Amount to transact on lightning network

[KingTin]

I understand Lightning network is meant to be for smaller day to day payment, fast and low fee etc.
But what exactly is the amount deemed small?

I can see if an amount too big, it could really mess up the channel's liquidity, is there an amount that the community agree on that's the limit I should use on lightning?

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[BlackHatCoiner]

As you said, it depends on the channel's liquidity. If the amount you want to transfer with lightning exceeds the channel's capacity, then you can't transact it. The limit when you send via lightning is the channel's sending capacity. The limit when you receive via lightning is the channel's receiving capacity.

Suggestion:  For any question you have about LN, make it in the FAQ.

[Rath_]

I can see if an amount too big, it could really mess up the channel's liquidity, is there an amount that the community agree on that's the limit I should use on lightning?

It doesn't matter if you send many small payments or few large ones. Just use the Lightning Network whenever you need it. If your channel becomes unbalanced, you can use third-party services to refill your channel. My node routed quite a few large payments (up to 900k satoshi) so there are people who don't care about the size. Also, large payments can be split and routed through different channels.

[franky1]

I can see if an amount too big, it could really mess up the channel's liquidity, is there an amount that the community agree on that's the limit I should use on lightning?

It doesn't matter if you send many small payments or few large ones. Just use the Lightning Network whenever you need it. If your channel becomes unbalanced, you can use third-party services to refill your channel. My node routed quite a few large payments (up to 900k satoshi) so there are people who don't care about the size. Also, large payments can be split and routed through different channels.

IF channels (other route hops before destination) had capacity then splitting can be done.
IF user has multiple channels and multiple balances to have that option
many if's you forgot to mention

he is not talking about the value HE has. so advice about HIM rebalancing is not the issue. its about making a payment along a route to a destination.. the liquidity of the route and the average value routes have across the network to have a good chance of success every time.

he is talking about the "payment success" rate thing.. like the near 100% for sub$1 amounts, the 10% success rate for pizza amounts in 2018.. or even this example more recently

My node has successfully routed 143 payments (until the 31st October) with ~0.09 BTC capacity and 5 active 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.

maybe better to try to re-guage what a "payment success" % rate would be for 2021 for different amounts and actually answer the guys question rather then hide the issue with a "doesnt matter, just use LN whenever you want".. because from your own experience of 389 fails.. your experience is not a "doesnt matter just use LN whenever you want" thing, is it?.. heck you even had 5 channels and still had a 73% fail rate

even you know that routes need available balance along the route of multi-hops. and it does matter if one of those hops is bottlenecked. the guy wants to know whats the current easy amount that should pretty much always go through

your answer of "if you send many small amounts" is empty. as he was literally asking what "small amount" is, before you even said it..

EG most people are not going to open 5 funded channels just to buy the occasional coffee or pizza. most will just want to open one channel

so imagine in the non-utopian world(called the real world of real use). someone wants to buy a $18 pizza
but between the buyer and the pizza place there is a bottleneck
the bottlenecker only has $10 spare. and you want to send $18. sending it as 3x of $6 instead, is still going to fail.. because the bottleneck still only has $10!
meaning first 3rd, the bottleneckers $10 becomes $4, when sending $6
then the second 3rd fails because only $4 isnt enough to send $6
then the third 3rd fails because only $4 isnt enough to send $6

so the payer cant then send $18 to its destined destination to buy a $18 pizza because only a third can get through

so its not as easy as 'dont worry' as you pretend. and deep down you know it... you have personally experienced it. having over 380 fails with amounts under 0.0096btc (11% of your capacity)
so be honest, your now a big part of the altnet known as LN. so be part of the honest dialog about limitations and issues. how about try to actually gauge what "small" is in regards to "payment success"

if the largest 'success' you had was 11% of your capacity.
but you had a success:fail ratio of about 143:389.. atleast be honest about it and not pretend LN is easy and use whatever you want

[CryptoSable]

That's a good question.
Maybe there's no definition of small, lightning network is supposed to help those in need of transaction speed. Just set up a number you deem appropriate to your own spending.

[bL4nkcode]

I understand Lightning network is meant to be for smaller day to day payment, fast and low fee etc.
But what exactly is the amount deemed small?

I guess google might help you out. I found this article from binance it says

There’s a minimum amount of Bitcoin you can send in a transaction – approximately 0.00000546 BTC.

I don't know if its really the fixed amount to transfer in the lightning network but that's 20~ish cents USD as of writing and it's too small to be considered. I guess there's no need to worry about how small the transaction is but how large and frequent is.

