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Title: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 06, 2021, 01:44:32 AM Note: This thread is self-moderated to prevent it from being derailed. Please, keep the discussion on Lightning implementations and your experience of running a node. Any related questions are welcome.
I have been running my current c-lightning node for over 4 months now so I would like to share some data with you. I would appreciate if other node operators could share their experience, thoughts and anything else like plugins, fee strategy, third-party software. My node's URI is 0273da0a525390c36857841e208f1d289275c76ebfa7ecfde697c6cbf4f235b4f5@fjpmf23cd2c6sqp7e4wzexa6ixkttl3jabivldakwq733tw634ymjbid.onion:9735 (https://amboss.space/node/0273da0a525390c36857841e208f1d289275c76ebfa7ecfde697c6cbf4f235b4f5) My node has successfully routed 143 payments (until the 31st October) with ~0.09 BTC capacity and 5 active channels. Here's a breakdown of my earnings from payment routing into each month: July: 539.54 sat/17 forwards https://i.imgur.com/6OywiDs.png August: 114.64 sat/34 forwards https://i.imgur.com/CNXk5iz.png September: 161.75 sat/28 forwards https://i.imgur.com/udrDxTw.png October: 75.56 sat/64 forwards https://i.imgur.com/73RLbQm.png The largest payment I have ever routed was 960,320 satoshi and I got paid 77.825 satoshi for it. The highest fee I have ever charged was 91.476 satoshi for a 952,385 satoshi payment. 23 forwards were free of charge. As you can see, I made the highest profit in July. That's probably because I was adjusting my fee policy for each channel manually every few days unlike the other months - I adjusted my fee policy only at the beginning and at the end of each month. I haven't used any fee auto-adjusting plugins yet. While it's true that earnings from my Lightning node do not cover the electricity cost of my server (which I also use for other projects anyway), I have already earned back the fees I paid to open my channels. Note that some of my channels were not opened by me which means that I did not have to pay anything for them. Also, I saved some money by opening more than one channel in a single transaction and opening dual-funded channels so that I would not have to worry about using paid third-party services to balance my channels. You might be surprised by the number of failed forwards - 389 payments. Why are there so many of them? More than 95% of them failed at some further point in the route. It's difficult to tell how many of them were legitimate payments and not channel/route probing attempts. I used some website a couple of time to probe routes from/to my node and each time I would get another three failed payments. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: DaveF on November 06, 2021, 02:07:12 AM Quoting myself from earlier today:
...I have seen a major uptick in transactions routing through my nodes over the last few weeks. Not a major amount, but where my 3 nodes would do 5 a month I have been averaging about 7 or 8 a week since mid October. Anyone else seeing this? -Dave So you seem to be both routing and charging a lot more on average then me. Most of my fees are 1 or 2 sat. I have it set to minimum. Are you seeing any bursts like this?: https://i.imgur.com/ATeGOuEl.png (https://imgur.com/ATeGOuE) I posted about it back in January and still see these kind of transactions in bursts, then they stop again. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5158920.msg56082955#msg56082955 -Dave Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 06, 2021, 11:08:35 AM Most of my fees are 1 or 2 sat. I have it set to minimum. I have recently set my fees to 0/0 for some of my channels because they become totally unbalanced. I usually keep my fee rates around 15-30 ppm with one exception - the channel with bfx-lnd1 node (https://1ml.com/channel/758379349180153856). I routed quite a few transactions through it with a fee rate > 90 ppm. All of my channels have 0 msat base fee now. Are you seeing any bursts like this?: No, I hardly ever route payments lower than 10k satoshi. There is usually an interval of a few hours between them. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: DaveF on November 06, 2021, 12:20:11 PM No, I hardly ever route payments lower than 10k satoshi. There is usually an interval of a few hours between them. I think the largest I ever routed was in the low 30k range. Most of mine seem to be in the 1500 sat or lower range. On the other hand I have under 150 failed routing attempts combined since the beginning of the year. Guess it's just what other nodes we are connected to and how much is in the channels. That or nobody loves me :-( Will be interesting to see what other people have seen with their nodes. -Dave Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: ajas on November 06, 2021, 05:35:34 PM I am running a lightning node (LND) for a long time. But I didn't look too much into details of its operation but I actually would like to do that if it does not take too much effort. Are there any tools available to diagnose the performance of an LND node in some detail ? (usage history of channels etc.) Probably there are. Can anybody provide any info on that ? Thanks in advance, A. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on November 06, 2021, 05:36:58 PM Guess it's just what other nodes we are connected to and how much is in the channels. Yeah, it depends a ton about who you're connecting to and also the size of those channels. To maximize routing and profits, some people actually manually monitor their channels. Some recommendations I picked up:* Don't create channel between 2 already connected nodes. (e.g. check via LN explorers) * If a channel isn't routing anything for a long time, close it. * If a channel starts to get used much, but only in one direction, rebalance it so it continues being used. * Look for nodes with much usage, but no 1-hop connection and connect them through you. * Adapt fees up / down in the channels that are used much, like sometimes your fees are just too high; sometimes users keep paying if you increase them since you're the only route to some location. This is just off the top of my mind, not sure if I can find the original 'list' anymore. We may just create a new thread for that. I don't feel qualified for it myself though, since I was never a big routing node myself. With regards to 'LN node experience', I will post in here in the future when I find the time to write down all my experiences and make a concise but informative post of it. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 06, 2021, 05:44:54 PM Probably there are. Can anybody provide any info on that ? The easiest and the fastest way for you would be to use the lncli fwdinghistory (https://api.lightning.community/#forwardinghistory) command. If you have some spare time, you could install either ThunderHub (https://www.thunderhub.io/) or RTL (https://github.com/Ride-The-Lightning/RTL). I haven't used the former one since it's LND exclusive but it should be as good as RTL or even better for channel management. It will be much easier for you to interpret all the data if you use either of them. The graphs I posted were created by RTL. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 09, 2021, 02:12:02 AM Whoops, I missed n0nce's reply.
* Don't create channel between 2 already connected nodes. (e.g. check via LN explorers) That's exactly what I had been avoiding until I made a mistake. I opened a channel to both Bitfinex and Nicehash. I had been routing fairly large payments between those two channels until Bitfinex bumped their fee rate from 1 ppm to 100 ppm. While I was trying to figure it out, I learnt that Nicehash and Bitfinex have had a channel for quite some time. It looks like my node was routing payments between them whenever their channel was unbalanced, which happened quite often. I still keep those two channels open because I keep routing payments through them from/to other channels. * If a channel starts to get used much, but only in one direction, rebalance it so it continues being used. It might sound easy, but it's a huge pain in practice. I mostly use ZigZag.io (https://zigzag.io/#/) and Boltz (https://boltz.exchange/) for non-dual-funded channels. When I was running LND node, I tried Loop (https://lightning.engineering/loop/) but it failed 90% of the time. Since I have a couple of active channels, I might try circular rebalance soon. Also, it makes sense to wait a couple of days and see if the channel will balance itself. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Quickseller on November 09, 2021, 02:20:20 AM Most of my fees are 1 or 2 sat. I have it set to minimum. I have recently set my fees to 0/0 for some of my channels because they become totally unbalanced. You can also use dynamic pricing so that as one side gets low, the fee rate will change to encourage transactions to be routed to that side of the channel. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 09, 2021, 09:35:26 AM You can also use dynamic pricing so that as one side gets low, the fee rate will change to encourage transactions to be routed to that side of the channel. Sure, that's what I have been doing as well. Unfortunately, those channels remained silent as I periodically dropped the fees so I decided to make their use free of charge. One channel suddenly started routing transactions again in both directions even after I raised the fees. I will try rebalancing the other channel through a circular payment for a reasonable fee. It became unbalanced just a few hours after it was opened so I might earn back the cost of rebalancing and make some profit easily. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Quickseller on November 10, 2021, 02:47:30 AM You can also use dynamic pricing so that as one side gets low, the fee rate will change to encourage transactions to be routed to that side of the channel. Sure, that's what I have been doing as well. Unfortunately, those channels remained silent as I periodically dropped the fees so I decided to make their use free of charge. One channel suddenly started routing transactions again in both directions even after I raised the fees. I will try rebalancing the other channel through a circular payment for a reasonable fee. It became unbalanced just a few hours after it was opened so I might earn back the cost of rebalancing and make some profit easily. It would be interesting to see how much someone might be able to earn running a LN node if they were trying to maximize their profit. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on November 10, 2021, 03:04:35 AM ~ Interesting, thanks for you insight! So it might actually be worth to connect 'already connected' peers after all, cool cool. More experimentation possibilities ;DIt would be interesting to see how much someone might be able to earn running a LN node if they were trying to maximize their profit. There are some writeups / articles online and also YouTube videos where people show their dashboard etc., but from what I've seen so far, to be profitable you need to put in a lot of manual work. We all know time is money & time is limited; so all that work for a few satoshi is usually not worth it. The 'maximum profits' I've seen so far, usually required a lot of BTC locked up + work under normal hourly wage.Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Quickseller on November 10, 2021, 03:11:31 AM I don’t see any reason why adjusting fees couldn’t be automated depending on the specific circumstances.
If a lot of BTC is required to earn from running a LN node, perhaps a reasonable interest amount should be charged against earnings to account for what could have been earned by lending your bitcoin to whatever reputable DeFi company. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on November 10, 2021, 10:49:51 PM Hi there...
Here is my contribution. My noded URI is in my signature. My node has 7 channels open, with a total of 4,500,222 sats of outbound capacity and 6,286,444 sats of inbound capacity. I'm running a bare metal Debian BullsEye, Bitcoin Core v0.21, C-Lightning v0.10.2 and RTL v0.10.1-beta. I have a few other non-related services running in this device (RockPro64, Samsung NVMe drive and 1TB external USB drive) but I don't think they are relevant for this matter. My node is not very active as apparently I'm using some high fees that are probably putting me kind of isolated in the network. I'll lower the fees as soon as I can to see if there is some more traffic through it. My node has been running for over a year but it only started forwarding payments successfully since January this year. Here is my data. January, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/THgdLGf/image.png February, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/Xb2r1yB/image.png March, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/cyZLrR9/image.png April, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/nQYMNQ5/image.png May, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/mvsgrX8/image.png June, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/BzSLYMw/image.png July, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/rbmfhfn/image.png August, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/L1r6gwn/image.png September, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/wLH3Yq6/image.png October, 2021 https://i.ibb.co/Y3Y0c52/image.png So, as we can see, I'm using high fees for sure. Not much activity these 2 last months and there's nothing in November so far! I remember I used a plugin to auto-adjust fees and I made the mistake of making it auto-start whenever the node was restarted which made the plugin to adjust fees too often and make fees too low too. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 11, 2021, 05:45:39 PM Thanks @darkv0rt3x for sharing your data. As I have already told you, I spent some time manually adjusting the fees for each channel every few days and it looks like I found the right values.
November looks really promising for my node. I am also about to open two new channels beside the one with n0nce. https://i.imgur.com/Gacg4EX.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on November 11, 2021, 08:25:37 PM No problem @_Rath.
I still have tons of failed transactions with no apparent reason. I have 5 pages of failed transactions at November 9th. It's 48 failed attempts, of which only 6 were LOCAL_FAILED. All the others are simply FAILED. I have enough liquidity in the outgoing channels of these attempts, so I can't understand why, even the LOCAL_FAILED ones, failed. https://i.ibb.co/KGJWm5B/image.png There is no outgoing channel for these LOCAL_FAILED. Have no idea why. Then, the other attempts all failed further down in the route. What I question in my mind is if when a payment fails, for a given amount and route, the next attempts will try to use exactly the same route or will it try new routes? If it tries the same route, what could be the reasons for the failures? And if it tries a different route for each attempt, is it normal to fail like 10 or 12 times before it finally gives up on trying to route this payment? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 11, 2021, 10:14:14 PM There is no outgoing channel for these LOCAL_FAILED. Have no idea why. You need to use lightning-cli listforwards command to see the exact error. Here (https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/09c2fef4a409d70f4be150e8b4c8900d5c1c5d88/tests/test_pay.py#L1361) you can find a list of errors with explanations. [...] is it normal to fail like 10 or 12 times before it finally gives up on trying to route this payment? Maybe the payment was split into multiple chunks and some of them failed? It would make sense to route one part through you again if it worked in some previous attempt. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on November 11, 2021, 10:39:36 PM There is no outgoing channel for these LOCAL_FAILED. Have no idea why. You need to use lightning-cli listforwards command to see the exact error. Here (https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/09c2fef4a409d70f4be150e8b4c8900d5c1c5d88/tests/test_pay.py#L1361) you can find a list of errors with explanations. [...] is it normal to fail like 10 or 12 times before it finally gives up on trying to route this payment? Maybe the payment was split into multiple chunks and some of them failed? It would make sense to route one part through you again if it worked in some previous attempt. Yes, I know about the listforwards command outputting the exact reasons, but not for all failed payments. I also know about the description of each error. However, at least me, cannot understand by only reading the descriptions in that link. So, it's almost useless to me to read them. :p I'm not sure we can check if a payment was split or not. What it seems to me is that, at least for some payments, there are several attempts and as the values changes by small amounts, I assume it tried different routes, hence, different fees. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: TheJuice on November 14, 2021, 06:30:34 PM I've been meaning to do a larger write up of my experience once I hit 1M sats in fees.
