RE: Bitcoin Lightning Network LAUNCHED. Programmer explains.
The witness data is still kept in the blocks right on the chain, only like I explained it is kept in an extended part of the transaction that non-segwit can't see because the number of transaction inputs is zero according to non-segwit nodes. If you look at the current segwit protocol, you can see they added a "flag" field to the transaction. It says "If present, always 0001, and indicates the presence of witness data". To non-segwit nodes this byte is the tx_in count var_int... when it sees the first byte 00, it thinks there are no transaction inputs and rejects the transaction. What blows my mind is the complete lack of response from Ivan on these issues that I have presented.. the silence is deafening! Unless you are Ivan using a different account?
I'm not Ivan. I started studying this field only last spring and am almost retirement age. For the past 22-23 years I was writing astrology software using my background in astronomy. I first learned to program in Basic in 1977 in high school around the 10th grade but didn't start writing until I was in my mid-late 30's. I first got into bitcoin about 1 year ago and then started following Andreas Antonopoulos.
I was not formally trained as a programmer in college like many people.