[fiulpro]

I read on the Google, the article mentioned how the success rate of lightning network beyond 200$ was only 1% according to the research.
https://thenextweb.com/news/lighting-network-transactions/amp
Which does mean that we might transfer a lot of money but the success rate might not be consistent. Therefore I do think that what people can do is:
Use it for small payments, like coffee, dinner or something like that, at the same time if you want to transfer a lot then either split it or either use the segWit wallet, which would be a better option perse and if you are one of that 1% then way to go!
Even if there are limitations in the lightning network I do think that it can do well with time if we consider it for day to day small payments, that could not only integrate bitcoins in the whole order of buying/selling but can also be taken as an experiment to see how many people would be able to use it. Right now it does need some upgradations which would come with time for sure.

[Pffrt]

There’s a minimum amount of Bitcoin you can send in a transaction – approximately 0.00000546 BTC.

That's an amount of minimum amount to transact on chain, not for off chain. Afaik, off chain LN transaction has no minimum but limitation on big size txs as mentioned above though personally I haven’t experienced LN a lot of times.

[Rath_]

he is talking about the "payment success" rate thing.. like the near 100% for sub$1 amounts, the 10% success rate for pizza amounts in 2018.. [...]

We have already talked about it. 1500 invoices were generated, 10% of which were successfully paid. One person might have generated multiple invoices without ever trying to pay them.

[...] because from your own experience of 389 fails.. your experience is not a "doesnt matter just use LN whenever you want" thing, is it?.. heck you even had 5 channels and still had a 73% fail rate

I am sure that you know that wallets try multiple routes before failing the payment completely. If my node failed to route a payment, it doesn't mean that it wasn't routed by someone else.

I don't know if its really the fixed amount to transfer in the lightning network but that's 20~ish cents USD as of writing and it's too small to be considered. I guess there's no need to worry about how small the transaction is but how large and frequent is.

546 satoshi is the dust limit on the main layer. Lightning payments can be as low as 1/1000th of a satoshi.

[LoyceV]

is there an amount that the community agree on that's the limit I should use on lightning?

Usually, the Bitcoin(talk) community doesn't agree unanimously on anything

Personally, I base my choice between LN and on-chain on fees. At the moment I draw the line for making a LN-payment at less than 1mBTC (100,000 sat). Let me explain why: on-chain, 1 sat/vbyte is often enough, so I can make a transaction for less than 200 sat. With LN, I use either BlueWallet or Phoenix Wallet. The former is custodial and charges 0.3% to 1% in LN fees, the latter is only custodial when opening channels, and charges 1% with a minimum of 3000 sat to open a channel. That means, apart from other fees, a 100k sat transaction costs me up to several times more in LN than on-chain.
I can reduce my fees if I fund Phoenix Wallet using LN instead of on-chain, and at some point in the future I might switch to another LN wallet again, but for now this fits my needs.

Note that on-chain fees aren't always this low, so it doesn't hurt to keep some funds in LN. Funding a channel is much cheaper at 1 sat/byte than when fees are high. So I keep some funds on LN as an insurance against higher fees later on.

[franky1]

he is talking about the "payment success" rate thing.. like the near 100% for sub$1 amounts, the 10% success rate for pizza amounts in 2018.. [...]

We have already talked about it. 1500 invoices were generated, 10% of which were successfully paid. One person might have generated multiple invoices without ever trying to pay them.

so thats your play. that LN always works unless one person generates 1350 invoices he never intends to pay.
and all genuine pizza customers had 100% success..(facepalm)
how utopian dreamer of you, to avoid actually analysing what the network can do and can be limited by to actually offer a up-to-date chart of "payment success rate" percentages.

maybe speak to your LN buddies and try to make a 'payment success' chart that can work out whats the near best 100% accepted amount, where near 100% routes would push through, and then the same again for different incremental amounts.

it wont cost anyone anything. after all you just admitted people can send thousands of test payments they never intend to pay(invoices).. so it is possible to accumulate such data periodically

then people can know what amount they can expect to use for payments without a headache or breaking promises with the destination.

so while many topics about LN turn into a utopian dreamer hype advert, i might as well give a real world advert about the bitcoin network.

meanwhile bitcoin network can send any amount someone has. no middle man issues. if you have $10 or $10bill in bitcoin value. you can send it, no question.. no co-signer authorisation needed. any value you have the destination will get, no headache, no if, no but, no excuses.
confirmation confirmed. no flimsy invoice fake promises to pay then pull out. just simple elegant payments

[Mikayla Buckley]

You can do some experiments when you pay. In many cases, using Lightning for large transactions is actually not cost-effective. Everything needs to be practiced. If you don't try it, how can you know the result.