I run the node Prince, https://1ml.com/node/02644f80b5d32ed9a9888690571159692a17d7ead7db2df5124a8e2a72a8447d30 I am currently ranked 8th on the BOS rankings (https://fulmo.org/bos-score.html) and 12th on lightning terminal rankings. I have 8-9 BTC on my node with about 110 channels (I have more incoming that outcoming liquidity, so that 8BTC is not my investment). Top line numbers: Over the past 5 months have routed over 6700 payments worth over 1.7 billion sats earning me about 900k sats in routing fees; I've spent about 100k sats in on-chain fees and rebalancing fees. For those doing the math, that comes out to about 0.5% APR on my locked-up capital. Although my volume is steadily increasing and I may be able to get closer to 1% in the next year. I have everything automated including fees and re-balancing. -- I use lnd-charge for fees: https://github.com/accumulator/charge-lnd -- I use c-otto's script for automatic re-balancing: https://c-otto.de/ Happy to answer more questions -- oh, and feel free to open a channel to me. The best way to get started is to open liquidity triangles with people (ie A->B; B->C; C->A). Happy to be a part of a couple here if there is interest. I do require a minimum of 5M sats for any incoming channels. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: ndalliard on November 14, 2021, 09:27:57 PM my node also runs for about 4 months and has 17 channels. it forwarded 616 payments which collected 978 sats. i've set the basefee to 1 sat and no percentage fee for all channels. i played around with the fees in the beginning (thats why i earned more sats than the number of forwards)
i only added the summary plugin (https://github.com/lightningd/plugins/tree/master/summary) to the node for now some weeks ago i wanted to rebalance a channel with a trusted peer (all of the balance is on my side, pushing over 50% and the peer sending the amount onchain back to me), but the keysend to the lnd node didn't work. i've sent christian decker an email with the logs and he said he will look into it to debug it, but i never heard back... it still isn't working apart from that i didn't have any bigger problems, but i am also not using my lightning node for a lot of my own economic activity at the moment (only some small donations) Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 14, 2021, 09:39:26 PM Happy to answer more questions -- oh, and feel free to open a channel to me. [...] I do require a minimum of 5M sats for any incoming channels. I am actually thinking about opening a channel to your node. Is there any particular reason why you reject channels smaller than 5 million satoshi? Do you want to avoid frequent rebalancing this way? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: TheJuice on November 15, 2021, 10:28:19 PM Happy to answer more questions -- oh, and feel free to open a channel to me. [...] I do require a minimum of 5M sats for any incoming channels. I am actually thinking about opening a channel to your node. Is there any particular reason why you reject channels smaller than 5 million satoshi? Do you want to avoid frequent rebalancing this way? There are 4 major reason: 1) It's part of the game to get higher rankings. A lot of the rankings take into consideration average channel size. When I first started out I had the limit at 1M sats and have been slowly increasing. Higher rankings help with #4 below. 2) I've found that smaller channels almost never generate significant transactions -- I suspect this is both b/c smaller nodes open smaller channels and it's harder to keep sats on both sides of a small channel. 3) My rebalance script targets 2M sats on each side; just makes the scripting easy with no small channels. 4) Once you get a rather large node you start having "gravity", meaning people open channels to you randomly. This is great b/c your node grows without having to invest more capital. I found most times people open the smallest possible channel -- so by now using a 5M sat make people who want to connect open a larger channel than they might have otherwise. The other reason is closing channels can be expensive (esp force closed ones), so I don't want small nodes who may shut down in a month to open to me. I want long term node partners. If BTC crosses 100k, I'll probably drop my min channel size to 4M sats. I have considered if I should let people connect for less who want to use my node as a connection for their lightning node wallet (as opposed to another routing node) -- maybe one of these days i'll do that. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Quickseller on November 15, 2021, 11:43:46 PM 3) My rebalance script targets 2M sats on each side; just makes the scripting easy with no small channels. What does your rebalance script do? Does it adjust fees once one side of a channel reaches a certain point? Or does it send a invoice to yourself that is paid to a channel with a high balance to a channel with a low balance? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: TheJuice on November 16, 2021, 03:17:24 AM 3) My rebalance script targets 2M sats on each side; just makes the scripting easy with no small channels. What does your rebalance script do? Does it adjust fees once one side of a channel reaches a certain point? Or does it send a invoice to yourself that is paid to a channel with a high balance to a channel with a low balance? I have 2 -- one dynamically adjust fees based on the proportion of the sats on each side (and some other parameters). The rebalance script looks to get atleast 2M sats outgoing on each channel -- however it will only rebalance if the expected fees from future transactions are higher (by 3x) than the fee to rebalance. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 18, 2021, 10:11:08 PM https://i.imgur.com/SRmBUUj.png
Yesterday, I performed a triangle swap with two other bitcointalk members. Each of us opened a 0.05 BTC channel to the other person. This way, we gained additional 0.10 BTC capacity, which means that this swap has doubled my node's capacity. I paid 222 sat for the opening transaction. We dropped the fees to 0 and TheJuice's script took care of the rebalancing. On the same day, I routed 6 transactions from the channel I opened and I got paid 222.76 satoshi. The channel paid itself off in just a few hours. Note that on some days (ex. today) I routed a few small payments (< 1 sat). It's impossible to tell it from the graph at this point. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Quickseller on November 19, 2021, 03:45:30 PM 3) My rebalance script targets 2M sats on each side; just makes the scripting easy with no small channels. What does your rebalance script do? Does it adjust fees once one side of a channel reaches a certain point? Or does it send a invoice to yourself that is paid to a channel with a high balance to a channel with a low balance? I have 2 -- one dynamically adjust fees based on the proportion of the sats on each side (and some other parameters). The rebalance script looks to get atleast 2M sats outgoing on each channel -- however it will only rebalance if the expected fees from future transactions are higher (by 3x) than the fee to rebalance. I suspect that when LN has an increased adoption rate, the most successful LN node operators will automate their channel balances such that they are balanced (no pun intended), and that there is a low risk channels will be closed due to an unbalanced channel. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: DaveF on November 20, 2021, 03:55:32 PM For those who have not followed my other posts I have been running a few nodes in a box: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364113 today the fan in one of them failed: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364113.msg58485606#msg58485606
Since it's an RPi the fan is more or less not needed. BUT since it was making a really annoying noise I decided to close all the channels and shut it down. Well, since 2 of the other ends were offline I now waiting for them to close. Whatever, not a big deal. But, if I did have a lot of BTC locked up in a channel that I needed I could see that being a real annoyance. I know on an intellectual level that this could happen and it's just a wait it out. But it's still something people should think about. And since this is about the experience of running a LN node. Well, I guess dealing with things like this is worth a mention. -Dave Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on November 20, 2021, 04:25:40 PM For those who have not followed my other posts I have been running a few nodes in a box: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364113 today the fan in one of them failed: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364113.msg58485606#msg58485606 Since it's an RPi the fan is more or less not needed. BUT since it was making a really annoying noise I decided to close all the channels and shut it down. Well, since 2 of the other ends were offline I now waiting for them to close. Whatever, not a big deal. But, if I did have a lot of BTC locked up in a channel that I needed I could see that being a real annoyance. I know on an intellectual level that this could happen and it's just a wait it out. But it's still something people should think about. And since this is about the experience of running a LN node. Well, I guess dealing with things like this is worth a mention. -Dave That's good to mention! I have had to force close channels before and indeed, sometimes it can be quite inconvenient and even a bit worrisome when you don't see the funds coming back for days the first time you do a force close. A buddy recently did his first force close and he was quite irritated as well. Definitely worth to consider, maybe even reducing lock time during channel creation if you anticipate the possibility of needing a quick force close in the future. It can also be argued that it's a feature, not a bug, but yeah I see how it can be disturbing especially for large amounts of BTC. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 20, 2021, 05:48:32 PM Definitely worth to consider, maybe even reducing lock time during channel creation if you anticipate the possibility of needing a quick force close in the future. It's worth noting that you can make others wait longer to claim the funds than yourself. Currently, my node makes other people wait 432 blocks (~3 days), but I still accept channels with up to 2016 blocks (~2 weeks) delay. I don't mind waiting that long. Most people don't change the default value of 144 blocks anyway. If you want to reject channels with excessive timelocks change either bitcoin.maxlocaldelay (LND) or max-blocktime-watch (c-lightning). If you want to force the other party to wait longer if they broadcast their commitment transaction change bitcoin.defaultremotedelay or watchtime-blocks (c-lightning). Note that those parameters do not affect existing channels. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: TheJuice on November 22, 2021, 03:24:31 AM https://i.imgur.com/SRmBUUj.png Yesterday, I performed a triangle swap with two other bitcointalk members. Each of us opened a 0.05 BTC channel to the other person. This way, we gained additional 0.10 BTC capacity, which means that this swap has doubled my node's capacity. I paid 222 sat for the opening transaction. We dropped the fees to 0 and TheJuice's script took care of the rebalancing. On the same day, I routed 6 transactions from the channel I opened and I got paid 222.76 satoshi. The channel paid itself off in just a few hours. Note that on some days (ex. today) I routed a few small payments (< 1 sat). It's impossible to tell it from the graph at this point. Glad it's working out! I forwarded 288 payments yesterday so sometimes I miss individual ones! Keep growing that node! 3) My rebalance script targets 2M sats on each side; just makes the scripting easy with no small channels. What does your rebalance script do? Does it adjust fees once one side of a channel reaches a certain point? Or does it send a invoice to yourself that is paid to a channel with a high balance to a channel with a low balance? I have 2 -- one dynamically adjust fees based on the proportion of the sats on each side (and some other parameters). The rebalance script looks to get atleast 2M sats outgoing on each channel -- however it will only rebalance if the expected fees from future transactions are higher (by 3x) than the fee to rebalance. I suspect that when LN has an increased adoption rate, the most successful LN node operators will automate their channel balances such that they are balanced (no pun intended), and that there is a low risk channels will be closed due to an unbalanced channel. Let's say I have a channel to node A. I set that fee to say 100 sats per 1M sats. If that channel is empty the script is confident that if it was repleted it would make 100 sats per 1M again. So it looks for a rebalance path that would be less than 40 sats/1M (I playing around with the cutoffs, but thats the general approach). Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 22, 2021, 10:58:02 PM I have been getting a lot of "Local_failed" routing attempts in RTL since the triangle swap. lightning-cli listforwards returns WIRE_TEMPORARY_CHANNEL_FAILURE for all of these recent transactions so I decided to investigate further. I turned on debug logging and here's what I found:
Code: 03562bdcf00fe0cf44e8a491a8c9b26f31c4e45c9a88cdfd6a2f0f2550a304c73e-channeld-chan#85: rcvd_revoke_and_ack: HTLC REMOTE 108 = RCVD_ADD_ACK_REVOCATION/SENT_ADD_ACK_REVOCATION This way, you can learn which channel failed to route the payment and how large it was. RTL shows only the "IN" channel. Glad it's working out! I forwarded 288 payments yesterday so sometimes I miss individual ones! Keep growing that node! Thanks! I won't be able to come close to your node's capacity, but I will do whatever I can to help the network. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on December 01, 2021, 11:25:21 AM November was so far the best month. My node routed 59 transactions and collected 548.46 satoshi in fees. I earned the most from payments incoming from the channels which were opened this month.
https://i.imgur.com/zvJegBc.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on December 09, 2021, 07:47:13 AM I decided to scrap my home server so I had to move my Bitcoin and Lightning nodes back to a Raspberry Pi. The migration process was painless. Here's what I did:
1) I made sure that my old VM won't boot anymore. You really don't want to accidentally run two instances at the same time or an outdated database. 2) I copied my hsm_secret to .lightning/bitcoin folder on my Raspberry Pi. 3) I ran ./backup-cli restore file:///mnt/external/location ~/.lightning/bitcoin/lightningd.sqlite3 to restore my channel backup. 4) I had to remove my backup file and initialize the backup plugin again: ./backup-cli init --lightning-dir ~/.lightning/bitcoin file:///mnt/external/location/file.bkp My node is up and running with the same Tor address and channels. It is worth mentioning that LND docs explicitly state (https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/master/docs/safety.md#migrating-a-node-to-a-new-device) that migration between different operating systems and system architectures might lead to data corruption. I guess that's another legitimate reason to choose c-lightning over LND. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on December 09, 2021, 12:35:34 PM ~ Interesting. When I backed my C-Lightning node up and restored it recently, I just had to back up hsm_secret and the database. But I just copied the files after shutting down the service. No tools necessary. Worked flawlessly :) Just copied them to the new installation after it was done, and before starting it up; that's it.Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on December 09, 2021, 02:24:05 PM Interesting. When I backed my C-Lightning node up and restored it recently, I just had to back up hsm_secret and the database. But I just copied the files after shutting down the service. No tools necessary. Worked flawlessly :) Just copied them to the new installation after it was done, and before starting it up; that's it. I could have done the same, but I wanted to test out the backup plugin in case I ever need to use it due to drive failure. Hopefully, this never happens. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on December 11, 2021, 03:59:09 AM Interesting. When I backed my C-Lightning node up and restored it recently, I just had to back up hsm_secret and the database. But I just copied the files after shutting down the service. No tools necessary. Worked flawlessly :) Just copied them to the new installation after it was done, and before starting it up; that's it. I could have done the same, but I wanted to test out the backup plugin in case I ever need to use it due to drive failure. Hopefully, this never happens. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on December 11, 2021, 08:45:33 AM Is that plugin just an alias for rsync? :D Or how is it more sophisticated than that? I'll look it up in the code later; I guess you can schedule it more simply to run periodically, right. Still, if lightningd updates the database while rsync is running, it could result in a corrupted backup. The backup plugin uses a special hook (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/PLUGINS.html#db-write) which prevents the database from being modified. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on December 11, 2021, 01:06:28 PM Is that plugin just an alias for rsync? :D Or how is it more sophisticated than that? I'll look it up in the code later; I guess you can schedule it more simply to run periodically, right. Still, if lightningd updates the database while rsync is running, it could result in a corrupted backup. The backup plugin uses a special hook (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/PLUGINS.html#db-write) which prevents the database from being modified. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on January 02, 2022, 11:14:59 AM December might look kind of underwhelming to you given my previous stats. I quickly ran out of liquidity this month and I didn't have much time to think about rebalancing my channels. I might end up letting the rebalance plugin (https://github.com/lightningd/plugins/tree/master/rebalance) run in the background to avoid this kind of situation again.
https://i.imgur.com/GxwGIvu.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: JayJuanGee on January 02, 2022, 05:43:32 PM December might look kind of underwhelming to you given my previous stats. I quickly ran out of liquidity this month and I didn't have much time to think about rebalancing my channels. I might end up letting the rebalance plugin (https://github.com/lightningd/plugins/tree/master/rebalance) run in the background to avoid this kind of situation again. https://i.imgur.com/GxwGIvu.png I am a little confused about the point that you are making Rath_. Of course, I don't run a node, so I am attempting to live somewhat vicariously through some of these lightning thread topics... at least this node one. So maybe your point would be more clear for someone who is actually more interactive with some kind of personal node running. You say this month, but we are January. Of course your attached chart seems to show December information.. presumably the whole month.... in which it looks like you had a lot of activity in the first two days and then on the 7th but other than that you did not have a lot of activity. Can you elaborate upon the meaning/interpretation a bit more? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on January 02, 2022, 06:40:18 PM You say this month, but we are January. Of course your attached chart seems to show December information.. presumably the whole month.... in which it looks like you had a lot of activity in the first two days and then on the 7th but other than that you did not have a lot of activity. Can you elaborate upon the meaning/interpretation a bit more? Oh, I wrote that post on the 31st December and I meant to publish it on the very same day. "This month" obviously refers only to December and not January. Two out of seven of my channels are used mostly for outgoing payments. On the 7th December, both of these channels became extremely unbalanced. I can route only a few thousand satoshi through them now. Once I rebalance them via circular payments (https://blog.muun.com/rebalancing-strategies-overview/), my node should start routing payments again (I have been getting a lot of failed attempts due to no liquidity since that day). I also need to adjust my feerate in those channels based on the rebalancing fee so that I can make a profit or at least don't lose any money. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: ir.hn on January 02, 2022, 10:29:08 PM This is just an observation and not an attack, but Lightning network seems like Quantum computer Shor's, always just around the corner but until now vastly surpassed by conventional technologies (conventional computers/large blocksize).
My suggestion is use the server to mine raptoreum and you will make at least 100x lightning fees. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on January 05, 2022, 11:29:50 PM This is just an observation and not an attack, but Lightning network seems like Quantum computer Shor's, always just around the corner but until now vastly surpassed by conventional technologies (conventional computers/large blocksize). Your whole post is off-topic, and I also don't understand what you want to tell us with it.My suggestion is use the server to mine raptoreum and you will make at least 100x lightning fees. Nobody runs a Lightning Node to make money, and most of us here are especially uninterested in a random shitcoin whose name I suppose raptoreum is. One of the reasons is that Lightning fees are supposed to be low; that's the entire idea: fast, cheap Bitcoin payments with the security of normal Bitcoin transactions at almost no cost. In theory, in the future if you route thousands or millions of these a day, even tiny fees could sum up to amounts that can cover the energy requirement for running that node. However, merchants and other entities might have other motivations to run a well-connected node. In the example of online- (or offline) shops, the motivation of running such a node would be that you won't have issues with customers not finding a route to your node and unable to pay. This alone would be enough for the merchant, and if they make 1 or 2 dollars a month extra through routing fees, that just goes on top. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on January 06, 2022, 10:10:41 AM My suggestion is use the server to mine raptoreum and you will make at least 100x lightning fees. As n0nce has said, I am not really doing it to make a ton of money. If that were the case, I would open far many more (large) channels. so instead of emphasising the 31cent 'energy cost' mention the $3 confirmation lock cost to peg into ln and the $3 cost to unpeg out of LN ($6 to use LN before even doing any 'payments') You seem to be stuck in 2017/2018. Transaction fees have been extremely low for quite some time now. Even 1 sat/vbyte is enough to get a transaction confirmed quickly. The smallest possible opening transaction with change weights ~152 vbytes (transaction (https://mempool.space/tx/693d2cf03ad2e83e6b994db649342508801c75dd14b7af396a338c28ed70147e); channel (https://amboss.space/edge/764092411635302401)). The cost of that transaction was only $0.07. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on January 06, 2022, 01:59:55 PM First of all, it seems franky1 is banned from the this subforum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5192937.0), so his post and replies to his posts might get deleted. Seems like they have a point when they say he consistently posts misinformation.
