What are the fees on the Lightning network?

[justone123]

So i'm just wondering what are the fees like on the Lightning Network?

I've seen someone mention that fee for payment going through 3 hubs was 0.2$. This still seems rather expensive :x

Will micropayments be even possible, or is this something that will be possible only if you are connected to the same hub.


I mean, can someone give an insight, what are the fees going to look like on the LN? Will it be 0.001%,0.01%, 0.1%, 1%, 10%...?

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[TheQuin]

If you are talking about the live network rather than testnet then it has only just started to be populated by nodes.

https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1

So far only 539 channels exist. As more nodes and channels get added then they will compete with each other on fees and they will most likely end up being minimal (fractions of a cent).

[achow101]

Thus far the only fees that I have observed have been only one satoshi per hop. Granted that's on testnet.

[Anti-Cen]

So far only 539 channels exist. As more nodes and channels get added then they will compete with each other on fees and they will most likely end up being minimal (fractions of a cent).

The argument about the free market did not stop BTC fees hitting the roof so who's going to
ensure we don't get more of the same.

I don't think LN has gone live and was expecting a wait of 9 months to a year so do you have a
link please or are you talking about testnet

[achow101]

I don't think LN has gone live and was expecting a wait of 9 months to a year so do you have a
link please or are you talking about testnet

There are already people using LN on mainnet. There does not need to be a release of LN (whatever that means) or for it to "go live". It's not a central thing where one group can announce that it has "gone live".

Some stats about the LN mainnet can be found here: http://lnstat.ideoflux.com:3000/dashboard/db/lightning-network?refresh=5m&orgId=1. A graph of the nodes can be found here: https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/

Multiple people are accepting LN mainnet payments such as TorGuard: https://twitter.com/TorGuard/status/950383059735646209 and Blockstream: https://store.blockstream.com/

[TheQuin]

The argument about the free market did not stop BTC fees hitting the roof so who's going to
ensure we don't get more of the same.

It's not really comparable as there is no limit on capacity in the way there is with blockchain. Add more nodes and channels and you get more capacity.

I don't think LN has gone live and was expecting a wait of 9 months to a year so do you have a
link please or are you talking about testnet

The link I posted above is showing stats of channels and BTC on the live network. The software available comes with "Warning: Do not use on mainnet" written somewhere, but as ever pioneers will ignore health warnings and the live LN is growing as we speak.

[ruletheworld]

There's no one fees on the Mainnet yet for Lightning.

Tokensoft announced 0 fees to connect with them. Here are the details: https://medium.com/tokensoft/tokensoft-lightning-node-how-to-connect-for-free-62b9aaec18b8

The total fees paid depends a lot on the number of hops. Less hops means less fees. This is not really in your control, but if you connect directly with the 'super-nodes' which are in-turn connected to many parties, you can reduce fees that way. The fees will depend a lot on the lightning network nodes' fee policies.

In reality, there are already 3 different implementations of Lightning and they are all compatible with each other. This means no one company or software implementation will have a monopoly on this. Therefore the fees are expected to be quite small, since there is enough market competition out there.

[Anti-Cen]

There are already people using LN on mainnet. There does not need to be a release of LN (whatever that means) or for it to "go live". It's not a central thing where one group can announce that it has "gone live".

The main block chain nodes needs to cooperate with LN nodes for the protocol to
work so unless they hardwired a few nodes to get it going then I am not sure how it would work
on broadcasts to the BTC network unless that part was already released in Bitcoin core 0.15.1

Some stats about the LN mainnet can be found here: http://lnstat.ideoflux.com:3000/dashboard/db/lightning-network?refresh=5m&orgId=1. A graph of the nodes can be found here: https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/

Interesting and about 650 channel when I looked and already we can see banker hubs that have forty channels or so
and that means that someone must have lots of money to deposit in new channels for these large inter bank transfer's.

