Is there a way to achieve debit card like functionality on top of Peercoin or PeerAssets? The thought is that one could add coins or tokens to an address and then freely spend with zero to little transactions fees. This could run off chain if needed.
Not sure I fully understand Lightning network and the security guarantees and costs. Seems by operating off chain will eventually require large transaction fees to interact with the main chain (with Bitcoin at least), locking up funds that are not freely spendable at different âmerchantsâ and potential trust assumptions regarding the hubs.
Is the 3 cent txn fee really that big of a deal right now? Lightning is still being figured out on bitcoin and litecoin, it is not pressing that we focus on that area right now when you can already use the basic wallet as a low fee transaction client.
It is totally possible to issue a âcredit tokenâ and use it for transactions between peers and business. As long as those involved accept this token as a legit form of value exchange, it can be used as money.
What really canât be achieved (at least for now) is âreal-time-likeâ and âno-feeâ transactions. PeerAssets run on top of a host blockchain. Since it writes its âtoken transactionsâ on this blockchain via OP_RETURN, there will be the need to pay the same fee you pay in any transaction on said blockchain.
What defines the fee price, and the speed of the transactions is the blockchain where its hosted to.
That means, that if Peercoin price stays like it is or goes down, everything is OK and I could easily pay my pastry or coffee with Peercoin. But if price increases I wonât be able to use Peercoin for that anymore, as fees would be higher than the product that I want to pay for. Alternative?
Or in other words: (near) instant payment will never be available with or on top of Peercoin?
Zero fees and instant payments are two different things, but both can be solved by implementing second layer solutions. Lightning network, or something similar, will likely be the solution. Peercoin has always been intended as a settlement layer. If the network is primitive, transactions will be used for coffee and pastries without issue. When the network grows, transactions will be used to settle larger, more abstract concepts of debt while the small coffee transaction gets rolled into all the bigger ones via something like the lightning network. At the end of the day, âdebit card like functionalityâ is very much a possibility, but only using off-chain elements to reduce the amount of data that needs to be processed into the chain.