You seem to be stuck in 2017/2018. Transaction fees have been extremely low for quite some time now. Even 1 sat/vbyte is enough to get a transaction confirmed quickly. The smallest possible opening transaction with change weights ~152 vbytes (transaction (https://mempool.space/tx/693d2cf03ad2e83e6b994db649342508801c75dd14b7af396a338c28ed70147e); channel (https://amboss.space/edge/764092411635302401)). The cost of that transaction was only $0.07. The cool thing is that not only does a transaction often just cost a few cents (single digits) when sent at 1 sat/vbyte; you can even open multiple channels in a single transaction. So you kinda pay once for two channels (however a bit more due to a larger transaction size).Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on January 06, 2022, 03:08:51 PM you can even open multiple channels in a single transaction. So you kinda pay once for two channels (however a bit more due to a larger transaction size). In case someone still doesn't know, both c-lightning and LND can open multiple channels in a single transaction. The former has a dedicated command (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/lightning-multifundchannel.7.html) to it and the latter requires you to construct such a transaction manually. Mobile wallets users are out of luck for now. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on February 06, 2022, 09:45:26 PM Here are the stats for January. One of my largest channels, which I opened with some other bitcointalk user, was offline for at least half a month. Some of the routed payments were free of charge as I wanted to rebalance two of my channels this way.
https://i.imgur.com/houEwRT.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on February 09, 2022, 08:14:07 PM https://i.ibb.co/wCfyMWK/rtl-jannuary-2022.png
I should say I haven't been very active changing fees to meet the new balances after a couple of forwardings. Maybe that is also holding my node a bit back. My node is not very big either. I think only around 0.06BTC of incoming liquidity, so I think it's kinda reasonable that my routing is not that good! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on February 28, 2022, 11:41:01 PM New record! 647.73 satoshi in fees collected from 60 transactions in February. A few days ago, I opened a dual-funded channel with @n0nce and it turned out to be the right call. We routed 41 transactions in a single day!
https://i.imgur.com/XVkRr2y.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on March 02, 2022, 11:08:38 PM New record! 647.73 satoshi in fees collected from 60 transactions in February. A few days ago, I opened a dual-funded channel with @n0nce and it turned out to be the right call. We routed 41 transactions in a single day! Hell yeah! I bet if you rebalance your channels a bit, it can continue. ;D https://i.imgur.com/XVkRr2y.png Seems like there is big demand to send from some of my peers to some of yours, but I'm almost out of outbound liquidity in our channel. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on April 01, 2022, 09:35:58 PM March doesn't look good in comparison to other months. My Internet connection was unstable for over half a month and my node was down for a couple of days. I managed to fix it around the 26th and it took about 3 days before I started seeing routing attempts again.
https://i.imgur.com/3xuGQQr.png On a positive note, my node routed 6 transactions today and I earned 351.58 satoshi. April looks promising! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on April 01, 2022, 11:18:21 PM https://i.imgur.com/3xuGQQr.png Probably has nothing to do with me rebalancing our channel earlier yesterday. ;DOn a positive note, my node routed 6 transactions today and I earned 351.58 satoshi. April looks promising! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on April 01, 2022, 11:29:56 PM Probably has nothing to do with me rebalancing our channel earlier yesterday. ;D Oh, now I see that 4 of those transactions were sent from your side. How many times did you rebalance our channel? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on April 01, 2022, 11:37:29 PM Probably has nothing to do with me rebalancing our channel earlier yesterday. ;D Oh, now I see that 4 of those transactions were sent from your side. How many times did you rebalance our channel? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on April 02, 2022, 10:34:43 AM Hi. Once more I leave my results. Not much activity here either. Last couple of weeks I saw 2 channels closed. One from a Ring of Fire (without any apparent reason nor warning, :( ) and another from a damaged channel database from LightningWatch node.
And from what I can see, I might be using very low fees in my outgoing channels. I might have to go for another run changing some fees. https://i.ibb.co/R6nXDcw/rtl-march-22.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on April 02, 2022, 03:20:47 PM Here are my March stats.. :)
I need to rebalance often, so I'll have a look into adding another channel soon that might help 'route the other way round' more & keep channels more balanced. https://i.postimg.cc/d31L4kQv/image.png @darkv0rt3x you seem to collect a lot of fees! ;D What are your fee rates? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on April 04, 2022, 09:21:07 AM @darkv0rt3x you seem to collect a lot of fees! ;D What are your fee rates? Fee rates are publicly available information as they are needed for pathfinding. You can check his settings using any Lightning explorer. It's pretty straightforward on both 1ml.com (https://1ml.com/node/03fef777d58a529df02a3fb267690e0c9033767b555cc1c63844bb2d3498789f91) and amboss.space (https://amboss.space/node/03fef777d58a529df02a3fb267690e0c9033767b555cc1c63844bb2d3498789f91); you just need to scroll down a little. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on April 08, 2022, 08:55:58 AM Here are my March stats.. :) I need to rebalance often, so I'll have a look into adding another channel soon that might help 'route the other way round' more & keep channels more balanced. https://i.postimg.cc/d31L4kQv/image.png @darkv0rt3x you seem to collect a lot of fees! ;D What are your fee rates? I would prefer to have less failed routing attempts, both local_failed and failed and less fees collected, than the actual situation. I change fees every now and then, but my thumbs up rule is something like base = 90msat ~ 120msat and ppm = depends on the other peer. If I know it's a peer with more traffic, I usually set them a bit higher to easy up on lower amount transfers. I mean, to make smaller transactions cheaper and bigger transactions a bit more expensive. Also, I set both base and ppm values quite high for channels with more incoming capacity so that I try to channel activity more for outgoing channels. But sometimes, I have the idea that this takes no role. For instance, my best channel so far is with Boltz node. And usually, it doesn't matter if I have high fees on this channel because it keeps forwarding payments in AND out. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on May 06, 2022, 08:39:46 AM Here are the statistics for April.
I still haven't set up any auto-balancing/auto-fee-adjusting plugin. I don't think it would make that much of a difference. Some of my channels are set to route payments free of charge and they remain silent. I guess that I am at a point where opening new channels could help a lot but I don't really want to do it at this moment. https://i.imgur.com/Gxl2ABR.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on May 06, 2022, 01:08:41 PM I rebalanced a few times with the rebalance (https://github.com/lightningd/plugins/tree/master/rebalance) plugin; a few times manually and also multiple times with the lightning-cli rebalanceall method.
This kept my channels more balanced and active throughout the month, but somehow I earn less than you guys. ;D https://i.postimg.cc/sfJkmDnH/image.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on June 24, 2022, 10:31:10 PM Here are the stats for May. I routed only 3 transactions, all of which were free of charge. June is not going to be good as well. My node was down from the beginning of the month until this week.
https://i.imgur.com/jMbh3Fq.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on June 24, 2022, 11:14:29 PM Here are the stats for May. I routed only 3 transactions, all of which were free of charge. June is not going to be good as well. My node was down from the beginning of the month until this week. I didn't have much activity either; both last and this month. Somehow there were two channels that I simply wasn't able to rebalance anymore either, so I closed them; this means I'm right now looking for a new channel partner.. :) Just in case someone's interested - otherwise I'll look around online.https://i.imgur.com/jMbh3Fq.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 26, 2022, 10:32:56 AM Hi. Very quiet too on my side.
https://i.ibb.co/xYSGt09/image.png I have not being very pro-active changing fees etc, and I had yesterday 3 channels that were offline, for instance. I don't ave idea what else can I do in order to make my node more active. I have a friend of mine that has a lot more action in his node than me. Ok, his node is probably like twice, or even more, bigger than mine, but yet, he has way more than 3x the forwardings than me! Most of my channels are pretty well balanced and despite the fact, most of my channels are under 1M sats, I have at least 3 over 1M sats of a total of 8 channels. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 29, 2022, 10:16:14 PM I just updated my previous post. I just did a few significant new forwards and I wanted to include it in the post above. It was a forward of over 500k sats and collected over 1000 mSat. I think this might have been the biggest forward I did since I started my node like around 2 years ago. But this is still quite quiet these days!
Edited; Instead of editing the previous post, I decided to post an updated image so that I can also keep track of it! Image removed Edited; I just got it wrong. The new image was from June! Forget this post! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: konfuzius5278 on July 05, 2022, 09:04:13 AM So maybe its little off topic, but I try running a LN Node sometimes always stuck.
The thing is I want to have the possibility of some settings like channel fee and so on. I dont wanna buy a Raspi so I wanna use Ubuntu VPS, but I dont get this (https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/releases) LN daemon work. Is there any good beginners guide for it somewhere? My search not helped me. As I understand as I got a windows node working for a while, you need to fund "the other side of the channel". Is that really needed and when yes, how you do it? Thanks for your help Arwed Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on July 05, 2022, 09:47:47 AM @konfuzius5278 have a look at the RaspiBolt LND setup at https://raspibolt.org/guide/lightning/ (https://raspibolt.org/guide/lightning/), it's easy to adapt for Ubuntu and steps are easy to follow, depending on your knowledge of Debian based Linux. There're not many Raspi specific parts, mainly for downloads and appropriate arch of those.
Don't forget to have a look how data directories are laid out for RaspiBolt and adjust accordingly or copy the whole setup for your Ubuntu VPS. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on July 05, 2022, 11:34:10 PM [...] Cricktor correctly answered your question, but I have a few remarks.[1] If you want to save money, a cheap, 'local' node (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364742.0) might be a better option in the long run. You will need a VPS with a ton of storage for the blockchain and various LN databases which isn't cheap. [2] Core Lightning (https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning) (previously C-Lightning) is more lightweight and needs less resources, so that will play into your hands if trying to run the whole thing on cheap hardware (even if you do go the VPS route). [3] In case you decide to go for Core Lightning, I believe that my full node install guide (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5366854.0) will be very easy to follow. You can skip electrs if you don't need it and just install Bitcoin Core and Core Lightning. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: konfuzius5278 on July 06, 2022, 05:45:40 AM Thanks @n0nce & @Cricktor for your help.
I was inspired yesterday by the thread and done some own research again and found also Core Lighting with plugins. Currently waiting for sync the BTC Core. Lets see Still the remaining question. There are tools/plugins to re-balance the channels. But how you do the inital fund of the "other side of the cannel" (incoming?). Thanks Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on July 06, 2022, 10:51:37 PM Still the remaining question. There are tools/plugins to re-balance the channels. But how you do the inital fund of the "other side of the cannel" (incoming?). You can gain incoming liquidity in a couple of different ways: - pay for some service/goods, - use a third-party service to exchange your off-chan coins for on-chain ones (ex. Boltz (https://boltz.exchange/), ZigZag (https://zigzag.io/#/)), - contact your channel partner and do the same as above (it will be much cheaper, but there's more trust involved), - circular rebalance (only possible if you have at least two channels; one with lots of inbound liquidity and the other one with outbound capacity). If you have a hard time understanding it, don't worry. Let me know and I will give you more detailed explanations for each case. Also, c-lightning is currently the only implementation which supports dual-funded channels. Such channels might be balanced as soon as they are opened as both parties contribute funds. Note that this is still an experimental feature and very few nodes support it. I opened about 3 dual-funded channels with other bitcointalk members. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on July 06, 2022, 11:10:19 PM [...] Other ways to get inbound liquidity are:Also, c-lightning is currently the only implementation which supports dual-funded channels. Such channels might be balanced as soon as they are opened as both parties contribute funds. Note that this is still an experimental feature and very few nodes support it. I opened about 3 dual-funded channels with other bitcointalk members.
Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on July 06, 2022, 11:44:05 PM
The only catch is that those services reserve the right to close the channel at any time, especially if there isn't much activity. Oh, and I wouldn't recommend Lightning Lab's proprietary products to anyone. Liquidity ads (https://lnrouter.app/liquidity-ads) are far more superior as they take advantage of dual-funding and the gossip protocol; you don't have to install any additional software. This feature is available only in c-lightning, but its developers are heavily working on including it in the official Lightning specification. Although, I don't expect LND devs to implement it quickly once the specs are finalised as that would kill their product. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on July 07, 2022, 12:11:27 AM
Oh, and I wouldn't recommend Lightning Lab's proprietary products to anyone. Liquidity ads (https://lnrouter.app/liquidity-ads) are far more superior as they take advantage of dual-funding and the gossip protocol; you don't have to install any additional software. This feature is available only in c-lightning, but its developers are heavily working on including it in the official Lightning specification. Although, I don't expect LND devs to implement it quickly once the specs are finalised as that would kill their product. Good point! It's not a secret that I'm not a fan of Lightning Labs / LND (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5386437) in general and what they've done against great additions like BOLT12 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5383567). I actually meant to dig out liquidity ads, but found 'Lightning Pool' instead, sorry about that!Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: konfuzius5278 on July 08, 2022, 09:16:36 AM So.....after 4 days and I get a running Core Lightning node....but now....I could throw it out of the window......no plugin like GUI I get startet......and peers get immidiatly disconnected before I can fund them.... no idea what I am doing wrong >:(
And I thought the Bitcoin Core would be possible to dump the keys but the core has own Mainchain keys.....not sure if the exportet HEX file hsm_secret does its job..... ??? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on July 08, 2022, 04:05:33 PM no plugin like GUI I get startet There is no GUI. You need to install either RTL (https://github.com/Ride-The-Lightning/RTL) or spark wallet (https://github.com/shesek/spark-wallet). ......and peers get immidiatly disconnected before I can fund them.... no idea what I am doing wrong >:( Add the following lines to your config (replace DIRECTORY with any location that suits you the best): Code: log-file=DIRECTORY/lightning.log Restart your node, try opening a channel again and check the log file if it fails. .not sure if the exportet HEX file hsm_secret does its job.... It is a backup of your node's on-chain wallet. You should also consider setting up a plugin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5384133.msg59143657#msg59143657) which will back up your channels. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on July 08, 2022, 05:29:03 PM ... I have not yet used Core Lightning, so I might be on a wrong path to the darkness. You don't fund a peer, you fund a channel when you open one to a peer. You should give more details what exactly you tried to do, otherwise no Ligthning master can help you.A lot to learn you have, patient with yourself and the Core Lightning force you must be, young padawan! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on July 10, 2022, 09:45:28 PM Shouldn't you guys take this discussion to maybe a new thread? Or to the FAQ one?
Anyway, I'm pasting here my June month, regarding my forwards, which was a bit better but nothing out of the ordinary. https://i.ibb.co/1Tjq5qG/image.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on July 11, 2022, 02:29:42 PM BlackHatCoiner's Lightning Vortex (https://1ml.com/node/03cd32110547654132187f08e217b20e3ce69f49dff5119da5597a5c0f8a2c7a5e).