Some of the hops are eight long already and I don't think this will go up or down much even if 50,000 channels are
created and interest charged on the inter bank BTC should be low if the outbound and inbound amounts balance out but
you can bet the transit fees will be past to Bob but if the channel is bidirectional then the first hub will be picking up the
lion share of interest fees.

Please correct me if I am wrong but in the ledger connecting Bob to the banking hub requires the bank to deposit $100 in it if Alice on
the far side of the network is to send Bob $100 and if she wants to send him $200 then it would not be allowed because money
cannot be moved from ledger to ledger because the BTC-Block chain only allows the existing money to be settled on block.

Bob           Banks
$100          $0             Bobs deposit
0               $100         Banks deposit
$200          $0             Alice sends Bob $100

Unless Bob starts spending then no one can now send him any money so spending is cheap
but if you receive lots of payments then interest for inbound money could far exceed 5% p.a
if you keep the channel open for 12 months or get the banks to deposit a smaller amount in the channel and
then keep closing and opening a new channel but picking up the BTC Tx fee each month.


 

[Anti-Cen]

In reality, there are already 3 different implementations of Lightning and they are all compatible with each other. This means no one company or software implementation will have a monopoly on this. Therefore the fees are expected to be quite small, since there is enough market competition out there.

My understanding is that Bobs and Alice might have wallets but unless they have lots of buttons to press then they
will not be in a position to use much of the LN protocol but the banker hubs will have custom software that gives them
the advantage. Miners will run the banking hubs because they need bandwidth, hardware, lots of BTC and understand the
nuts and bolts. Miners are already a monopoly as you can see

https://blockchain.info/pools

I can already change from one high street bank to another if fees become too high so was ten major LN hubs to put up the fees
then this will have a ripple effect as the fees will move down to main branch, sub-branch and then on to Bob & Alice and I have
already come across the term "Virtually free transactions fees" in the bitcoin white paper and won't be trusting them a second time

[DannyHamilton]

The main block chain nodes needs to cooperate with LN nodes for the protocol to
work

You'll have to explain what you mean by cooperate.

Lightning Network requires that the channel participants open a channel by broadcasting a transaction that gets confirmed in the blockchain. This is no different than any other bitcoin transaction, and requires no more cooperation from "main block chain nodes" than any other transaction would require.  After that transaction gets confirmed and the channel is therefore opened, the transactions over the Lightning Network do not require any additional cooperation from "block chain nodes".

so unless they hardwired a few nodes to get it going then I am not sure how it would work
on broadcasts to the BTC network unless that part was already released in Bitcoin core 0.15.1

I assume you are talking about the implementation of SegWit?  That's been available on the BTC network for a while now.

Interesting and about 650 channel when I looked and already we can see banker hubs that have forty channels or so

You say "banker hubs", I say "individuals that have opened lots of channels".

They provide no banking services. They collect no fees. Any user can skip them and connect to any other user if they want to.

and that means that someone must have lots of money to deposit in new channels

Or it means that someone opened many channels with a very small amount of funds in each channel.

for these large inter bank transfer's

There are no banks, (at least not yet).  Therefore, there are no "inter bank transfers".

Please correct me if I am wrong but in the ledger connecting Bob to the banking hub requires the bank to deposit $100 in it if Alice on
the far side of the network is to send Bob $100 and if she wants to send him $200 then it would not be allowed because money
cannot be moved from ledger to ledger because the BTC-Block chain only allows the existing money to be settled on block.

You really need to start using the common use Lightning Network words when you talk about the Lightning Network or you are going to cause a lot of confusion for yourself and others.

