limited by bitcoin's current block size, which hasn't been increased since satoshi's era. Most cryptocurrencies have an adaptive block-size mechanism which allows the blocks to grow to a reasonable size which could facilitate such an onboarding of users. So it isn't a technical problem, it is just a question of bitcoin's current leadership, which is controlled by companies like blockstream.
        sanswork 7mo ago
        People have been debating the blocksize for a very long time now and there doesn't seem to be any large desire to change it so while the ability to increase it exists changing anything that fundamental about bitcoin seems to be a non-starter and while that is true lightning is pointless as a solution for the masses. Even if you increase the block size 100x though you're still not improving the numbers much since my very generous numbers ignore activity outside of lightning and assume a single on chain transaction for every user and a perfect network.
        littlecranky67 7mo ago
        It is not the blocksize. The throughput of transaction on the lightning network is not at all limited by blocksize or the bitcoin blockchain.
        sanswork 7mo ago
        The ability for users to access the lightning network is limited by blocksize since you need transactions to open channels.
        littlecranky67 7mo ago
        Once channels are open, the users on the lightning network can transact back and forth without any new channel opens/closure and thus no on-chain settlement. Hence: Throughput in lightning is not at all limited on the bitcoin transaction throughput.
  - Jommi 7mo ago
    not sure where you data is from but most chains now offer sub millicent fees. https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/metrics/transaction-fee-median https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/metrics/transaction-fee-m...
- Zaskoda 7mo ago
  This sounds like a reflexive "I hate blockchain and cryptocurrency" reaction but I'll give a reply regardless. You can't do transactions with just a database. You'd have to add a payment processor. Now things are getting wildly complex. x402 is designed with agentic AIs in mind. AIs make mistakes. Having an immutable record that can't be tampered with is a nice layer of security. And while I haven't worked with it personally, I understand x402 to be extremely straight forward for devs to implement.
  - littlecranky67 7mo ago
    Implementing lightning (bitcoin layer 2 solution) is probably easier or at least at par. And way more accesible. Look at lnurl, lnaddress.
  - Bratmon 7mo ago
    But won't this solution still need: 1. A payment processor for users to turn money into tokens 2. A payment processor for news sites to turn tokens into money 3. A software provider to handle the actual microtransaction part of this (unless they want to learn how to become software developers themselves)? It seems to me like all the blockchain does here is to make it so this transaction needs 3 software providers instead of just one!
Xiol 7mo ago
This is all absolutely impenetrable.
b00ty4breakfast 7mo ago
"if I keep jamming things into this hole, something will eventually fit, I just know it!"
littlecranky67 7mo ago
It will be on bitcoin, and bitcoin only. Except the payment will done with Lightning. And the lightning network will probably be used to send a stablecoin, utilizing taproot assets. But shurely not some shitcoins that is x402 built on (Ethereum, Solana & Co.) :)
mmooss 7mo ago
Micropayments already exist in the physical world: Venmo, Zelle, etc. It seems easier to just adapt them to the OP's purpose.

by spir 7mo ago

Bratmon 7mo ago

Why? What does adding a slow database to the process help?

CobrastanJorji 7mo ago
The argument I had originally heard was "the transaction costs of credit cards is so high, we need a system that works for many tiny payments. But of course, most of the cryptocurrency transaction fees are still pretty high, and a dedicated "tiny transaction" company would presumably be able to offer the same service for less cost than a distributed equivalent.
- littlecranky67 7mo ago
  Transaction fees for bitcoin sent via the lightning network (which is a layer 2 solution) are in the "less than a cent" category and are settled in a few seconds. This is not fiction, this is i.e. how Trump made his for-the-cameras bitcoin payment during his campaign.
  - sanswork 7mo ago
    Lightning isn't even a good solution for most diehard bitcoin users. It's a failed project. It would take 27 years to onboard every internet user to the lightning network unless you start adding level 3 aggregators and then at that point you lose all the benefit of it being on chain at all. It would take almost 2 years just to onboard every American assuming during that time there were zero other bitcoin transactions. Then you need to add the fees for the on and off ramps to the individual transaction fees to get the real cost per transaction noting that these would go up quite a bit as the competition between lightning and non-lightning uses of the transaction space would drive prices higher.
    - fruitworks 7mo ago
      The throughput is arbitrarialy limited by bitcoin's current block size, which hasn't been increased since satoshi's era. Most cryptocurrencies have an adaptive block-size mechanism which allows the blocks to grow to a reasonable size which could facilitate such an onboarding of users. So it isn't a technical problem, it is just a question of bitcoin's current leadership, which is controlled by companies like blockstream.
      - sanswork 7mo ago
        People have been debating the blocksize for a very long time now and there doesn't seem to be any large desire to change it so while the ability to increase it exists changing anything that fundamental about bitcoin seems to be a non-starter and while that is true lightning is pointless as a solution for the masses. Even if you increase the block size 100x though you're still not improving the numbers much since my very generous numbers ignore activity outside of lightning and assume a single on chain transaction for every user and a perfect network.
        littlecranky67 7mo ago
        It is not the blocksize. The throughput of transaction on the lightning network is not at all limited by blocksize or the bitcoin blockchain.
        sanswork 7mo ago
        The ability for users to access the lightning network is limited by blocksize since you need transactions to open channels.
        littlecranky67 7mo ago
        Once channels are open, the users on the lightning network can transact back and forth without any new channel opens/closure and thus no on-chain settlement. Hence: Throughput in lightning is not at all limited on the bitcoin transaction throughput.
- Jommi 7mo ago
  not sure where you data is from but most chains now offer sub millicent fees. https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/metrics/transaction-fee-median https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/metrics/transaction-fee-m...
Zaskoda 7mo ago
This sounds like a reflexive "I hate blockchain and cryptocurrency" reaction but I'll give a reply regardless. You can't do transactions with just a database. You'd have to add a payment processor. Now things are getting wildly complex. x402 is designed with agentic AIs in mind. AIs make mistakes. Having an immutable record that can't be tampered with is a nice layer of security. And while I haven't worked with it personally, I understand x402 to be extremely straight forward for devs to implement.
- littlecranky67 7mo ago
  Implementing lightning (bitcoin layer 2 solution) is probably easier or at least at par. And way more accesible. Look at lnurl, lnaddress.
- Bratmon 7mo ago
  But won't this solution still need: 1. A payment processor for users to turn money into tokens 2. A payment processor for news sites to turn tokens into money 3. A software provider to handle the actual microtransaction part of this (unless they want to learn how to become software developers themselves)? It seems to me like all the blockchain does here is to make it so this transaction needs 3 software providers instead of just one!

Xiol 7mo ago

This is all absolutely impenetrable.

b00ty4breakfast 7mo ago

"if I keep jamming things into this hole, something will eventually fit, I just know it!"

littlecranky67 7mo ago

It will be on bitcoin, and bitcoin only. Except the payment will done with Lightning. And the lightning network will probably be used to send a stablecoin, utilizing taproot assets. But shurely not some shitcoins that is x402 built on (Ethereum, Solana & Co.) :)

mmooss 7mo ago

Micropayments already exist in the physical world: Venmo, Zelle, etc. It seems easier to just adapt them to the OP's purpose.