Current capacity: 0.07998659 BTC, from 8 channels. July's report: Both my base and fee rate are 0. I just don't see a reason on charging so little money. What's your thoughts on fee policy? Is there anyone who makes thousands of sats from just routing transactions, every month? And, is it worth it, considering the on-chain fees? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on July 11, 2022, 10:27:30 PM Both my base and fee rate are 0. I just don't see a reason on charging so little money. What's your thoughts on fee policy? Is there anyone who makes thousands of sats from just routing transactions, every month? And, is it worth it, considering the on-chain fees? You will eventually start charging fees as your channels become often unbalanced. And yes, there are people who earn thousands of sats every month. A few people shared their stats in the WO thread, but I can't find them at the moment. You may also notice that quite a lot of nodes have their base fee set to zero. If you are wondering why that's the case, read about #zerobasefee (https://basefee.ln.rene-pickhardt.de/). Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on July 12, 2022, 12:51:30 PM Both my base and fee rate are 0. I just don't see a reason on charging so little money. What's your thoughts on fee policy? Is there anyone who makes thousands of sats from just routing transactions, every month? And, is it worth it, considering the on-chain fees? I didn't understand. You say that you have 0 base and 0 ppm, but then you say that you don't see a reason on charging so little money! If you don't see reason to charge so little money, why you have your fees at 0? And another question is if you have both base and ppm at 0, how did you end up making sats? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on July 12, 2022, 12:59:19 PM [...] So, the TL;DR is: Charge the sats you need to rebalance your channels?I didn't understand. You say that you have 0 base and 0 ppm, but then you say that you don't see a reason on charging so little money! Yes. I don't find a reason to charge 1 sat per transaction.If you don't see reason to charge so little money, why you have your fees at 0? Because, I don't see a reason to charge a little more than that. And another question is if you have both base and ppm at 0, how did you end up making sats? I wasn't free of charge at the start. Later I set it to 0.Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on July 12, 2022, 07:54:22 PM [...] So, the TL;DR is: Charge the sats you need to rebalance your channels?I didn't understand. You say that you have 0 base and 0 ppm, but then you say that you don't see a reason on charging so little money! Yes. I don't find a reason to charge 1 sat per transaction.If you don't see reason to charge so little money, why you have your fees at 0? Because, I don't see a reason to charge a little more than that. And another question is if you have both base and ppm at 0, how did you end up making sats? I wasn't free of charge at the start. Later I set it to 0.So, how do you keep your fees right now? [0,0], [something,0], [0,something], [something,something] ? I have set 2 more of my channels to [0, something]. I still want to make a few sats! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on July 12, 2022, 08:50:49 PM So, how do you keep your fees right now? It's [0, 0] currently on every channel. I'll leave it up like that, just to see how many transactions I will route in one month. Then, I may rise the ppm fee. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on July 12, 2022, 10:43:13 PM So, how do you keep your fees right now? It's [0, 0] currently on every channel. I'll leave it up like that, just to see how many transactions I will route in one month. Then, I may rise the ppm fee. I do get what you're saying: if a node is getting 20 sats in a month or whatever, it may as well set everything to 0 fee and maybe help the network more by getting a little bit more usage. On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if what Rath said comes true; you could get way too much usage of some channels in one direction, which will require you to constantly rebalance. In that case, you could increase fees until the usage starts to drop to a little bit more normal levels. It's not just about rebalancing costs (it's all Lightning; doesn't cost more than a few sats), but about the work / effort you need to put in for checking the node regularly. The idea of making a few sats e.g. a few thousand over a couple months, is that they could cover on-chain opening / closing fees in the long run and allow to run the node at zero cost. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on July 13, 2022, 08:03:06 AM On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if what Rath said comes true; you could get way too much usage of some channels in one direction, which will require you to constantly rebalance. The idea of making a few sats e.g. a few thousand over a couple months, is that they could cover on-chain opening / closing fees in the long run and allow to run the node at zero cost. I gotta tell you, I'd absolutely trade a few sats for the ability to transfer bitcoin instantly. Even if I have the power to charge a few sats, just to cover the on and off-chain fees (which I will start from next month), the benefit of making transactions via Lightning essentially for free is priceless.So yeah. According to my turn of mind, a few sats is a price I'm willing to pay, even if I don't charge anything. :) Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on July 13, 2022, 11:29:36 PM On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if what Rath said comes true; you could get way too much usage of some channels in one direction, which will require you to constantly rebalance. The idea of making a few sats e.g. a few thousand over a couple months, is that they could cover on-chain opening / closing fees in the long run and allow to run the node at zero cost. I gotta tell you, I'd absolutely trade a few sats for the ability to transfer bitcoin instantly. Even if I have the power to charge a few sats, just to cover the on and off-chain fees (which I will start from next month), the benefit of making transactions via Lightning essentially for free is priceless.So yeah. According to my turn of mind, a few sats is a price I'm willing to pay, even if I don't charge anything. :) In theory, if you can get your fee policies balanced well, you could get channels to always be balanced due to not being overused in one direction compared to the other; thus always being ready to use (for payments and invoices as well as routing attempts). Today I went ahead and manually balanced all my channels (which also cost a few hundred sats in routing fees) and immediately routed 6 payments over the day, after weeks with barely any activity. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on July 14, 2022, 07:24:12 AM About wha tyou guys been talking, @BlackHatCoiner and @n0nce, I've been trying to change fees regularly as the channels balance changes. So, my strategy is that when a channel gets more balance on my side, I usually try to drop fees a little bit and within those channels, if the channel is bigger and potentially bringing more traffic, I set ppm a bit higher so that higher amount transactions may be charged a bit more than lower amount payments!
Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: flatounet on July 17, 2022, 09:07:58 PM I've been meaning to do a larger write up of my experience once I hit 1M sats in fees. I run the node Prince, https://1ml.com/node/02644f80b5d32ed9a9888690571159692a17d7ead7db2df5124a8e2a72a8447d30 I am currently ranked 8th on the BOS rankings (https://fulmo.org/bos-score.html) and 12th on lightning terminal rankings. I have 8-9 BTC on my node with about 110 channels (I have more incoming that outcoming liquidity, so that 8BTC is not my investment). Top line numbers: Over the past 5 months have routed over 6700 payments worth over 1.7 billion sats earning me about 900k sats in routing fees; I've spent about 100k sats in on-chain fees and rebalancing fees. For those doing the math, that comes out to about 0.5% APR on my locked-up capital. Although my volume is steadily increasing and I may be able to get closer to 1% in the next year. I have everything automated including fees and re-balancing. -- I use lnd-charge for fees: https://github.com/accumulator/charge-lnd -- I use c-otto's script for automatic re-balancing: https://c-otto.de/ Happy to answer more questions -- oh, and feel free to open a channel to me. The best way to get started is to open liquidity triangles with people (ie A->B; B->C; C->A). Happy to be a part of a couple here if there is interest. I do require a minimum of 5M sats for any incoming channels. hello , sorry for quote , i tryed umbrel in december , and actually im on citadel , got 5"000"000 sat on it , i opened a small chan with a dev ( from citadel ) , but total newbie , and i see too , to do automatisation for balancing ,tower ? and thank's for information about triangle (ie A->B; B->C; C->A) it's writed. any way for a small resume what to do for start ? i opened chanel like nub ,with lighting terminal ,and pay around 2300 sat for open it when the guy say me no ,use thunderhub and u can set 230 sat ??? just here ,you want to help comunity and ur stolen .... just my question can you resume tool do you use and setting ? and what the key for open good chanel ? key is shop because btc go to here ( comercial traffic) to geografical user ? im in eu , may be one node on russia ( for the east ? , one in usa for the west world map ? ) i have made search , youtube got some video '(JonathanLeviBitcoinfortheMasses)' but im not english ,speak too fast ,and subtible main are not correct ... or any good site , with what to do step by step ? because on umbrel or citadel , yes you can open chanel manually ,but you pay fee for balance or rebalance and like chanel opened , you pay 10 time the price than a normal/good user ... and im here for help btc/network and not to be the pigeon ... to pay 10x the price for chan .. because i use the defaut tool .... actually im using LNDg ,in automatic but i dont understand ,know the value to use .... like balancing chanel , i dont know about autopilot or tower , or setting ... pm welcome ,sure blur / delete all private info .. ( yes im on telegram from citadel & umbrel , but i dont get any help .... all look are good in code / linux ....) Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on July 21, 2022, 08:24:01 AM I've been meaning to do a larger write up of my experience once I hit 1M sats in fees. I run the node Prince, https://1ml.com/node/02644f80b5d32ed9a9888690571159692a17d7ead7db2df5124a8e2a72a8447d30 I am currently ranked 8th on the BOS rankings (https://fulmo.org/bos-score.html) and 12th on lightning terminal rankings. I have 8-9 BTC on my node with about 110 channels (I have more incoming that outcoming liquidity, so that 8BTC is not my investment). Top line numbers: Over the past 5 months have routed over 6700 payments worth over 1.7 billion sats earning me about 900k sats in routing fees; I've spent about 100k sats in on-chain fees and rebalancing fees. For those doing the math, that comes out to about 0.5% APR on my locked-up capital. Although my volume is steadily increasing and I may be able to get closer to 1% in the next year. I have everything automated including fees and re-balancing. -- I use lnd-charge for fees: https://github.com/accumulator/charge-lnd -- I use c-otto's script for automatic re-balancing: https://c-otto.de/ Happy to answer more questions -- oh, and feel free to open a channel to me. The best way to get started is to open liquidity triangles with people (ie A->B; B->C; C->A). Happy to be a part of a couple here if there is interest. I do require a minimum of 5M sats for any incoming channels. hello , sorry for quote , i tryed umbrel in december , and actually im on citadel , got 5"000"000 sat on it , i opened a small chan with a dev ( from citadel ) , but total newbie , and i see too , to do automatisation for balancing ,tower ? and thank's for information about triangle (ie A->B; B->C; C->A) it's writed. any way for a small resume what to do for start ? i opened chanel like nub ,with lighting terminal ,and pay around 2300 sat for open it when the guy say me no ,use thunderhub and u can set 230 sat ??? just here ,you want to help comunity and ur stolen .... I'm not sure I understood your issue. From what I understood, you tried Umbrel and then you quit and tried Citadel implementation. When you tried to open a channel to someone, you paid 2300 sat fee (onchain) to open it. Then, you were told you could have paid 10x less than that. Am I correct? Well, on-chain fees can always be chosen by the user. However, it may also depend on the implementation of your node. If you use the raw commands from the backend, you'll have the choice to choose while probably some frontends, mostly those more minimalist may only have options like fast, normal, slow/cheaper. In my case, I always go with the raw commands. They usually force us to read the docs and the learning curve is always rewarding in the future! just my question can you resume tool do you use and setting ? and what the key for open good chanel ? Not sure I understood this. You mean what tools we use for rebalancing? Or tools to do what? And settings for what? Are you talking about opening channels, managing them or rebalancing? About opening channels, there could be a lot to say or simply not much. Depends on so many things and also your will. There is nothing wrong with opening smaller channels nor nothing wrong on opening large channels. For me, a small channel is a channel under 400k sats (on each side). Big channel would be over 2.5 million sats on each side. However, these are only my standards. Others could consider a 2 million sat channel. rather small. Only thing I can say is that the smaller the channel, maybe the smaller of payments go through, but still what one considers small. Another thing is that if possible, try to open channels to people which don't have channels open to others with channels open to you. This is the case of loops. I don't mean they are bad, but I rather open channels in a way I don't create loops so that there are higher number of connections, and therefore, the node may be in contact with a larger portion of the network. But this is only my reasoning. I might even be wrong. i have made search , youtube got some video '(JonathanLeviBitcoinfortheMasses)' but im not english ,speak too fast ,and subtible main are not correct ... or any good site , with what to do step by step ? There is plenty of information. I'm not sure one can give you a link where all answers to your questions are. This always been and always will be a matter or searching, reading, trying, fixing, searching more, reading, trying again and so on. because on umbrel or citadel , yes you can open chanel manually ,but you pay fee for balance or rebalance and like chanel opened , you pay 10 time the price than a normal/good user ... and im here for help btc/network and not to be the pigeon ... to pay 10x the price for chan .. because i use the defaut tool .... actually im using LNDg ,in automatic but i dont understand ,know the value to use .... like balancing chanel , i dont know about autopilot or tower , or setting ... I use Core Lightning and RTL (just for visualization) but I do everything from the command line as I said above. I do rebalancing only very rarely, opening and closing channels I do it manually from the command like, etc. I don't have anywatch tower setup and maybe I should have one. Maybe I do that in a near future. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on July 23, 2022, 01:27:43 PM I don't have anywatch tower setup and maybe I should have one. Maybe I do that in a near future. When a Lightning node is online 24/7 why would you need a watchtower for it? From my understanding of LN only reason I would consider an independent watchtower if you want a protection for your channels should your Lightning node go offline for some unexpected reasons. If offline periods are rather short (say less than ~30min) and scarce, I wouldn't bother to setup an independent watchtower. (I might be wrong, though.)Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on July 23, 2022, 05:23:12 PM I don't have anywatch tower setup and maybe I should have one. Maybe I do that in a near future. When a Lightning node is online 24/7 why would you need a watchtower for it? From my understanding of LN only reason I would consider an independent watchtower if you want a protection for your channels should your Lightning node go offline for some unexpected reasons. If offline periods are rather short (say less than ~30min) and scarce, I wouldn't bother to setup an independent watchtower. (I might be wrong, though.)You should also factor in how good your backup solution is and how quickly you can spin up a backup of your node in case of a hardware failure. Like: how long does it take you to get a new hard drive (or even whole new server in the worst case), download the whole blockchain and install all the necessary software, and are your locktimes longer than that? If you're not certain that you can restore a node quickly enough to punish a malicious channel partner in case of extended downtime, a watchtower can make a lot of sense. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on July 23, 2022, 05:41:15 PM Sorry if that's off-topic, but isn't the whole "use a watchtower" option obtuse? So, you prefer paying a third party monthly to watch the chain in case for cheating attempt, wherein there's trust involved and you don't gain the same level of privacy, and not paying for a power supplier, to be sure you'll be running 24/7? On top of that, you're connected with people who have a reputation to maintain. Not only won't they choose to cheat because of the loss of money (from the penalty transaction), but because of their fame preservation.
Here's a penalty transaction monitor: https://forkmonitor.info/lightning Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on July 23, 2022, 11:42:58 PM Sorry if that's off-topic, but isn't the whole "use a watchtower" option obtuse? I don't think it is; that's a good question.So, you prefer paying a third party monthly to watch the chain in case for cheating attempt, wherein there's trust involved and you don't gain the same level of privacy, and not paying for a power supplier, to be sure you'll be running 24/7? Here we assume the watchtower is a 3rd party. For me, that's not an option. I would use a server / computer of mine that is in a physically different location. It could even be a VPS. In case I believe that the VPS supplier might try breaching my privacy by looking at the services I run on it and the nodes my watchtower is watching, I could just set it to watch a whole bunch of nodes, creating some sort of 'anonymity set' larger than 1.On top of that, you're connected with people who have a reputation to maintain. Not only won't they choose to cheat because of the loss of money (from the penalty transaction), but because of their fame preservation. This assumes you're only connected to nodes that have a reputation to maintain. This doesn't have to be the case and for Lightning to be a good system, you should absolutely be able to connect to nodes you don't trust.Here's a penalty transaction monitor: https://forkmonitor.info/lightning Very interesting! I'm not sure how many nodes this is monitoring (I assume all of them, by scanning for penalty transactions on-chain), but penalty transactions do appear to be pretty rare, especially factoring in that there are almost 100,000 channels nowadays.Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on July 24, 2022, 09:10:01 AM This assumes you're only connected to nodes that have a reputation to maintain. This doesn't have to be the case and for Lightning to be a good system, you should absolutely be able to connect to nodes you don't trust. Sure, but almost all nodes do have a reputation to maintain. If I opened up a channel with you, I'd absolutely not be incentivized to screw it up like this, even if you went offline for a few weeks. Cheating happens publicly, not privately. You could open a case accusing me, with valid evidence. Anyone could, even people whom I've never talked to. Broadcasting a penalty transaction means one of the two is a scammer, de facto, and the honest user can prove the other guilty by showing their commitments.It does form a somewhat trustless rep-based network. Reputation doesn't have to do necessarily with being a cheater. If you don't go well with other nodes, like you get used to close channels very often or charge high fees you won't be likeable. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on July 24, 2022, 04:01:00 PM This assumes you're only connected to nodes that have a reputation to maintain. This doesn't have to be the case and for Lightning to be a good system, you should absolutely be able to connect to nodes you don't trust. Sure, but almost all nodes do have a reputation to maintain. If I opened up a channel with you, I'd absolutely not be incentivized to screw it up like this, even if you went offline for a few weeks. Cheating happens publicly, not privately. Ugh... massive hardware failure. Two nodes down. Might need a little advice and moral support for what to do... ... It was possible that the node would get punished for restoring an old channel state backup, but I'd still open a channel with them in the future. You could open a case accusing me, with valid evidence. Anyone could, even people whom I've never talked to. Broadcasting a penalty transaction means one of the two is a scammer, de facto, and the honest user can prove the other guilty by showing their commitments. Also I'm not sure where to open such a case. I don't think that node operators who don't visit this forum would ever read it if I wrote it here, for instance.It does form a somewhat trustless rep-based network. Reputation doesn't have to do necessarily with being a cheater. If you don't go well with other nodes, like you get used to close channels very often or charge high fees you won't be likeable. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on July 24, 2022, 09:01:14 PM When I posted my comment, I wasn't thinking much about possible hardware issues and failures (which reminds me to think about more regular backups for my node, indeed). Last severe hardware issues I experienced seem to be too long ago, seems like I'm getting reckless.
I'm kind of blessed with very stable power and internet connection, can't remember any power outage in the last years, nor any internet interruption which lasted longer than a few minutes or happens more often than once in a few months. Probably I shouldn't take that for granted. And yes, any hardware can fail. For a watchtower I wouldn't use a third party service, rather use a virtual server which I run for some other services. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on August 04, 2022, 11:23:20 AM Here is my report from July. Completely different from previous month.