• When you say "in the ledger connecting Bob", I assume you are talking about a Lightning Network channel?
• When you say "to the banking hub", I assume you mean to imply that Bob has chosen to only open a channel to ONE other Lightning Network user, and the user that Bob has established a channel with has chosen to connect to open channels with many other users?
• When you say "requires the bank to deposit $100 in it", I assume you mean that the ONE channel that Bob opened is funded with $100 worth of bitcoins by the person Bob chose to connect to?
• When you say "Alice on the far side of the network", I assume you mean that Alice is a Lightning Network user, that she has at least one channel open, that there is a valid funded route for sending $100 worth of Bitcoins from her to Bob?
• When you say "if she wants to send him $200 then it would not be allowed because money cannot be moved from ledger to ledger", I assume you mean that Alice can't send more to Bob than the net funds available in the channel that is connected to Bob?
• When you say "because the BTC-Block chain only allows the existing money to be settled on block", I assume you mean that funds in one Lightning Network Channel cannot move to another channel, and that users with an unbalanced channel might in some circumstances need to close the channel and use the funds from the closed channel to re-open a new channel?

Bob           Banks

There are no banks (yet).  There may never be banks.

Regardless the process works the same, so lets substitute Charlie in for the user that you keep calling "Bank".  It will make it clearer. Sicne you insist on using $ amounts instead of BTC amounts, we'll also assume that the exchange rate between $ and BTC doesn't change at all during that time.

Bob opens a channel (Lets call it channel B-C) with Charlie.
Bob funds the channel with $100 worth of bitcoins, and Charlie funds the channel with $100 worth of bitcoins.

Alice opens a channel with Charlie (Lets call it channel A-C) with Charlie.
Alice funds the channel with $200 worth of bitcoins, and Charlie funds the channel with $0 worth of bitcoins.

Alice establishes a route through Charlie to Bob and sends $100 worth of bitcoins

After that:
The A-C channel state has $100 worth of bitcoins that Charlie can send through the channel to Alice and $100 worth of bitcoins that Alice can send to Charlie.
The B-C channel state has $200 worth of bitcoins that Bob can send through the channel to Charlie and $0 worth of bitcoins that Charlie can send to Bob.

Unless Bob starts spending then no one can now send him any money

If that is the ENTIRE network, then you are correct that no one can send him any money through Lightning Network (although they could still send a non-Lightning Bitcoin transaction if they want to.  However, it is possible that Bob could already have (or could open) other channels with other users, or Bob could open a new channel with Charlie.

My understanding is that Bobs and Alice might have wallets but unless they have lots of buttons to press then they will not be in a position to use much of the LN protocol

Why do they need buttons?  Can't they just use wallets that can establish a lightning channel?

but the banker hubs will have custom software that gives them the advantage.

Why won't Bob and Alice have access to similar software?

Miners will run the banking hubs because they need bandwidth, hardware, lots of BTC and understand the nuts and bolts.

When you say "miners" I assume you mean "Mining pool operators"?  Because most of the hashers that I've talked to most certainly do NOT "understand the nuts and bolts".

Furthermore, exchanges could choose to set up enough channels to be considered a "hub". Payment processors could choose to set up enough channels to be considered a "hub". Businesses that handle BTC payroll could choose to set up enough channels to be considered a "hub". Anyone that currently runs a "full node" probably already has the necessary "bandwidth, hardware, and understanding of the nuts and bolts" to choose to set up enough channels to be considered a "hub". It doesn't require much bitcoins to open a channel.

Miners are already a monopoly as you can see

https://blockchain.info/pools

I don't think the word "Monopoly" means what you seem to think it means.

That being said, I will agree that it would be nice if there weren't any mining pools with access to more than 5% of the global hash power.  The current distribution isn't my preferred balance, but it works.

I can already change from one high street bank to another if fees become too high so was ten major LN hubs to put up the fees
then this will have a ripple effect as the fees will move down to main branch, sub-branch and then on to Bob & Alice

I'm having a difficult time following what you are trying to say there. I have an account with my local Credit Union.  I have an pleasantly low interest rate on my mortgage and car loan, and I don't pay any other fees for any of the services that I use.  There are services that have fees, but I don't use any of those services.

I have already come across the term "Virtually free transactions fees" in the bitcoin white paper

I've seen you use this "Virtually free transactions fees" statement multiple times now.

