> Another fork of bitcoin.

That's factually wrong. Lightning is a protocol on top of Bitcoin (like HTTP is built on TCP) and not a fork.

It has a different set of trade offs: transactions on it are instant, but one should only store small amounts on it (like what you would carry in your purse) since your money on it can be stolen if you are offline for too long (and you did not pay someone to monitor the network for you). But as long as you are online often enough your funds are secure.

If someone is curious how it works: https://lightning.network/

And having money stolen from my wallet because I haven’t logged in recently is NOT useful for a currency.

It's a technical caveat that exists now, but there's nothing categorically preventing additional technology to help users prevent this fate without much work.

One thing I don't understand is why so many people seem to have this "Bitcoin CAN not, therefore it WILL not" attitude. Bitcoin is software, it is editable, it is being actively developed. Most of us here, I thought, were familiar with the process of improving software over time by working on it, providing solutions we didn't have before.

We don't write code once and say, "welp, software cannot do this thing, because it doesn't already do this thing." What?? People would think you're an idiot.

Yet this is the most common type of argument against crypto, even here on HN.

I think anything that wants to be called a currency should be useful for buying and selling goods and useful for storing value. Cash right now can do this. Bitcoin right now can’t, and lightning on top can’t do it as per your comment about it having a vulnerability if you don’t log in.

I’m sure I’ll get downvoted for that statement as well.

This is simple bullying by a mob of people who don’t understand what a currency is actually useful for. And are happy to bully and attack someone for even mentioning an issue.

Nobody's bullying you, you just say inaccurate things or bring up things that were not your original argument. Even this response disregards my point.

Everyone agrees with you that being able to handle payments is important for Bitcoin to become a more widely-adopted currency. That's why they're working on improving it so that it can be that way.

Wrong. I can’t see any evidence of others agreeing with me.

People definitely disagreed with my statement “And having money stolen from my wallet because I haven’t logged in recently is NOT useful for a currency.” Disagreeing with that doesn’t bode well for the future of commerce.

The only possibly incorrect statement was “Another fork of bitcoin”. The person who told me I was wrong introduced a different project. I was accused of "moving the goal posts’’ when I clarified what I was referring to and got a snarky reply when I did so. So my statement about lightning being a “Another fork of bitcoin” is actually factually correct.

References: Lightning as bitcoin fork http://lightningbitcoin.io/ Lightning as protocol https://lightning.network/

Goal post moving. You claimed Lightning was a fork of bitcoin which is patently false. You lost your debate.

Incivility and snark will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is. Please don't post like this again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Lighting as a bitcoin fork is at: http://lightningbitcoin.io/ Which is what I was talking about. No goal post moving.

Have a nice day, bully boy.

You crossed into incivility in this thread, as well as broke the site guidelines by complaining about downvotes. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here. I know it's hard when downvotes feel unfair, but those rules all exist for good reason and we ban accounts for breaking them, regardless of how wrong someone else was.

Different Lightning.

So have a look at this: https://chat.lbtc.io/topic/37-faq/

What makes you think that's what the post you replied to talked about?

Lighting as a bitcoin fork is at: http://lightningbitcoin.io/