I should also say that I think I spend more in rebalancing than by earning fees from routing! https://i.ibb.co/pRfcVLx/fees-RTL-July-2022.png In August I already rebalance a channel twice and split the fees in half with the other peer and spent around 63 sats for each rebalance with did! So, I spent a total of aroun 126 sats and only got probably 10 sats! I have to increase the fees a bit on this channel! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Wind_FURY on August 13, 2022, 09:22:34 AM Here is my report from July. Completely different from previous month. I should also say that I think I spend more in rebalancing than by earning fees from routing! https://i.ibb.co/pRfcVLx/fees-RTL-July-2022.png In August I already rebalance a channel twice and split the fees in half with the other peer and spent around 63 sats for each rebalance with did! So, I spent a total of aroun 126 sats and only got probably 10 sats! I have to increase the fees a bit on this channel! As running Lightning nodes will become a more and more specialized activity, and as the demand for Lightning transactions also increase more and more, do you see a future that would make Lightning transaction fees higher than expected? I'm starting to notice the same cycle over and over, in altcoins. I don't know if it's truly applicable in Lightning, although I have debated about it, to the anger of some forum members. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on August 13, 2022, 03:35:02 PM As running Lightning nodes will become a more and more specialized activity, and as the demand for Lightning transactions also increase more and more, do you see a future that would make Lightning transaction fees higher than expected? There are different kind of parameters to take into consideration. Well, yeah, since running a Lightning node becomes even more specialized, and demand for routing (to be more precise) rises, there has to be a higher price for it. But, as Lightning becomes more decentralized, by the entrance of new funds, from new users, there's more competition for routing fees (or economically speaking, greater supply) which makes the price drop. There's something I hadn't thought in the past. As Lightning becomes more decentralized, we'll observe either more frequent routing failures (which won't last due to competition), or higher fees due to need for more intermediaries to route (since there will be little connectivity across the network*), or both. *If the network becomes larger at scale, imagine the times a transaction has to be routed to be accomplished if node A is in one edge of the map, and node B is in the other. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on August 14, 2022, 09:23:19 AM As running Lightning nodes will become a more and more specialized activity, and as the demand for Lightning transactions also increase more and more, do you see a future that would make Lightning transaction fees higher than expected? I'm starting to notice the same cycle over and over, in altcoins. I don't know if it's truly applicable in Lightning, although I have debated about it, to the anger of some forum members. As I see it, I don't think fees must increase over time and due to more adoption, more traffic etc. LN is still quite new and in development. Failed transactions still play huge role in the network, maybe because we still have many people creating nodes just for the fun of it, letting them poorly managed and causing many bad routes, very small channels and very poorly connected to the network (seems that nodes can be kind of left in "the corner" of the network if owners do not care much to whom they connect to). Also, I am not aware if the pathfinding algorithms can be improved or even if dev teams are even consiering it. Or even if devs can, in the future, change the protocol, if a better method of pathfinding is found. But I'm not too worried, at least fo now. I have a small node, probably one of those poorly connected because I refuse to connect to very big nodes, giving them even more "power" (I see it as centralisation of funds). I rather connect to smaller nodes and try to help the decentralisation of the network in terms of where the majority of fund are (nodes like, ACINQ, LNBIG, etc and so forth). I have some of my channels with a 0 base fee policy with a some non zero number in ppm setting to favour smaller payments. Still, I can find failed payments of 11 sats, which I honestly don't understand. I don't believe this is a matter of lack of liquidity anywhere in the way. But no idea why a 11 sat payment fails! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on August 14, 2022, 10:45:45 AM It's [0, 0] currently on every channel. I'll leave it up like that, just to see how many transactions I will route in one month. Then, I may rise the ppm fee. So, last month I have routed 315 transactions, moving a total of 5,066,008 satoshis, each moving 16,082 satoshis on average, free of charge! I'm now changing the fee policy. The base fee rises to 1000 mSats and the fee rate (milli mSats) becomes 25. I'll update my forwarding statistics next month, let's see what I can grab that way. I don't know if it has happened to you, but I can't set the fee rate to 25 with base fee 0. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on August 14, 2022, 11:31:40 AM It's [0, 0] currently on every channel. I'll leave it up like that, just to see how many transactions I will route in one month. Then, I may rise the ppm fee. So, last month I have routed 315 transactions, moving a total of 5,066,008 satoshis, each moving 16,082 satoshis on average, free of charge! I'm now changing the fee policy. The base fee rises to 1000 mSats and the fee rate (milli mSats) becomes 25. I'll update my forwarding statistics next month, let's see what I can grab that way. I don't know if it has happened to you, but I can't set change the fee rate to 25 with base fee 0. You mean this: Code: $ lightning-cli -k setchannel id=744268x1405x1 feebase=0 feeppm=25 Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on August 14, 2022, 11:42:30 AM Yes. It might work from lightning-cli, but not from RTL.
Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on August 15, 2022, 10:22:30 AM Yes. It might work from lightning-cli, but not from RTL. Can you set fees to a channel in RTL? Never seen the option. Never looked for it either! But I usually do these stuff from the command line! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on August 15, 2022, 10:24:03 AM It allows you to change the local fee policy, but once I change it to [0, 25], I open it up again to confirm, and it says [1000, 25].
Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on August 15, 2022, 10:35:40 AM It allows you to change the local fee policy, but once I change it to [0, 25], I open it up again to confirm, and it says [1000, 25]. Can you point me exactly here is that option to change fees? I can't find it! Edit; Ohh, I found it, nevermind! Probably worth of opening an issue maybe. I'll try to change our channel fees to see if I have the same behaviour! Edit 1; Mine, keeps the setting. I had it [base, ppm] = [0, 25] and changed it to [base, ppm] = [100, 500] and then changed back to [base, ppm] = [0, 25] and after cicking update an open again the menu, the values were stick to the [base, ppm] = [0, 25]. Going to check in the command line, step at a step! To rule out any visual glitch from the frontend. Edit 2; So: Step 1 - Change fees to [base, ppm] = [100, 500] in RTL. Wait a few seconds. Step 2 - Check in command line: Code: lightning-cli listchannels 744268x1405x1 Step 3 - Change fees to [base, ppm] = [0, 25] in RTL and wait a few seconds. Step 4 - Check in RTL if values are still there by going to the Update Fees menu again. They are still there Step 4 - Check in command line Code: $ lightning-cli listchannels 744268x1405x1 So, on my side, things seems to be working! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on August 15, 2022, 10:38:10 PM It allows you to change the local fee policy, but once I change it to [0, 25], I open it up again to confirm, and it says [1000, 25]. I've played around with this recently on command-line and RTL. The latter is a little buggy, but it does work. I believe it consistently sets the new fee policy, just that the old value is still cached. Or it delays the RPC call. In any way; if you set it through the GUI and check back a while later, maybe even after closing and reopening the dashboard, it does show the new values perfectly fine. darkv0rt3x, in case you're comfortable disclosing this; do you run RTL through clearnet / local network or Tor? I believe BlackHatCoiner and me connect to the dashboard through Tor - maybe there's heavier caching due to slow Tor performance? Just a hypothesis. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on August 26, 2022, 09:59:45 PM I know my reply is slightly late, but you still might find it interesting.
So, you prefer paying a third party monthly to watch the chain in case for cheating attempt, wherein there's trust involved and you don't gain the same level of privacy, and not paying for a power supplier, to be sure you'll be running 24/7? I don't think that there are any paid watchtower services as none of the available implementations support reward watchtowers. The privacy is not an issue either. Watchtowers receive encrypted penalty transactions which can be decrypted only if an outdated commitment transaction is published. Here (https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/master/docs/watchtower.md) you can learn about LND's implemenation. I believe that lightningnetwork.plus (https://lightningnetwork.plus/watchtower) is the most popular altruistic watchtower service. As for c-lightning, I know that a watchtower plugin (https://github.com/talaia-labs/rust-teos/tree/master/watchtower-plugin) exists, but I have never used it. Cheating happens publicly, not privately. You could open a case accusing me, with valid evidence. Anyone could, even people whom I've never talked to. Broadcasting a penalty transaction means one of the two is a scammer, de facto, and the honest user can prove the other guilty by showing their commitments. You can't tell if someone tried to cheat or if it was an accident (due to a bug or an outdated backup). Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on August 29, 2022, 12:27:52 AM Here are the stats for June and July. I haven't been paying much attention to my Lightning node lately - I rarely adjusted my feerates and I didn't rebalance any of my channels. I am sorry for occasional downtime. It took me a while to figure out what was was causing my Internet connection to go down regularly.
June: https://i.imgur.com/f3PMCG7.jpg July: 39 routed transactions, 34 (!) of which were free of charge. https://i.imgur.com/Kw3YD5l.jpg Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on September 02, 2022, 09:09:22 PM Here are the stats for August. Another unimpressive month. I have just updated c-lightning to v0.12.0 since it introduced support for static channel backups. I will play around with them and I will report back soon what I have learned.
https://i.imgur.com/z8A04Bk.jpg Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on September 04, 2022, 10:45:34 AM Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on September 05, 2022, 01:38:04 PM I only routed 2 payments in August!
Probably just too few and too small channels. Even though it doesn't see much use as a routing node at all, it works great for personal usage; so it's connected well enough to allow me to send and receive payments almost without issues. https://i.postimg.cc/9MT3stRY/image.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on November 01, 2022, 06:07:02 PM Here is my reports from both September and October
September https://i.ibb.co/hYX60tS/image.png October https://i.ibb.co/f084sZN/image.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on November 01, 2022, 06:16:38 PM I routed 4 payments in October. 8)
https://i.postimg.cc/J0nbHqJc/image.png Wow, 14 payments and over 1000 sats in fees is pretty nice! Did you change something between September and October? Maybe towards the end of October? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on November 01, 2022, 06:33:13 PM Here are my statistics for September. I didn't make any changes to my settings in the last few months.
https://i.imgur.com/7Y8yyC3.png As for October, I routed only one small payment, free of charge. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on November 01, 2022, 07:13:07 PM I routed 4 payments in October. 8) (image removed by me for easier reading) October Wow, 14 payments and over 1000 sats in fees is pretty nice! Did you change something between September and October? Maybe towards the end of October?(image removed by me for easier reading) The only thing I change is the fees. The number of payments where quite higer because I had a couple of channels with both fee settings at 0 (base and fee_ppm) In fact, from the 14events, only 5 were charged with fees. And from those 5, 3 of them are in the same channel with a pretty decent node (Boltz). I balance this channel quite frequently. Mayabe once a month. I'm actually doing it as we speak! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on December 01, 2022, 07:52:23 PM Here are the stats for November. My node has routed only two transactions: one small free-of-charge payment and one large payment for an over 200 satoshi fee.
https://i.imgur.com/xjUW2KS.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on December 03, 2022, 04:01:43 AM ~ Is your node up? Our connection dropped. :PTitle: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on December 03, 2022, 07:52:21 PM Is your node up? Our connection dropped. :P My node is going to be down for the next couple of days. I might bring it up once in a while so that it can catch up with the network. I am moving again, sorry about that! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: AGD on December 06, 2022, 08:24:19 AM Guess it's just what other nodes we are connected to and how much is in the channels. Yeah, it depends a ton about who you're connecting to and also the size of those channels. To maximize routing and profits, some people actually manually monitor their channels. Some recommendations I picked up:* Don't create channel between 2 already connected nodes. (e.g. check via LN explorers) * If a channel isn't routing anything for a long time, close it. * If a channel starts to get used much, but only in one direction, rebalance it so it continues being used. * Look for nodes with much usage, but no 1-hop connection and connect them through you. * Adapt fees up / down in the channels that are used much, like sometimes your fees are just too high; sometimes users keep paying if you increase them since you're the only route to some location. This is just off the top of my mind, not sure if I can find the original 'list' anymore. We may just create a new thread for that. I don't feel qualified for it myself though, since I was never a big routing node myself. With regards to 'LN node experience', I will post in here in the future when I find the time to write down all my experiences and make a concise but informative post of it. Just a few thoughts: Quote * Don't create channel between 2 already connected nodes. (e.g. check via LN explorers) While this might be true with some of the biggest nodes, sometimes opening a channel between 2 connected nodes can help with rebalancing. You are creating a triangle that can possibly rebalance within one or two hops.Quote * If a channel isn't routing anything for a long time, close it. Sometimes a channel doesn`t route, because liquidity is on the wrong side, or you need another channel with one of other node´s partners to see sats flowing through it. If liquididity stays on your side for too long, try to rebalance another channel with that liquidity and watch if the node pushes back those sats.When other nodes are opening a channel to mine, I try to rebalance that channel for a reasonable fee and put my fee about 50-100% higher. Let`s say I pay 200ppm for the rebalance. I would start with a fee of 400ppm and go slowly (about 1-2 times a day) down in like 10ppm steps until a routing takes place. If a node doesn´t route anything for a few months, I pull all the liquidity to my side and close the channel. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on December 07, 2022, 09:25:24 PM Just a few thoughts: True, good point!Quote * Don't create channel between 2 already connected nodes. (e.g. check via LN explorers) While this might be true with some of the biggest nodes, sometimes opening a channel between 2 connected nodes can help with rebalancing. You are creating a triangle that can possibly rebalance within one or two hops.Quote * If a channel isn't routing anything for a long time, close it. Sometimes a channel doesn`t route, because liquidity is on the wrong side, or you need another channel with one of other node´s partners to see sats flowing through it. If liquididity stays on your side for too long, try to rebalance another channel with that liquidity and watch if the node pushes back those sats.When other nodes are opening a channel to mine, I try to rebalance that channel for a reasonable fee and put my fee about 50-100% higher. Let`s say I pay 200ppm for the rebalance. I would start with a fee of 400ppm and go slowly (about 1-2 times a day) down in like 10ppm steps until a routing takes place. If a node doesn´t route anything for a few months, I pull all the liquidity to my side and close the channel. Sounds good!Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on January 06, 2023, 01:48:34 PM Here are the stats for December. My node has routed a total of 8 transactions, 6 of which were free of charge. My node was down for almost three weeks that month. I will do my best to find more time this year to manage my node.
https://i.imgur.com/nxboaqp.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BitcoinVN_official on January 06, 2023, 02:26:20 PM We have recently launched our dedicated stats page for our Lightning Routing Node (likely one of the largest over here in South East Asia)
ln.bitcoinvn.io (http://ln.bitcoinvn.io) First iteration, so keen to hear feedback what other numbers & stats might be of interest. :) (Our services currently allow for no KYC cashout into any Vietnamese bank account (https://bitcoinvn.io/?deposit=btcln&settle=vnd), we've also on the roadmap in the latter half of '23 to get our fleet of Bitcoin ATM's in Vietnam (http://twitter.com/BitcoinATMHCMC) ready to use via Lightning (currently only on-chain which can make the sale process quite slow at times :-X) ) Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on January 06, 2023, 03:07:29 PM First iteration, so keen to hear feedback what other numbers & stats might be of interest. :) It would be great to see more routing related statistics like: number of routed transactions and average (routed) payment size. How do you adjust your fees? Manually or using some plugin? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BitcoinVN_official on January 07, 2023, 04:14:41 AM First iteration, so keen to hear feedback what other numbers & stats might be of interest. :) It would be great to see more routing related statistics like: number of routed transactions and average (routed) payment size. How do you adjust your fees? Manually or using some plugin? 1) Noted! Will get it forwarded to our team and see what can be done about it :) 2) Currently all adjustments are made manually (done usually about once per day in average) Later on as additional scale might come in, we might look to automate it further - but most likely via some (at least initially) crude "home-cooked" algos based on our observations. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on January 07, 2023, 09:35:42 PM First iteration, so keen to hear feedback what other numbers & stats might be of interest. :) It would be great to see more routing related statistics like: number of routed transactions and average (routed) payment size. How do you adjust your fees? Manually or using some plugin? 1) Noted! Will get it forwarded to our team and see what can be done about it :) 2) Currently all adjustments are made manually (done usually about once per day in average) Later on as additional scale might come in, we might look to automate it further - but most likely via some (at least initially) crude "home-cooked" algos based on our observations. You guys change fees on a daily basis? BTW, these where the forward payments for November. 7 events and 6 of them were completely free of charge. No fee_base nor ppm. I forgot the ppm. https://i.ibb.co/HNkfmsc/image.png In December, for "punishement" for being too kind to the network, I made no forwards whatsoever! :| Furthermore, I spent around 1200 sats rebalancing a new channel I opened to one of Bitrefill nodes. Also, there was someone from Reddit, kind enough to open a 2.5M sats channel to my node just because I asked him to dod so, so that my node would be globally balanced! Thanks reddit user! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on January 07, 2023, 11:18:41 PM I think I had my best month in terms of total fees collected, in December! Did no changes, balancing or anything, but it was pretty balanced already. Someone closed a channel so I have 300kSat in the on-chain wallet and unsure what to do with such small amount. Worth opening a channel with it or maybe just submarine-swap it into an existing channel?
https://i.postimg.cc/zX8Kt5LX/image.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on January 07, 2023, 11:58:33 PM I think I had my best month in terms of total fees collected, in December! Did no changes, balancing or anything, but it was pretty balanced already. Someone closed a channel so I have 300kSat in the on-chain wallet and unsure what to do with such small amount. Worth opening a channel with it or maybe just submarine-swap it into an existing channel? https://i.postimg.cc/zX8Kt5LX/image.png Nice job. You can do a submarine-swap to add online sats to an existing channel? Can you explain a little bit more on that? Seems handy! I was in the same situation for a couple of months with aroun 200k sats sitting there doing nothing! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on January 08, 2023, 12:07:02 AM You can do a submarine-swap to add online sats to an existing channel? Can you explain a little bit more on that? Seems handy! I was in the same situation for a couple of months with aroun 200k sats sitting there doing nothing! Yes, precisely. In a submarine swap (basically a special type of atomic swap), you never give up custody of funds; instead, a special Bitcoin script allows the service to claim your on-chain funds only through paying your LN invoice.It is explained very nicely here: https://medium.com/boltzhq/submarine-swaps-c509ce0fb1db I'd recommend to use the boltz service, and they also have a dedicated onion version of their website linked on the top right (http://boltzzzbnus4m7mta3cxmflnps4fp7dueu2tgurstbvrbt6xswzcocyd.onion/). Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BitcoinVN_official on January 08, 2023, 04:05:04 PM First iteration, so keen to hear feedback what other numbers & stats might be of interest. :) It would be great to see more routing related statistics like: number of routed transactions and average (routed) payment size. How do you adjust your fees? Manually or using some plugin? 1) Noted! Will get it forwarded to our team and see what can be done about it :) 2) Currently all adjustments are made manually (done usually about once per day in average) Later on as additional scale might come in, we might look to automate it further - but most likely via some (at least initially) crude "home-cooked" algos based on our observations. You guys change fees on a daily basis? Yep :) That said, we usually only change the fees on channels which get "out-of-balance" one way or the other. In average (no hard numbers, just "guesstimation") likely about 90%ish of channels keep the fees they had the day before. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: psycodad on January 08, 2023, 04:53:18 PM Lightning seems to pick up steam, at least since December I see an noteable uptick in routing events that I can't pinpoint to any new channel or whatsoever..