I've checked the whitepaper and I don't see that statement in there at all.  Can you please tell me where to find it, or did you just make that up so you can sound angry about something that doesn't exist?

and won't be trusting them a second time

Who is this "them" that you speak of?  The bitcoin white paper was written by Satoshi Nakamoto.  He was not involved in the creation of Lightning Network at all.

[ruletheworld]

There are no banks (yet).  There may never be banks.

Regardless the process works the same, so lets substitute Charlie in for the user that you keep calling "Bank".  It will make it clearer. Sicne you insist on using $ amounts instead of BTC amounts, we'll also assume that the exchange rate between $ and BTC doesn't change at all during that time.

Bob opens a channel (Lets call it channel B-C) with Charlie.
Bob funds the channel with $100 worth of bitcoins, and Charlie funds the channel with $100 worth of bitcoins.

Alice opens a channel with Charlie (Lets call it channel A-C) with Charlie.
Alice funds the channel with $200 worth of bitcoins, and Charlie funds the channel with $0 worth of bitcoins.

Alice establishes a route through Charlie to Bob and sends $100 worth of bitcoins

After that:
The A-C channel state has $100 worth of bitcoins that Charlie can send through the channel to Alice and $0 worth of bitcoins that Alice can send to Charlie.
The B-C channel state has $200 worth of bitcoins that Bob can send through the channel to Charlie and $0 worth of bitcoins that Charlie can send to Bob.

Great explanation btw, but the math seems off. In your example, won't the A-C channel have $100 worth of Bitcoins that Alice can still send to Charlie, since Alice started with $200 worth of Bitcoins?

[DannyHamilton]

the math seems off. In your example, won't the A-C channel have $100 worth of Bitcoins that Alice can still send to Charlie, since Alice started with $200 worth of Bitcoins?

Good catch.  Thanks.  Fixed it in my post.

[cluit]

So i'm just wondering what are the fees like on the Lightning Network?

I've seen someone mention that fee for payment going through 3 hubs was 0.2$. This still seems rather expensive :x

Will micropayments be even possible, or is this something that will be possible only if you are connected to the same hub.


I mean, can someone give an insight, what are the fees going to look like on the LN? Will it be 0.001%,0.01%, 0.1%, 1%, 10%...?

I’m not an engineer or Dev, or whatever, just came across this post and it seemed quite interesting. Why is someone asking about the fees for lightening network, has it been released already? Cos I’m not seeing any lightening network or something. Last time I made a transaction, I was charged $16 and the transaction took about 15 minutes or so… or was it released in just few locations.

[Samarkand]

...
I’m not an engineer or Dev, or whatever, just came across this post and it seemed quite interesting. Why is someone asking about the fees for lightening network, has it been released already? Cos I’m not seeing any lightening network or something. Last time I made a transaction, I was charged $16 and the transaction took about 15 minutes or so… or was it released in just few locations.

The Lightning Network won´t have a fixed release date, because there is not a single
Lightning software that you could use as a reference. Instead there are multiple teams
working on multiple implementations of the underlying protocol.

As of now I´m aware of the following projects:
-lnd      GitHub  Project website
-eclair   GitHub  Project website
-c-lightning GitHub  Project website


Besides, some people are already using the Lightning Network on mainnet.
You can track the current usage using a website like this (already posted by TheQuin in the 2nd post of this thread):
https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1

Of course there is still the possibility of undiscovered bugs therefore it
isn´t widely deployed, but as you can see the adoption is increasing steadily.

[Kprawn]

In a perfect implementation the users can chose the least expensive route, right? The Lightning Network wallet provider will

give the user a nice GUI interface to chose the fee options, like it is done now? How will the user know if that route is the

least expensive route? Many wallet providers are currently manually inflating the actual "minimum" fees that are being

recommended. Most users will not care about this, if the fees are low.... but wallet providers could prioritize different routes,

before the interface reports the "cheapest" route to the user. <favouring the channels that they hosted> Do you agree?

