The Lightning Network node experience

[Rath_]

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.

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[BitcoinVN_official]

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

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, we've also on the roadmap in the latter half of '23 to get our fleet of Bitcoin ATM's in Vietnam ready to use via Lightning (currently only on-chain which can make the sale process quite slow at times  ) )

[Rath_]

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?

[BitcoinVN_official]

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.

[darkv0rt3x]

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.


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!

[n0nce]

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?

[darkv0rt3x]

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?

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!

[n0nce]

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.

[BitcoinVN_official]

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.

[psycodad]

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:



These are for the first days of January 2023:



And to put that into context, my total stats since Sep 2021 are:

Total: 4,605.266 Sats
Transactions: 625

I am curious how this continues to unfold.

[n0nce]

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:

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?

[darkv0rt3x]

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


2021


2022

[psycodad]

In that regard; do you calculate capacity as just your own LN balance or total inbound + total outbound?

The 0.4 mentioned are total inbound + outbound.

[darkv0rt3x]

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.

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!

[gunhell16]

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.

[n0nce]

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 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?

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.

[darkv0rt3x]

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 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?

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.

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?

[Rath_]

Core-Lightning 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. 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.

[WZBcoin]

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…

[n0nce]

~

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 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.