I have my node since Sep 2021, since about a year the capacity is ~0.4 BTC. These are my routing stats for 2022: https://i.postimg.cc/TPK2Kryx/2022.png These are for the first days of January 2023: https://i.postimg.cc/BQJqTW8M/jan2023.png And to put that into context, my total stats since Sep 2021 are: Quote Total: 4,605.266 Sats Transactions: 625 I am curious how this continues to unfold. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on January 08, 2023, 06:02:12 PM Lightning seems to pick up steam, at least since December I see an noteable uptick in routing events that I can't pinpoint to any new channel or whatsoever.. I have my node since Sep 2021, since about a year the capacity is ~0.4 BTC. These are my routing stats for 2022: https://i.postimg.cc/TPK2Kryx/2022.png Yearly stats are a good idea! Mine look like this. I've only had this node since February and with much less capacity, though. In that regard; do you calculate capacity as just your own LN balance or total inbound + total outbound? https://i.postimg.cc/G3YNvg8w/image.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on January 08, 2023, 07:22:27 PM I would also like to suggest to people to come up with a simple way of showing the fees you all hhave on your channels, if it is doable. Small nodes should be easy to do it.
Something like an excel sheet where we use columns for channel size, base_fee and ppm. I think no need to include channel IDs. What you guys think? Edited; My early reports 2020 https://i.ibb.co/NLrYjmm/2020-fees.png 2021 https://i.ibb.co/9pXg2Ps/2021-fees.png 2022 https://i.ibb.co/dcbBVPz/2022-fees.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: psycodad on January 08, 2023, 08:52:13 PM In that regard; do you calculate capacity as just your own LN balance or total inbound + total outbound? https://i.postimg.cc/G3YNvg8w/image.png The 0.4 mentioned are total inbound + outbound. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on January 08, 2023, 09:13:43 PM You can do a submarine-swap to add online sats to an existing channel? Can you explain a little bit more on that? Seems handy! I was in the same situation for a couple of months with aroun 200k sats sitting there doing nothing! Yes, precisely. In a submarine swap (basically a special type of atomic swap), you never give up custody of funds; instead, a special Bitcoin script allows the service to claim your on-chain funds only through paying your LN invoice.It is explained very nicely here: https://medium.com/boltzhq/submarine-swaps-c509ce0fb1db I'd recommend to use the boltz service, and they also have a dedicated onion version of their website linked on the top right (http://boltzzzbnus4m7mta3cxmflnps4fp7dueu2tgurstbvrbt6xswzcocyd.onion/). Yes, I know how Submarine Swaps work. I just couldn't understand how would those work for the purpose you mentioned, I guess. I know Boltz. I tried it once, at least, just for the sake of experience! And I think I also did a small tutorial about Submarine-Swaps and posted it somewhere in this forum, but I guess it didn't get too much attention! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: gunhell16 on January 09, 2023, 11:35:36 AM Well, the long term that's probably where the lightning network is going, Particularly, because as anyone who runs their nodes
seriously will tell you running a lightning node manually is very time-consuming. And during the first time, I set up my node, I was spending dozens of hours every week, learning about the lightning network, researching the best channels to open scrolling via logs of failed HTLCs, Adjusting prices, and opening and closing channels. Fortunately, over time the tools available in the lightning node operators have become increasingly sophisticated. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on January 09, 2023, 06:51:09 PM Yes, I know how Submarine Swaps work. I just couldn't understand how would those work for the purpose you mentioned, I guess. Simply swap those on-chain funds from your LN node for Lightning funds (on the same node). There's no way to tell which channel they will end up topping up (usually multiple, through multiple routes), but if you're not happy with the end result (e.g. they made an already unbalanced channel more unbalanced), you can quickly fix it by manually rebalancing.I would also like to suggest to people to come up with a simple way of showing the fees you all hhave on your channels, if it is doable. Small nodes should be easy to do it. Something like this may really help learn from each other and maximize routing & collected fees. It would be best as a Core Lightning / RTL plugin, I guess, that exports all relevant info with one click. There are many factors to consider: total funds, balancing, channel count, channel size, fee rates, etc.Something like an excel sheet where we use columns for channel size, base_fee and ppm. I think no need to include channel IDs. What you guys think? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on January 10, 2023, 09:17:17 PM Yes, I know how Submarine Swaps work. I just couldn't understand how would those work for the purpose you mentioned, I guess. Simply swap those on-chain funds from your LN node for Lightning funds (on the same node). There's no way to tell which channel they will end up topping up (usually multiple, through multiple routes), but if you're not happy with the end result (e.g. they made an already unbalanced channel more unbalanced), you can quickly fix it by manually rebalancing.I would also like to suggest to people to come up with a simple way of showing the fees you all hhave on your channels, if it is doable. Small nodes should be easy to do it. Something like this may really help learn from each other and maximize routing & collected fees. It would be best as a Core Lightning / RTL plugin, I guess, that exports all relevant info with one click. There are many factors to consider: total funds, balancing, channel count, channel size, fee rates, etc.Something like an excel sheet where we use columns for channel size, base_fee and ppm. I think no need to include channel IDs. What you guys think? To start, the fees thing, and as an experience, to see how it goes, I'll create a SpreadSheets with a sheet per user. I'll start with me and maybe you (n0nce) if you want. If more people want, I'll then add more sheets. Or what you guys think it's best? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Rath_ on March 03, 2023, 10:12:29 PM Core-Lightning v23.02 (https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/releases/tag/v23.02) has just been released. There are two things worth pointing out:
NEW experimental feature: peer storage - back up your encrypted emergency channel backup with your peers Protocol updates: Offers (BOLT12) and dual-funding breaking changes to comply with updated lightning spec You can learn more about the peer backup feature here (https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/pull/5361). Note that this backup allows you only to close all of your channels (as the other peer stores a Static Channel Backup). Closing channels through the SCB require the other party's cooperation so it should be your last resort anyway. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: WZBcoin on March 04, 2023, 12:23:01 AM My experience in giving out Bitcoins as prize to teenagers did not last long, there is little practical usage available to the quiz winners. I am now trying out an ecosystem with LN to get the project back.
I am not a techie, so I bought a Raspiblitz 9 months ago. I successfully get the LN running, fund the wallet and open channels… My node's URI is 03443d4d2248e25ed0bc726aaba3a9a858561f452f62e3c3baa36abe5d99e74d65@hth3b3nfasox6r5qhj6ih53yixbag53yl2jxreeeccplfn4jl7fqhcyd.onion:9735 I want to create a more practical community of LN users, so my node is to enhance an instant payout to the wallets of my players (soccer). I give out small amount of Satoshi as prize to all my players after winning 3 matches without conceding goals in a row. They are excited and the objective provide an environment that permit constant exchange between themselves… My problem now is that during an updating my LN channels were not completely synchronized and since then I could not use the LND wallet to send out satoshi … It is still working and 100% synchronized, (I have access but lack the know-how)… I need help on how to correctly use the LND wallets and to understand this LN system; I want to be a good guide to the ecosystem evolving out of the scenario… Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on March 04, 2023, 06:16:14 PM ~ I find it a bit hard to understand your issue, what you tried, what you want to achieve and where you got stuck. You may want to create a new thread about it on this board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=4.0) instead of continuing here in this thread.Add some more information and maybe try to follow the advice by StackOverflow for asking a good question (https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask). Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: WZBcoin on March 04, 2023, 10:16:41 PM Many thanks for your observation and the recommendation... I'm doing that straight away.
Best regards Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on May 14, 2023, 09:34:16 AM This year has been quiet for me. I was over 2 months without forwarding any payment.
January https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/LN-Jan-20236476773f5c2654ad.png February https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/LN-Feb-202317e19b6957a2b019.png March and April -- 0 forwardings I did a few this month. Will update when it's over! As for rebalancing, I've been talking to me channel peers and asking them if they are willing to share the fees for rebalancing our channels! Some have been completely cooperative, some not. But still, even with other peers willing to share fees, I'm not sure if the fees I collect are on the green to cover the fees for rebalancing! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on May 14, 2023, 11:05:51 AM This year has been quiet for me. I was over 2 months without forwarding any payment. Mostly the same here, as well. In part it's due to some peers closing channels, so I have some on-chain balance on my node now. If you want, we could actually open a channel. Are you running Core Lightning? In that case, we could even dual-fund.. :) Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 03, 2023, 10:01:14 PM This year has been quiet for me. I was over 2 months without forwarding any payment. Mostly the same here, as well. In part it's due to some peers closing channels, so I have some on-chain balance on my node now. If you want, we could actually open a channel. Are you running Core Lightning? In that case, we could even dual-fund.. :) Hi... I didn't notice your reply. Yeah sure, we can open a channel but I actually have to either try to re-eanble the dev features (I'm still on that v23.0.5-modded) and I had to disable those features because I waas getting buggy messages and couldn't connect to more than half of my peers! How much you have available? BTW, this is my May experience: https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/06/03/wF9qT.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on June 14, 2023, 10:32:44 PM How much you have available? How about 1M per side?Nice, I got such a 'middle finger' shape towards the end of the month, as well.. ;) https://i.postimg.cc/k5sc9Tns/image.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 14, 2023, 11:13:55 PM How much you have available? How about 1M per side?Nice, I got such a 'middle finger' shape towards the end of the month, as well.. ;) https://i.postimg.cc/k5sc9Tns/image.png Yeah, I can do a 1M channel. But will do it tomorrow, ok? It's late here and I'm heading to bed now! We will arrange this during the day of tomorrow! heheh, the midle finger pattern... Didn't even noticed it! xD Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on June 15, 2023, 10:20:19 AM Yeah, I can do a 1M channel. But will do it tomorrow, ok? It's late here and I'm heading to bed now! Sure, that works. :) Let's do dual-fund, 1M each, that will result in a pretty good total capacity of 2M sats. You can message me whenever you have time.We will arrange this during the day of tomorrow! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 15, 2023, 10:28:13 AM Yeah, I can do a 1M channel. But will do it tomorrow, ok? It's late here and I'm heading to bed now! Sure, that works. :) Let's do dual-fund, 1M each, that will result in a pretty good total capacity of 2M sats. You can message me whenever you have time.We will arrange this during the day of tomorrow! I sent some funds to my LN node yesterday but I might have chosen a low fee and it may take a while! The fee chosen was 6sats/vByte! It's quite low due to the crap of Ordinals and Inscriptions and all that garbage! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 16, 2023, 11:00:54 PM @n0nce, I'm actually doing something shady with the help of someone to try to speed up this transaction that I broadcast from Relai (no RBF implementation) to my CLN node.