[Anti-Cen]

before the interface reports the "cheapest" route to the user. <favouring the channels that they hosted> Do you agree?

it almost feels like me and you are starting to get along better together if you keep talking like that  

I think your saying that people will hold say three channel open with banker hubs and the wallet will workout
who's going to be the cheapest which might not always be the shortest ?

looking at this I think that the average hop count will be 6-8 hops https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/ but they are not
fixed because for instance some ledgers will need liquidity moving from right to left and will actually offer negative
transaction fees (Pay you to use them) which you can read about in the white pages so I think it will be very much a
finger in the air type number myself when it comes to fees and interest on the banks money  

Maybe we need official base rates and then banking hubs can offer X over base and a fixed fee per transaction
but if the wallets interface becomes over complicated then Jaxx , Exodus and others will not write the code to
make all this work so then shapeshift becomes trouble which would all be bad news for our slot-machine friends

Shit banking hubs will become ranked by users, like it or not based on the IP address or wallet address so maybe they should
build that into the system so that when you are shopping for a bank you can read the terms and conditions so we all
know where we stand.

 

[Anti-Cen]

There are no banks, (at least not yet).  Therefore, there are no "inter bank transfers".

Well if you want to pretend that someone with 50 channels open acting as a major hub is not acting as a bank then that's up to you
but this picture says that you could be wrong.

https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/

• When you say "in the ledger connecting Bob", I assume you are talking about a Lightning Network channel?

Yes the channel is the ledger with deposits in it from both the user (who could also become a banking hub, inter bank transfer) and the banking hub in LN

• When you say "to the banking hub", I assume you mean to imply that Bob has chosen to only open a channel to ONE other Lightning Network user, and the user that Bob has established a channel with has chosen to connect to open channels with many other users?

Yes see the link, Bob only like one channel open, these things cost you know

• When you say "requires the bank to deposit $100 in it", I assume you mean that the ONE channel that Bob opened is funded with $100 worth of bitcoins by the person Bob chose to connect to?

Yes one channel and not connected to a "person" who has 50 channels, it's a banking hub and needs a ton of money to feed all
them other channel deposits. Miners have the money and hardware so they are the natural bankers running the banking hubs.

• When you say "Alice on the far side of the network", I assume you mean that Alice is a Lightning Network user, that she has at least one channel open, that there is a valid funded route for sending $100 worth of Bitcoins from her to Bob?

Yes and she is connected also with one channel to a banking hub.

• When you say "if she wants to send him $200 then it would not be allowed because money cannot be moved from ledger to ledger", I assume you mean that Alice can't send more to Bob than the net funds available in the channel that is connected to Bob?

Correct

• When you say "because the BTC-Block chain only allows the existing money to be settled on block", I assume you mean that funds in one Lightning Network Channel cannot move to another channel, and that users with an unbalanced channel might in some circumstances need to close the channel and use the funds from the closed channel to re-open a new channel?

Channel is the ledger with both ends keeping a copy but the key point shown in bold above. Money is not liquid in LN and is more like snooker balls
bumping into one another and money stays in the ledger. See white paper https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf

There are no banks (yet).  There may never be banks.

Yes sure mate so what do you call something that charges fees on both lending and transactions fees and loves people so much
that they open 50 channels. Sorry you can keep repeating yourself but the links I gave you prove otherwise.

Regardless the process works the same, so lets substitute Charlie in for the user that you keep calling "Bank".  It will make it clearer. Sicne you insist on using $ amounts instead of BTC amounts, we'll also assume that the exchange rate between $ and BTC doesn't change at all during that time.

Well if it looks, talks and walks like a bank then lets call "Charlie" Natwest bank in central Cambridge and I am sorry about
not using 0.00001000 BTC but I think we can live with it for now.

Bob opens a channel (Lets call it channel B-C) with Charlie.
No lets call it "Natwest bank in central Cambridge"

Bob funds the channel with $100 worth of bitcoins, and Charlie funds the channel with $100 worth of bitcoins.

