Earning LN routing fees

[CryptoTux]

I've been reading up on the Lightning Network, and I read that you can earn routing fees by having users relay LN transactions through your node. What I'd like to know is this:

• How can I determine if someone decided to relay through my node? Through incoming connections?
• Are open channels imperative to earning routing fees? If so, how many are optimal?

I'm aware that I might earn only a handful of satoshi, but I'm interested in new experiences and technologies.

[achow101]

How can I determine if someone decided to relay through my node? Through incoming connections?

You will see that someone has offered you an HTLC and then you have offered someone else an HTLC.

Are open channels imperative to earning routing fees?

Yes, routing occurs over open channels, you cannot route without multiple open channels.

If so, how many are optimal?

It depends on how many coins you have and how man you are willing to put into each channel.

[CryptoTux]

How can I determine if someone decided to relay through my node? Through incoming connections?

You will see that someone has offered you an HTLC and then you have offered someone else an HTLC.

I'm using lnd as my client. What should I look for in my log to determine if such an event has occurred?

[achow101]

I'm using lnd as my client. What should I look for in my log to determine if such an event has occurred?

I'm not currently running LND, so I'm not sure. However, you should see log lines related to circuits.

[CryptoTux]

Closest thing I can find to that has something to do with trimming circuits. Not sure what it means, though.

In any case, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I'm sure I'll be able to route my way through the Lightning Network (pardon the pun).

[fmirg21]

I've been reading up on the Lightning Network, and I read that you can earn routing fees by having users relay LN transactions through your node. What I'd like to know is this:

• How can I determine if someone decided to relay through my node? Through incoming connections?
• Are open channels imperative to earning routing fees? If so, how many are optimal?

I'm aware that I might earn only a handful of satoshi, but I'm interested in new experiences and technologies.

Just run lncli feereport

If your are not moving the amounts in your channels that should indicate how much you have earned.
But at this time people have channels with subsatoshis or zero fees. I have had my nodes running for 3 months and no one has routed through me (or not that I know of).

If there is a better solution like a line on the logs, please tell me

[CryptoTux]

Just run lncli feereport

If your are not moving the amounts in your channels that should indicate how much you have earned.
But at this time people have channels with subsatoshis or zero fees. I have had my nodes running for 3 months and no one has routed through me (or not that I know of).

If there is a better solution like a line on the logs, please tell me

Checked. All my fee sums are zero.

Do you suppose routing fees might increase as larger hubs come into existence? My reasoning is that those who have larger funded channels will be able to service more users, which will lead to them being able to dictate higher routing fees for the sake of convenience (so users don't have to create new channels for larger sums, for instance).

[bob123]

Do you suppose routing fees might increase as larger hubs come into existence?

Definitely.
The LN is still being tested currently. Once it is fully released and people start using it, there will be routing fees.
Currently it is more like testing how payments in the future will look like 

My reasoning is that those who have larger funded channels will be able to service more users, which will lead to them being able to dictate higher routing fees for the sake of convenience (so users don't have to create new channels for larger sums, for instance).

User can at any time decide to open a new channel with any person.
You do not have to open a direct channel to the person you want to pay or receive from. There just has to exist a route between you and your target (through multiple hops).

[CryptoTux]

Definitely.
The LN is still being tested currently. Once it is fully released and people start using it, there will be routing fees.
Currently it is more like testing how payments in the future will look like 

I'll be patient and wait for the Lightning Network to leave beta phase. I think it has some way to go before becoming a user-friendly second-layer solution.

[RGBKey]

Definitely.
The LN is still being tested currently. Once it is fully released and people start using it, there will be routing fees.
Currently it is more like testing how payments in the future will look like 

I'll be patient and wait for the Lightning Network to leave beta phase. I think it has some way to go before becoming a user-friendly second-layer solution.

I think it's going to take a lot more time to see people making money off of routing fees than it's going to take to see it being used by people. The usability is more than half there now. But it's still difficult to make money running a node.

[buwaytress]

Definitely.
The LN is still being tested currently. Once it is fully released and people start using it, there will be routing fees.
Currently it is more like testing how payments in the future will look like 

I'll be patient and wait for the Lightning Network to leave beta phase. I think it has some way to go before becoming a user-friendly second-layer solution.

I think it's going to take a lot more time to see people making money off of routing fees than it's going to take to see it being used by people. The usability is more than half there now. But it's still difficult to make money running a node.

Actually this is probably the first actual question I've seen with interest in making fees from LN, since most users anyway (far as I could tell) were really just interested in using LN. The appeal of low/no fees and instant transacting aside, it's for me also personally useful to open channels with people I frequently transact with, almost as an additional layer of "trust" or familiarity. Definitely don't see how the potential for earning fees would encourage adoption, but I suppose I'm not thinking of business scale.

[Rath_]

Running nodes isn't free, so i think fees in LN is totally acceptable. But IMO, there should be soft-limit such as less than 1% of transacted amount/less than 100 satoshi and default fees should be set to 0.

Some wallets, for example, Eclair for Android allow you to automatically block your payment if the fee exceeds 3% of the amount you want to pay. It is quite useful but it usually warned me when I was trying to send less than 1 cent worth of Bitcoin (testing Yalls.org). I had to turn it off in the settings in order to send the payment successfully. I wouldn't have such problem if I had opened a channel directly to Yalls. Wallets should be the ones to limit the fee, not the protocol.