I'm trying to do a CPFP transaction with higher fee to see if I can get both in a block sooner! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on June 17, 2023, 10:23:05 AM What exactly is shady to speed up a transaction with too low fee? In my opinion there's nothing wrong with that. It's your change output and you can do with it whatever you like. Actually more interesting is why you've chosen such a low fee of 6 sat/vB with current mempool congestion. When I read your posts from Thursday, I had to scratch my head a little bit. ;)
Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 17, 2023, 05:49:23 PM What exactly is shady to speed up a transaction with too low fee? In my opinion there's nothing wrong with that. It's your change output and you can do with it whatever you like. Actually more interesting is why you've chosen such a low fee of 6 sat/vB with current mempool congestion. When I read your posts from Thursday, I had to scratch my head a little bit. ;) I did a CPFP transaction but instead of using change, I used the output itself. yeah, it was shady to me because I never used CPFP transactions, didn't know how they worked in practice and it was a first time to me. But I had to use an external plugin to get the private keys out of CLN as descriptors, then, create a file with these descriptors, import them in my Bitcoin Core node, rescan part of the blockchain and only then I performed the CPFP transaction. After that, I still had to run a rescan in my CLN node so that it detect the 1st transaction as already spent! Otherwise, CLN would "see" twice the value. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Flexystar on June 21, 2023, 07:06:51 AM Quote My node has successfully routed 143 payments (until the 31st October) with ~0.09 BTC capacity and 5 active channels. Here's a breakdown of my earnings from payment routing into each month: Hey fellas, read through the thread but I’m not sure if I understand what’s payment routing and how you guys are making money out of it. Is there any step by step guide on how to set up this and run it on a PC. 1. I have a pc which I can keep running 24x7 2. Do I need any sort of mining equipment, if yes then what’s for the LN? 3. Am I right to think that it is peer to peer based system, through this system I become a middle connector and get paid for forwarding the payments? If there is ready thread on how to perform above actions then I would be grateful if a link is shared for the same. I saw another thread from the OP but that was again above my head. Basically I have zero idea about this so guidance is appreciated. :) Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on June 21, 2023, 11:27:00 PM Quote My node has successfully routed 143 payments (until the 31st October) with ~0.09 BTC capacity and 5 active channels. Here's a breakdown of my earnings from payment routing into each month: Hey fellas, read through the thread but I’m not sure if I understand what’s payment routing and how you guys are making money out of it. Is there any step by step guide on how to set up this and run it on a PC. https://i.postimg.cc/kMszns8J/image.png To be able to send BTC through Lightning to another user, without opening a direct channel to them, you need to utilize routing. 'Routing' in this context means that a Lightning node operator receives a payment from your node through one channel and simultaneously sends a payment of the same amount out through a different channel. Chain that as many times as required until the intended receiver got the money and you've got a Lightning payment. Since we provide a service which requires an always running computer and funds stored in channels (hot wallets), we have costs and provide value; therefore we can choose to ask users for fees in return for routing their payments. Their wallet can / should try to find the cheapest routes, but usually you do need to pay a few sats per payment to reach a 'far' (many hops) destination. 1. I have a pc which I can keep running 24x7 If you want to route payments, you do need a 24/7 running PC, yes. It can be a cheap old beater, though, as shown here: [Guide] How to run a Bitcoin Core full node for under 50 bucks! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364742.0)2. Do I need any sort of mining equipment, if yes then what’s for the LN? No, there is no mining taking place.3. Am I right to think that it is peer to peer based system, through this system I become a middle connector and get paid for forwarding the payments? That's correct. More reading here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5158920.0If there is ready thread on how to perform above actions then I would be grateful if a link is shared for the same. I saw another thread from the OP but that was again above my head. Basically I have zero idea about this so guidance is appreciated. :) If you want to start from scratch, I have this regularly updated guide:[Guide] FULL NODE OpenSUSE 15.3: bitcoind + electrs + c-lightning + RTL (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5366854.0) Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Flexystar on June 22, 2023, 04:34:34 PM Quote My node has successfully routed 143 payments (until the 31st October) with ~0.09 BTC capacity and 5 active channels. Here's a breakdown of my earnings from payment routing into each month: Hey fellas, read through the thread but I’m not sure if I understand what’s payment routing and how you guys are making money out of it. Is there any step by step guide on how to set up this and run it on a PC. [...] 1. I have a pc which I can keep running 24x7 If you want to route payments, you do need a 24/7 running PC, yes. It can be a cheap old beater, though, as shown here: [Guide] How to run a Bitcoin Core full node for under 50 bucks! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364742.0)2. Do I need any sort of mining equipment, if yes then what’s for the LN? No, there is no mining taking place.3. Am I right to think that it is peer to peer based system, through this system I become a middle connector and get paid for forwarding the payments? That's correct. More reading here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5158920.0If there is ready thread on how to perform above actions then I would be grateful if a link is shared for the same. I saw another thread from the OP but that was again above my head. Basically I have zero idea about this so guidance is appreciated. :) If you want to start from scratch, I have this regularly updated guide:[Guide] FULL NODE OpenSUSE 15.3: bitcoind + electrs + c-lightning + RTL (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5366854.0) The message from you is so clear and right on the point. Thank you very much for sharing everything. Specially the last thread is very important. Looking at the configuration I am already set with the old laptop which is laying around doing nothing. I think I can really use it as my playground and start doing some serious stuff on it. One point I read about hot wallet and how it could get buggy and funds may get stolen, do I need to have antivirus software or something which can block such external access or it's just nothing about that? In your full node thread you have mentioned about 4 different software that is Bitcoin Core, ElectRS, C-lightening, Ride the lightening. Putting yourself at my position and thinking I am completely stranger to the set up, which one would you chose to get started with? [ in terms of complexity of set up] Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Synchronice on June 22, 2023, 05:06:29 PM To be able to send BTC through Lightning to another user, without opening a direct channel to them, you need to utilize routing. Can you "cash out" bitcoins received via Lighting Network without closing the channel? How long can you leave the LN channel open? As far as I know, when you use LN, you only pay traditional mempool fees when you close the channel and I was wondering, what if I don't close the channel (Will it close automatically?), will I still be able to cash out my coins?'Routing' in this context means that a Lightning node operator receives a payment from your node through one channel and simultaneously sends a payment of the same amount out through a different channel. Chain that as many times as required until the intended receiver got the money and you've got a Lightning payment. Since we provide a service which requires an always running computer and funds stored in channels (hot wallets), we have costs and provide value; therefore we can choose to ask users for fees in return for routing their payments. Their wallet can / should try to find the cheapest routes, but usually you do need to pay a few sats per payment to reach a 'far' (many hops) destination. Btw how much do you charge? Do you have a certain ratio, like, charge 1/10 of mempool fees? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 22, 2023, 07:00:35 PM To be able to send BTC through Lightning to another user, without opening a direct channel to them, you need to utilize routing. Can you "cash out" bitcoins received via Lighting Network without closing the channel? 'Routing' in this context means that a Lightning node operator receives a payment from your node through one channel and simultaneously sends a payment of the same amount out through a different channel. Chain that as many times as required until the intended receiver got the money and you've got a Lightning payment. Since we provide a service which requires an always running computer and funds stored in channels (hot wallets), we have costs and provide value; therefore we can choose to ask users for fees in return for routing their payments. Their wallet can / should try to find the cheapest routes, but usually you do need to pay a few sats per payment to reach a 'far' (many hops) destination. No. All Bitcoin locked in LN can only be transacted offchain using the channel balance. The only way to cash out is to close the channel. This is because there are only 2 transactions hitting the blockchain. The one used to open the channel and the one used to close the channel. All intermediary transactions will happen inside the channel without ever touching the blockchain. By cash out, I understand to convert Bitcoin back to fiat! To be able to send BTC through Lightning to another user, without opening a direct channel to them, you need to utilize routing. How long can you leave the LN channel open? As far as I know, when you use LN, you only pay traditional mempool fees when you close the channel and I was wondering, what if I don't close the channel (Will it close automatically?), will I still be able to cash out my coins?'Routing' in this context means that a Lightning node operator receives a payment from your node through one channel and simultaneously sends a payment of the same amount out through a different channel. Chain that as many times as required until the intended receiver got the money and you've got a Lightning payment. Since we provide a service which requires an always running computer and funds stored in channels (hot wallets), we have costs and provide value; therefore we can choose to ask users for fees in return for routing their payments. Their wallet can / should try to find the cheapest routes, but usually you do need to pay a few sats per payment to reach a 'far' (many hops) destination. Btw how much do you charge? Do you have a certain ratio, like, charge 1/10 of mempool fees? LN channels can be open as long as the 2 peers want. This is the short answer. Channels don't close on their own unless one or two very specific scenarios. Force closes / unilateral closes or a situation where a peer tries to cheat the other. Can't remember other situations where you can get channels closed without you requesting so. About the fees: You have 2 scenarios: onchain (Bitcoin transactions) and offchain (LN transactions). Regarding fees, you also have 2 scenarios: onchain fees or network fees and offline fees or routing fees or payment fees or whatever you want to call it. Online fees depends on a few factors, for instance the size of the transaction, the mempool congestion (meaning that the more transactions in the mempool, higher the fees will become). Onchain transactions also kinda obeys to free market rules. So, they can be higher today, lower tomorrow, etc, depening on the demand! Offline fees or the fees in the LN depends also on a few factors such as the length of the path chosen and the fee settings of each routing node! But this is an whole other chapter! You also need to DYOR! Once more, you can only cash out Bitcoin back to fiat of online transactions. A channel open must be closed so that you can cash out the Bitcoin once locked in that channel! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Synchronice on June 22, 2023, 07:52:36 PM LN channels can be open as long as the 2 peers want. This is the short answer. I don't understand this well:Channels don't close on their own unless one or two very specific scenarios. Force closes / unilateral closes or a situation where a peer tries to cheat the other. Can't remember other situations where you can get channels closed without you requesting so. Quote To be able to send BTC through Lightning to another user, without opening a direct channel to them, you need to utilize routing. So, I can make LN payments without opening a channel for each person I want to pay if utilize channel routing, right? So, is this like, one person opens a channel with some funds and lets other people to use his channel for payments? Do I understand correctly? If that's right, then do I have to wait for that person to close LN channel to cash out my coins (convert into fiat or use as I wish).'Routing' in this context means that a Lightning node operator receives a payment from your node through one channel and simultaneously sends a payment of the same amount out through a different channel. Chain that as many times as required until the intended receiver got the money and you've got a Lightning payment. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 22, 2023, 08:19:56 PM LN channels can be open as long as the 2 peers want. This is the short answer. I don't understand this well:Channels don't close on their own unless one or two very specific scenarios. Force closes / unilateral closes or a situation where a peer tries to cheat the other. Can't remember other situations where you can get channels closed without you requesting so. Quote To be able to send BTC through Lightning to another user, without opening a direct channel to them, you need to utilize routing. So, I can make LN payments without opening a channel for each person I want to pay if utilize channel routing, right? So, is this like, one person opens a channel with some funds and lets other people to use his channel for payments? Do I understand correctly? If that's right, then do I have to wait for that person to close LN channel to cash out my coins (convert into fiat or use as I wish).'Routing' in this context means that a Lightning node operator receives a payment from your node through one channel and simultaneously sends a payment of the same amount out through a different channel. Chain that as many times as required until the intended receiver got the money and you've got a Lightning payment. I didn't understand what you didn't understand. Regarding making payments without opening channels to every peer you need to pay, yes. You can use 3rd party services, wallets in this case an use their nodes and the nodes in the network to make your payments to get to their destinations. Yes, node's operators let other people use teir channels to route payments until their destinations. So, if you use a LN wallet and receive a payment of let's say 500k sats in that wallet, that wallet must support the conversion of those 500k sats offchain to 500k sats (less fees) to onchain. And then, yes, you can cash out to fiat using other means such as exchanges! But I have the feeling you are not doing any research on your own. Also, this thread should not be used to discuss LN details. It should be used for users to share their experiences regarding fees collected and other experiences.You have this thread that you can read and learn a lot from it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5158920.0 Maybe some mod could move these last posts into that thread! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: n0nce on June 22, 2023, 08:25:50 PM One point I read about hot wallet and how it could get buggy and funds may get stolen, do I need to have antivirus software or something which can block such external access or it's just nothing about that? You don't really need to worry about that, especially if you follow my guide and run all that software on a fresh, up-to-date Linux system and don't do other things on it (especially risky stuff like plugging in random USB drives found on the street or downloading pirated files).In your full node thread you have mentioned about 4 different software that is Bitcoin Core, ElectRS, C-lightening, Ride the lightening. Putting yourself at my position and thinking I am completely stranger to the set up, which one would you chose to get started with? [ in terms of complexity of set up] Those are basically all needed. Just install one-by-one following the guide from top to bottom. If you have more questions about it, feel free to post them over there. In case you think they are specific just to your setup / situation, you can also write me direct messages.To be able to send BTC through Lightning to another user, without opening a direct channel to them, you need to utilize routing. Can you "cash out" bitcoins received via Lighting Network without closing the channel? 'Routing' in this context means that a Lightning node operator receives a payment from your node through one channel and simultaneously sends a payment of the same amount out through a different channel. Chain that as many times as required until the intended receiver got the money and you've got a Lightning payment. Since we provide a service which requires an always running computer and funds stored in channels (hot wallets), we have costs and provide value; therefore we can choose to ask users for fees in return for routing their payments. Their wallet can / should try to find the cheapest routes, but usually you do need to pay a few sats per payment to reach a 'far' (many hops) destination. Btw how much do you charge? Do you have a certain ratio, like, charge 1/10 of mempool fees? There are two settings for fees: a base fee and a relative fee. Relative relates to the transaction amount, though and not to the mempool. Most payments cost about a handful of sats for the whole route, though.Once more, you can only cash out Bitcoin back to fiat of online transactions. A channel open must be closed so that you can cash out the Bitcoin once locked in that channel! That's not really true; you can use a Lightning to fiat exchange like [Review] Robosats Bitcoin Lightning on-/off-ramp (no KYC, P2P, Tor) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5405549.0) or if you prefer centralized ones, Kraken and others nowadays offer Lightning deposits, too.Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Flexystar on June 23, 2023, 07:18:55 AM One point I read about hot wallet and how it could get buggy and funds may get stolen, do I need to have antivirus software or something which can block such external access or it's just nothing about that? You don't really need to worry about that, especially if you follow my guide and run all that software on a fresh, up-to-date Linux system and don't do other things on it (especially risky stuff like plugging in random USB drives found on the street or downloading pirated files).In your full node thread you have mentioned about 4 different software that is Bitcoin Core, ElectRS, C-lightening, Ride the lightening. Putting yourself at my position and thinking I am completely stranger to the set up, which one would you chose to get started with? [ in terms of complexity of set up] Those are basically all needed. Just install one-by-one following the guide from top to bottom. If you have more questions about it, feel free to post them over there. In case you think they are specific just to your setup / situation, you can also write me direct messages.Great to know that. I am definitlly going to end up in lot of discussion. I already saw that thread and the codes you guys have posted went like tangent over my head. ;D But why not try it out and see how it goes. And no I am not even plugging any random USB so far on my regular laptop so I am pretty sure that we are good on that front and I don't end up injecting virus over the entire LN chain. :P Lot of homework to be done on single and dual funded channels, splicing and channel factories. Yes I think I will have lot of discussion with you once I get started for real. Thanks mate. :o Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on June 23, 2023, 08:33:32 AM There are two settings for fees: a base fee and a relative fee. Relative relates to the transaction amount, though and not to the mempool. Most payments cost about a handful of sats for the whole route, though. Once more, you can only cash out Bitcoin back to fiat of online transactions. A channel open must be closed so that you can cash out the Bitcoin once locked in that channel! That's not really true; you can use a Lightning to fiat exchange like [Review] Robosats Bitcoin Lightning on-/off-ramp (no KYC, P2P, Tor) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5405549.0) or if you prefer centralized ones, Kraken and others nowadays offer Lightning deposits, too.Oh yes... I forgot those because I was thinking only in the point of view of a node operator! But yes, you are absolutely right. Sorry for missing those options that are the closest to pure p2p bitcoin trading in the sense of buying and selling anonymously! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on July 02, 2023, 10:09:28 PM This month was quite active for my node. 33 events made it one of the best months or maybe the best month since I run the node. However, I have the feeling that most of the routed payments were also rebalances as response to my own rebalances, if I make myself understand.
I mean, it happened over and onver again that after I perform a rebalance, in the next day or so, all the amount used in that rebalance was already in other side of the same or eventually other channels! I did quite a few rebalances and it always happened, so I gave up and decided to change some fees in some of my channels to try to make outgoing channels, incoming, and vice-versa! https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/07/02/SKrm3.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on September 09, 2023, 09:53:23 PM Once more I'm showing my results for the last few months.
For July, I had a special situation and I didn't forward a single payment. This situation still remains but with a few changes. The situation is that my node shouldd probably be in some "dark place" of the LN graph and therefore, I only have one channel that is taking payments "in". If it happens that this channel gets all liquidity on my side, I cannot get any payments coming "in". That was what happened in July. I made an experience of not rebalancing this channel and tried to lower the fees in all other channels to see if the liquidity would change sides globally in my channels. It simply didn't happened. Maybe I should have lowered even more the fees. Anyway, in August I end up rebalancing this channel and one other "major" event took place. The node operator of this channel, started a second LN node and we opened another channel. Now, we can rebalance our 2 channels for free and not only I was able to circulate some sats in oppsite directions between these 2 channels, meaning that some "auto-rebalance" took place. Good news... :) :D :D Here are my earning for August. July is not here because, as I said, there were no routings at all. https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/09/mVjlc.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on October 06, 2023, 10:19:39 AM Another month, another improvement. But I also paid quite a few sats in rebalancing. Probably it was almost the same as I got from forwarding payments! Never tracked how much I spent in fees for rebalancing channels!