OK

Alice opens a channel with Charlie (Lets call it channel A-C) with Charlie.
Alice funds the channel with $200 worth of bitcoins, and Charlie funds the channel with $0 worth of bitcoins.
Alice establishes a route through Charlie to Bob and sends $100 worth of bitcoins

After that:
The A-C channel state has $100 worth of bitcoins that Charlie can send through the channel to Alice and $100 worth of bitcoins that Alice can send to Charlie.
The B-C channel state has $200 worth of bitcoins that Bob can send through the channel to Charlie and $0 worth of bitcoins that Charlie can send to Bob.

Yes if Natwest bank only deposits $100 then the channel is too small for Bob to receive $200 from Alice

If that is the ENTIRE network, then you are correct that no one can send him any money through Lightning Network (although they could still send a non-Lightning Bitcoin transaction if they want to.  However, it is possible that Bob could already have (or could open) other channels with other users, or Bob could open a new channel with Charlie.

Yes but why should Bob keep paying the BTC miners money ?

Why do they need buttons?  Can't they just use wallets that can establish a lightning channel?

Never seen a software wallet yet that does not have buttons have you but in the case of Lightning you
will need more than the usual few buttons to act as a banking hub so the banks will have specialist software.

Why won't Bob and Alice have access to similar software?

Well Jaxx and Exodus won't implement all that in the wallets and Bob would not understand things like
HTLC or how to maximize profits by acting as a bank even if he could share his wallet to become a hub
so his friend Alice could use it.

When you say "miners" I assume you mean "Mining pool operators"?  Because most of the hashers that I've talked to most certainly do NOT "understand the nuts and bolts".

Just swap the name "Miner" for "Sub-Branch" and see "Mining pool operators" as "Nat west head office" and you about get the picture.

I don't think the word "Monopoly" means what you seem to think it means.

Cartel is just as good to me

I'm having a difficult time following what you are trying to say there. I have an account with my local Credit Union.  I have an pleasantly low interest rate on my mortgage and car loan, and I don't pay any other fees for any of the services that I use.  There are services that have fees, but I don't use any of those services.

Nice for you but I also bank with Ripple, all transactions are on-block and more or less free just like Bitcoin was before
it was taken over.

I've seen you use this "Virtually free transactions fees" statement multiple times now.

Then don't fall for it again.

I've checked the whitepaper and I don't see that statement in there at all.  Can you please tell me where to find it, or did you just make that up so you can sound angry about something that doesn't exist?

Not in the LN white paper but original Bitcoin white-paper

Who is this "them" that you speak of?  The bitcoin white paper was written by Satoshi Nakamoto.  He was not involved in the creation of Lightning Network at all.

Them is the development team who roll over backs to please the miners and in many cases run mining themselves and it is the same
"Them" that own BTC from day one and it only cost "them" $0.15 per coin but we can agree that Satoshi Nakamoto was not involved in LN  

[Anti-Cen]

As far as i know, you only can charged fees when use LN on these conditions :
1. Open new LN channel.
2. Close LN channel.
3. Refill your balance.
4. Using hops which charge small fees when you don't have direct connection to receiver, but you don't have to use hops which charge fees.

If on-chain fees can be reduced and you don't use hops which charge fees, fees when using LN should be extremely reduced. CMIIW.

See https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/
I make it about six to eiht hops so that's five times "charge small fees" plus the first hub in bi-directional channel need to deposit
the banks money in the channel so that's going to amount to interest even if you don't use the channel it's still on loan to you
for incoming payments.

You cannot reach across the world to send money without using banking hubs in one off payments but you could open one with you mum on the
other side of the world, keep it open and keep sending each other money a millions times and call it almost free but in the
real world that's not how things works.

Open the LN white paper and search for the word "Fee" to see it's written all over the document and whats more none of the
fees are capped so in the end you are at the mercy of the bankers and we are talking about the same people that currently run mining
and charge you $20 just to store 250 bytes of data and take all day just to do that.