a better metric to follow is the average capacity per channel
I guess you were looking for something like this:
https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity-per-channelSo capacity has actually been pretty much stable during this last year.
But again, we don't know how many payments and liquidity flowed through those channels.
well 50% of all channels had a max capacity of ~$200
so even without crying about exact stats of how many micropayents..
you know for sure that there were bottlenecks of anyone trying to spend more then $200 in one go
and if say average was $2 spend per payment. 50% would have had to close and re-org their funds after just 100 payments
think of it this way
Alice [$4000><$200] bob [$200><$200] chuck [$200><$200] Dave [$200><$200]starbucks
alice might be in the top 10% with $4k... but do you think she will ever get to spend her $4k without closing
imagine scenarios.
dave has made 10 payments for himself of $4 each for HIS starbucks
Alice [$4000><$200] bob [$200><$200] chuck [$200><$200] Dave [$160><$240]starbucks
chuck done the same
Alice [$4000><$200] bob [$200><$200] chuck [$160><$240] Dave [$120><$280]starbucks
bob done the same
Alice [$4000><$200] bob [$160><$240] chuck [$120><$280] Dave [$80><$320]starbucks
now how much can alice spend if she was a caffiene addict
trust me.. its not $4k .. its not $200..
ill give you a hint.. its only $80
some might say $80 is still good
but now your forgetting the reality that
bob doesnt just have alice and chuck as partners. 'others' may use bob to route to starbucks. thus diluting the dave outbound to starbucks even more
chuck doesnt just have bob and dave as partners. 'others' may use chuck to route to starbucks. thus diluting the dave outbound starbucks even more
..
point being if you know that 50% of the network only has $200 capacity..
then you can work out that alot of outbounds are going to get exhausted very quickly
(average $2 payment = exhausted in 100 payments)
(average $4 payment = exhausted in 50 payments)
(average $8 payment = exhausted in 25 payments)
(average $20 payment= exhausted in 10 payments)
you can also work out if you know it will cost about $3 lock-in and $3 unlock of a onchain fee..
thats $6 of the $200 the people will want to recoup even to allow their balance to be used by others
so you can work out that as a minimum break even (logic/common sense) they are going to charge 3% fee
($6 of $200=3%)
heck.. you can then do some math. if you know the average is 3 hops to the destination
you can work out that it ends up costing the spender 9% (3% per hop)
so you start to get a picture about how expensive it is within LN compared to just buying coffee onchain vs buying a single $80 giftcard via fiat
so yea there is alot you can learn from knowing what the majority of the networks channel liquidity is. even without knowing each precise payment
heck if you know that some 'lightning pizza' promotion is being done for $25 of pizza
you know that the network will start showing massive amounts of payment failures within 8 payments along routes
('fold' lightning pizza' experiment had 90% payment failure rate)
https://decrypt.co/5321/folds-bitcoin-lightning-pizza-turns-out-to-have-been-a-success