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/10/06/PlwK9.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: shortveggie on October 07, 2023, 03:27:12 PM Another month, another improvement. But I also paid quite a few sats in rebalancing. Probably it was almost the same as I got from forwarding payments! Never tracked how much I spent in fees for rebalancing channels! https://talkimg.com/images/2023/10/06/PlwK9.png Congratulations.. rebalancing is costly. Channels should be chosen so that manual rebalancing isn't necessary and balancing happens naturall but it's possible that it's required to have multiple larger channels to achieve that Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: joker_josue on October 07, 2023, 05:00:40 PM Another month, another improvement. But I also paid quite a few sats in rebalancing. Probably it was almost the same as I got from forwarding payments! Never tracked how much I spent in fees for rebalancing channels! What program are you using to do this monitoring? Or better yet, what program are you using to run the LN node? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on October 07, 2023, 06:28:30 PM Another month, another improvement. But I also paid quite a few sats in rebalancing. Probably it was almost the same as I got from forwarding payments! Never tracked how much I spent in fees for rebalancing channels! What program are you using to do this monitoring? Or better yet, what program are you using to run the LN node? I am running Core Lightning implementation of the Lightning Network and those pictures are from a fron-end for the node which is called RTL or Ride The Lightning. I never tried LND which is another LN implementation and I don't want. I'm very happy with Core Lightning aka CLN. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: joker_josue on October 07, 2023, 09:54:50 PM I am running Core Lightning implementation of the Lightning Network and those pictures are from a fron-end for the node which is called RTL or Ride The Lightning. I never tried LND which is another LN implementation and I don't want. I'm very happy with Core Lightning aka CLN. From a quick look at the project website, it seemed to me that they don't have any version for Windows. Or am I mistaken? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on October 08, 2023, 05:18:07 PM ... From a quick look at the project website, it seemed to me that they don't have any version for Windows. Or am I mistaken? Your citation from darkv0rt3x speaks of multiple software: CLN, RTL and LND. To which of those three are you asking for a Windows version? A Lightning node is a hot wallet. I don't think it's the wisest decission to run it on Windows, a platform that is likely the main target for all sorts of malware, mainly due to its large user base and market share. Maybe you didn't mean the Lightning node, we can't know, you weren't specific enough. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: joker_josue on October 08, 2023, 10:54:45 PM ... From a quick look at the project website, it seemed to me that they don't have any version for Windows. Or am I mistaken? Your citation from darkv0rt3x speaks of multiple software: CLN, RTL and LND. To which of those three are you asking for a Windows version? I was thinking about CLN. But, I will analyze the other options, which have a Windows version. If there isn't, no problem... Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on October 09, 2023, 06:27:46 PM From a quick look at the project website, it seemed to me that they don't have any version for Windows. Or am I mistaken? Yes, it is compiled in Linux. So, get yourself a WSL if your machine runs on Windows: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install. I don't believe there's any way to run that software in Windows elsewhere, probably only with lightning Electrum? A Lightning node is a hot wallet. I don't think it's the wisest decission to run it on Windows, a platform that is likely the main target for all sorts of malware, mainly due to its large user base and market share. Linux is pretty much everywhere nowadays, so that isn't the reason. Windows are just known to suffer from more vulnerabilities (https://www.beyondtrust.com/blog/entry/microsoft-vulnerabilities-report) than Linux, probably because they are closed-source since their launch.Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: joker_josue on October 09, 2023, 08:49:04 PM From a quick look at the project website, it seemed to me that they don't have any version for Windows. Or am I mistaken? Yes, it is compiled in Linux. So, get yourself a WSL if your machine runs on Windows: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install. I don't believe there's any way to run that software in Windows elsewhere, probably only with lightning Electrum? I want to try to avoid using this solution. I'll try to look for something that works on Windows. There must be something. In fact, I already did some brief research, and it seemed to me that there was something. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: DaveF on April 18, 2024, 02:28:17 PM Kind of a necro bump but wondering if anyone else running a node is getting 1 sat transactions with messages attached to them?
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/18/jrOrD.png https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/18/jrDRG.png I am guessing they are scraping websites and looking for payment requests because it started when I posted this about 1 month ago in another thread: ... This is a repayment for 0 sats TO ME you should be able to add whatever amount you want: https://talkimg.com/images/2024/03/11/yKxsI.png If you can't scan the QR: Code: lnbc1pj7a6s4pp5s9yuq6tz05324wha0lnx8rn8hx3kk7gdxafmvv73ctc2al8xjjxqdqv23jhxapqxysqcqzzsxqyjw5qsp5gnqsgxpkqqwkl4mgtkvj3qjxyujlfs8aysz23dgsdypjnjza7srs9qyyssq7acrduv9duynhahph2k3cremcjrucf6mr7mkq4p9m7hjpcnfwavs4l59g09rjz778s2f04lcwknq6h9mp8fzs5fnv8fvye4jwmcrdcspl9cl7f This is a repayment of 200 sats: https://talkimg.com/images/2024/03/11/yb29d.png Code: lnbc2u1pj7a6kcpp5qyl3gm9fnfqj4wuc2ep09u7v32af9vw32k9z0vsgyrr8nreyq4sqdquxgcrqgzng92zq5n9wpshjmt9de6qcqzzsxqyjw5qsp5gp5fhuexjgusvjyf792pewzkv8hyf907wfek4kpt3p9xza9mqh8q9qyyssqmdhmvttgzkjkdxjwa6kr7kfmce7c54f9x7ps0lvpx2ewljzc4g0r3us03srv02nmamxuzr0ytvqep5d8fudj85swfue8lzhvry5d2jqq9pu3nh Or am I missing something else as to how people are doing it? -Dave Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: BlackHatCoiner on April 18, 2024, 02:55:01 PM Kind of a necro bump but wondering if anyone else running a node is getting 1 sat transactions with messages attached to them? Yes, it's due to Satogram (https://satogram.xyz/), a kind-of ad broadcaster that reaches nearly the entire lightning network. Or am I missing something else as to how people are doing it? They don't need an invoice to send you satoshi. Anyone can send you satoshi over lightning by just having your node ID and keysend. If you're running LND, you can disable receiving that way with "accept-amp=false". I wouldn't do it, if I were you. Just like email spam, but you're getting paid. ;) Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: DaveF on April 18, 2024, 03:30:45 PM Kind of a necro bump but wondering if anyone else running a node is getting 1 sat transactions with messages attached to them? Yes, it's due to Satogram (https://satogram.xyz/), a kind-of ad broadcaster that reaches nearly the entire lightning network. Or am I missing something else as to how people are doing it? They don't need an invoice to send you satoshi. Anyone can send you satoshi over lightning by just having your node ID and keysend. If you're running LND, you can disable receiving that way with "accept-amp=false". I wouldn't do it, if I were you. Just like email spam, but you're getting paid. ;) I *thought* "accept-amp=false" was the default. Which was why I figured it came from the invoice. From: https://docs.lightning.engineering/lightning-network-tools/lnd/optimal-configuration-of-a-routing-node Quote Communication Node runners may notify each other of issues they see when opening channels or forwarding payments. To be able to receive keysend messages, the following must be set. accept-keysend=true # (default: false) accept-amp=true # (default: false) I do not have an easy way to dig into that node at the moment. Will have to check when I get home. Not a big deal, but that was why I was running with the invoice theory. -Dave Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on April 19, 2024, 10:32:06 AM Long time no posting here, but here it goes:
October 2023 https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/19/jc7Cl.png November 2023 https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/19/jcDRv.png December 2023 https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/19/jcB8m.png January 2024 https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/19/jciwW.png February 2024 https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/19/jc8EJ.png March https://talkimg.com/images/2024/04/19/jcp2b.png Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: joker_josue on April 19, 2024, 06:30:31 PM Long time no posting here, but here it goes: You had excellent movement in January and February, compared to other months. Did you find any explanation for this, or was it just a coincidence? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on April 20, 2024, 11:35:20 AM I had this question, too, and more. Oktober 2023 wasn't bad either, while seemingly out of nothing March '24 plummets deeply.
darkv0rt3x said earlier that he doesn't unfortunately keep track of expenses for rebalancing. I would really like to know if there's a correlation between effort to rebalance and if it pays off with more routing fees. And particularly if you don't have to spend more for rebalancing as you get in return for collecting routing fees, obviously. Another of my personal details of interest is change in number of channels and channel size. Has there been any substantial changes which resulted in the increase of routing fees? However, I would completely understand if darkv0rt3x prefers not to make such details public. Meanwhile, in late 2023 I closed my few own managed channels of my RaspiBlitz LND node. For some time my channels served me the purpose I opened them for. I had some personal usage and I wanted to experiment a little and see if and how I could manage coin flow for rebalancing purposes. It didn't work out well enough. I'm sure it were too few channels, too small size of channels and with too few channel partners you would have to be exceptionally lucky to have chosen channel partners that could provide you lots of routing opportunities. I knew I couldn't expect any good traffic despite my own transfer needs. I take the learning experience with me which I don't want to miss. I'm sure I still don't understand quite some settings, especially to enhance and support coin flow in desirable direction for as cheap as possible channel rebalancing. (My experience with circular payments was almost always a too expensive one, compared to return of interest through subsequent routing.) My experiment had limits and I didn't want to lock more than a few million sats of liquidity for it. I don't complain... Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: NotATether on April 20, 2024, 12:12:54 PM Kind of a necro bump but wondering if anyone else running a node is getting 1 sat transactions with messages attached to them? Yes, it's due to Satogram (https://satogram.xyz/), a kind-of ad broadcaster that reaches nearly the entire lightning network. Yes, it is well-documented elsewhere how I've been getting these too. Quote Or am I missing something else as to how people are doing it? They don't need an invoice to send you satoshi. Anyone can send you satoshi over lightning by just having your node ID and keysend. If you're running LND, you can disable receiving that way with "accept-amp=false". I wouldn't do it, if I were you. Just like email spam, but you're getting paid. ;) Getting paid $0.00064 per ad on a not-so-recurring basis when you only get 3 or 4 of these per month literally does not even make a penny at these prices. I might as well just run with accept-amp=false because I would not take any email spam in my inbox even if I was somehow paid a tiny amount to leave it there. By the way, what does the amp even stand for? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on April 20, 2024, 01:46:33 PM Long time no posting here, but here it goes: You had excellent movement in January and February, compared to other months. Did you find any explanation for this, or was it just a coincidence? I didn't do anything special other than closing and opening new channels and also playing with fees. But I also don't keep track of how many sats I spend in rebalancing. If I'm on the green, it's just barelly because rebalancing is expensive and you only get the feeling of how much you should set your fees for the green after you know how much you spend in rebalancing. Meaning that for instance, if I open a channel with 2M sats and those sats "travel" to the other peer, I know how many sats I earn with the channel but I only know if those sats are enough after I know how much I spent in rebalancing. So, this is always a not very fair game, at least for smaller nodes like mine. A few weeks ago I opened a 2M sats channel with some peer. Most of that outbound liquidity travelled to the other peer in a couple of days. I didn't check how much I earned in fees but yesterday I pushed 200k sats to this channel again (from one other channel) and I know I spent 121 sats. I raised the fees a bit to 0 sats base fee and 390 ppm (or something like that) .Those 200k sats already moved again to the other peer and I only earned aroun 76 sats. So, I know, I lost a bit. Now, I've raised the ppm a bit further to 420 ppm and will try to rebalance again! I know I'll be on the red but, it's a long learning/playing proccess! This month of April I know I'm not very bad because I am with 3.6k sats of fees! Probably I spent like less than 2k sats in rebalancing! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on April 20, 2024, 02:15:14 PM I had this question, too, and more. Oktober 2023 wasn't bad either, while seemingly out of nothing March '24 plummets deeply. There is a simple reason. March was a month that I barely played with my node. I think that is one of the most important reason. darkv0rt3x said earlier that he doesn't unfortunately keep track of expenses for rebalancing. I would really like to know if there's a correlation between effort to rebalance and if it pays off with more routing fees. And particularly if you don't have to spend more for rebalancing as you get in return for collecting routing fees, obviously. I think there are 2 important reasons to make smaller nodes be able to route a bit more. Play a lot with fees, at least daily, and if it gets your node more active, rebalancing. And by rebalancing I don't mean put all your channels 50/50 (in/out) liquidity. I'll explain more in the next quote. Another of my personal details of interest is change in number of channels and channel size. Has there been any substantial changes which resulted in the increase of routing fees? To complete the reply to the above quote and also this quote, my experience is not highly conclusive but I have the idea that if you spend some time thinking in ways of theoretically widespread your node in terms of connections, it may pay off. I cannot talk too much about the size of the channels because I don't have that big channels. the biggest channel I have open right now by me is 2.5M sats. I had one of 3M sats in the past but I closed it. But one thing I tried recently was to talk to a good peer owner I have and ask him what are his best peers. He gave me a list of a few of his best peers and I chose one of them (not the biggest not the smallest, some peer in the middle), went to amboss.space and looked to the channels of that peer and searched for one peer that didn't have any channels to the peer I was talking to and opened a channel to that peer. It payed off because I could route 2M sats of payments in like a week. Problem was that I had the fees too low and I end up paying more for rebalancing than what I got in fees. Not sure I was clear about the above explanation but I'll try this way. My peer is A. So, I talked to the peer with which I have the best routing channels. This peer is peer B. I asked peer B what are his best peers in terms of routing to him (peer B). I told me that peers C to, let's say H, are his best peers. I looked to the size of this list of peers and chose one that was not too big nor too small. Too big peers like ACINQ or WoS or so, tend to deplete our channels too quickly and too expensive to rebalance. So I went to a mid sized one. LEt's say peer F. Then, I went to Amboss.space and looked to the channels of peer F and searched of a peer within peer's F peers that didn't have any channel to peer B and opened a channel to that peer! What I wanted to do was to make my node to be a bridge between peer B and peer F which has a "connection/channel" to one of best peer B peers. Hope you got the idea! However, I would completely understand if darkv0rt3x prefers not to make such details public. No problem, peers are public once you have their Pub Key. Meanwhile, in late 2023 I closed my few own managed channels of my RaspiBlitz LND node. For some time my channels served me the purpose I opened them for. I had some personal usage and I wanted to experiment a little and see if and how I could manage coin flow for rebalancing purposes. It didn't work out well enough. I'm sure it were too few channels, too small size of channels and with too few channel partners you would have to be exceptionally lucky to have chosen channel partners that could provide you lots of routing opportunities. I knew I couldn't expect any good traffic despite my own transfer needs. My node pub key is 03fef777d58a529df02a3fb267690e0c9033767b555cc1c63844bb2d3498789f91. You can take a look at Amboss.space and have an idea of the size of my channels and node. It's a small node. In total, I have around 0.34BTC in + out liquidity. My outbound is only around 9M sats. Inbound 25M sats. I take the learning experience with me which I don't want to miss. I'm sure I still don't understand quite some settings, especially to enhance and support coin flow in desirable direction for as cheap as possible channel rebalancing. (My experience with circular payments was almost always a too expensive one, compared to return of interest through subsequent routing.) I think that's common with smaller nodes. I'm there too, but it's not a fortune that we can lose in terms of routing fees versus rebalancing spendings. And with some luck you may even get on green. Comercial noeds, let's call them that way, is probably way easier to get good income from routing and from the services they provide themselves. My experiment had limits and I didn't want to lock more than a few million sats of liquidity for it. I don't complain... Yeah, understandable. I have my node since around 2019. In Amboss.space, the oldest channel doesn't reflect my node's age because my oldest channel was with Boltz but due to some issues (probably stuck HTLCs in flight) that cannel was force-closed long ago. In fact, I have had like 3 of 4 channels with Boltz that were force-closed due to stuck HTLCs or HTLCs not resolved in due time! Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: joker_josue on April 20, 2024, 03:25:01 PM This month of April I know I'm not very bad because I am with 3.6k sats of fees! Probably I spent like less than 2k sats in rebalancing! But can you only edit the channel rates when you rebalance it? Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on April 20, 2024, 05:09:06 PM But can you only edit the channel rates when you rebalance it? No, you can edit routing fees for every of your channels at any time (base fee and ppm). You don't have to wait for anything to happen. I set the base fee for every of my channels to zero as I support the zero-base-fee camp to facilitate easier path-finding for payments. Usually when I adjusted the ppm for routing fees, I waited at minimum one or more days to see an effect of my change. Only if your ppm is way too low you may see quick depletion of your channel to usually one side. For every payment routing two of your channels are involved, one incoming channel and one outgoing channel. I forgot, somewhat embarassing, whose of those two of your channel's base fee and ppm determines your routing fee which you earn. I hesitated to change my parameters too often because I remember to have read somewhere that too frequent changes somehow degrade the "score" of your node. Maybe my thinking of this scoring is totally inaccurate or plain wrong. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: darkv0rt3x on April 20, 2024, 05:30:26 PM But can you only edit the channel rates when you rebalance it? ...I forgot, somewhat embarassing, whose of those two of your channel's base fee and ppm determines your routing fee which you earn. I hesitated to change my parameters too often because I remember to have read somewhere that too frequent changes somehow degrade the "score" of your node. Maybe my thinking of this scoring is totally inaccurate or plain wrong. There is a formula that determines the fee that you collect. It's base fee in sats + (amount being forward in sats * PPM/1.000.000), iirc. An example: Let's say you have 0 base fee and 300PPM. A 500k sats would get you 0 + (500k * 300/1.000.000) = 150 sats, if I'm not mistaken. Title: Re: The Lightning Network node experience Post by: Cricktor on April 21, 2024, 10:54:00 AM There is a formula that determines the fee that you collect. It's base fee in sats + (amount being forward in sats * PPM/1.000.000), iirc. An example: Let's say you have 0 base fee and 300PPM. A 500k sats would get you 0 + (500k * 300/1.000.000) = 150 sats, if I'm not mistaken. This is correct and I know this formula to calculate what you can collect for routing a payment. What I forgot is which channel fees are applied for above calculation which you can then collect for yourself. Let me try to explain:
Now which channel_fee_settings are applied to calculate your routing fee, channel1_fee_settings or channel2_fee_settings? IIRC, it should be channel2_fee_settings, but I'm not sure (definitely not both, that I'm sure of). |