[RGBKey]

Definitely.
The LN is still being tested currently. Once it is fully released and people start using it, there will be routing fees.
Currently it is more like testing how payments in the future will look like 

I'll be patient and wait for the Lightning Network to leave beta phase. I think it has some way to go before becoming a user-friendly second-layer solution.

I think it's going to take a lot more time to see people making money off of routing fees than it's going to take to see it being used by people. The usability is more than half there now. But it's still difficult to make money running a node.

Actually this is probably the first actual question I've seen with interest in making fees from LN, since most users anyway (far as I could tell) were really just interested in using LN. The appeal of low/no fees and instant transacting aside, it's for me also personally useful to open channels with people I frequently transact with, almost as an additional layer of "trust" or familiarity. Definitely don't see how the potential for earning fees would encourage adoption, but I suppose I'm not thinking of business scale.

I've seen plenty of people wanting to know how they can make money by routing payments. But a lot of them seem to not understand the scale required of both the whole network and the number of channels their node will have to maintain in order to make any amount of money they can recognize

[buwaytress]

Running nodes isn't free, so i think fees in LN is totally acceptable. But IMO, there should be soft-limit such as less than 1% of transacted amount/less than 100 satoshi and default fees should be set to 0.

Some wallets, for example, Eclair for Android allow you to automatically block your payment if the fee exceeds 3% of the amount you want to pay. It is quite useful but it usually warned me when I was trying to send less than 1 cent worth of Bitcoin (testing Yalls.org). I had to turn it off in the settings in order to send the payment successfully. I wouldn't have such problem if I had opened a channel directly to Yalls. Wallets should be the ones to limit the fee, not the protocol.

Running nodes have never been free, and I'm sure the hundreds of volunteer nodes securing Bitcoin (and hundreds of others securing other alternative blockchains) know this - but incentive mechanisms are already in place... I'm also quite against protocol limiting the fee (yeah, default should be zero), when that function can easily be integrated into wallets. Then again, nature of competition and business efficiency should play all this out naturally. As will the price of Bitcoin, at some point.

[CryptoTux]

Usually competition works to prevent high fees, except when all route available have high fees which sucks. This will be rare case, but i'm sure this might happen when there aren't many routes and all available nodes offer high fees.
I don't like limiting the fees from protocol either, but IMO this might be necessary.

After reading the discussion about limiting fees based on protocol, I'd side with the majority on not doing so and instead rely on a "laissez-faire" approach, if you will, to ensure routing fees reach a state of equilibrium. Most Lightning clients have autorouting, don't they? From what I've gathered, such clients will choose the cheapest route, so any node with excessive fees will be avoided if possible.

[Rath_]

From what I've gathered, such clients will choose the cheapest route, so any node with excessive fees will be avoided if possible.

Yes, your wallet should choose the cheapest route and as I mentioned earlier, some wallets allow you to limit the transaction fee in order to avoid overpaying. I really doubt that we will ever have a problem with too high Lightning Network transaction fees. If you are going to send your coins to someone often then you should consider opening a channel directly with the other person's node.

[fmirg21]

Checked. All my fee sums are zero.

Do you suppose routing fees might increase as larger hubs come into existence? My reasoning is that those who have larger funded channels will be able to service more users, which will lead to them being able to dictate higher routing fees for the sake of convenience (so users don't have to create new channels for larger sums, for instance).

Of course fees will increase but not yet. People is trying to get the most number of nodes connected so when someone new joins the Lightning Network the see oh thats a big node I'll connect to it, and so they will keep growing.

For successfully routing payments, having channels with large amounts will be better but for now the "most" expensive thing you can buy with lightning is blockstream t-shirts so 200k satoshis is already a big channel for now.

[andrew1carlssin]

Hello fellows,

I remember once I saw a white paper on routing/scaling LN layer, but I cant locate this document on the web, and also I cant remember the full documents reference (keywords, peer review score, etc)  ... I would like to bring up this topic to netacad (Cisco Academy) forum.

Does any one have any suggestions

I appreciate,
AC--

[Ucy]

Definitely.
The LN is still being tested currently. Once it is fully released and people start using it, there will be routing fees.
Currently it is more like testing how payments in the future will look like 

I'll be patient and wait for the Lightning Network to leave beta phase. I think it has some way to go before becoming a user-friendly second-layer solution.

I think it's going to take a lot more time to see people making money off of routing fees than it's going to take to see it being used by people. The usability is more than half there now. But it's still difficult to make money running a node.

But it's still difficult to make money running a node.

Hopefully running nodes doesn't continue to be difficult in the future. There must be some sort of incentive to run nodes unless nodes aren't that important for Lightning Network.
We don't need another cartel running Bitcoin.

[xTz]

Even without LN adopted the transaction volumes are a joke these days, on LND fees will be like 10 cents/day at these volumes.
I do not see everyone rushing into using lightning nodes, maybe when hypermarkets will accept LND payments for grocery stores, you will have more fees through your node.
But is good to be prepared as a developer from begining, but do not expect to get rich in next 10 years.