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11 sats \ 10 replies \ @brianoflondon OP 15 Nov 2022 \ parent \ on: It only takes 10,000 USD per hour to cripple Lightning. bitcoin
Trying to run a routing node as a business has a slim profitability when fees are 1sat/vB.
It only takes a pittance's worth of transaction fees to send everybody's fees up to 16x that.
Lightning is all very happy for a closed circle jerk of rebalancing and hunting for forwarding fees (who knows how much of the traffic today is this? I've seen estimates of 80%+).
Those of us trying to actually build a useful system which does involve moving Bitcoin on and off Lightning sometimes have to think about stuff like this.
Thanks for expanding on your comments. I concur that the cost of opening / closing channels impacts on profitability.
It doesn't exactly 'cripple' lightning though. There are many reasons to run channels other than to make a profit, eg:
- To accept payments as a merchant
- To avoid on-chain fees when making multiple payments to a counterparty
- Improved transaction privacy
It's also worth remembering that we've been very fortunate to have 1sat/vB lately. In the future this fee MUST increase, to secure the network.
1sat/vB is not sustainable. We should prepare for 1000sat/vB and beyond and build an ecosystem around that.
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I run a gateway, about 70% of my flow by volume involves me sending out Lightning, 30% I receive it. I need to keep adding Bitcoin to my Lightning node. This I usually do by opening new channels.
I also know exactly what fees I'm paying to make transactions for my customers and the network as a whole is not as cheap to use as Lightning people would like.
The simple fact is because all of Bitcoin's inflation has always gone to miners and will continue to until it ends, Lightning will become increasingly expensive to use.
At 1000 sat/vB the only people running routing nodes will be centralised big money services and the whole network will start to look expensive to use.
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lol so you're having trouble managing liquidity and you can't open channels for near free anymore
Grow up
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Many people still do not realize or understand that:
- onchain will be exclusively to open/close channels, and only when is really need it
- LN will be exclusively for making payments, fast and secure. Fees will increase in time also on LN, not just onchain. Is the market that will decide.
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Lightning will not grow to handle the larger transactions in any reasonable time frame and the requirement of putting at risk an amount of capital equal to the amount you need to receive is a big issue.
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Nobody is forcing you to put any capital.
EVERYTHING is optional.
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interesting take ...check tweet no 6 onwards
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Trying to run a routing node as a business has a slim profitability when fees are 1sat/vB
You are welcome to drop the towel and move away.
LN is NOT a milking cow... is a payment network for Bitcoin.
If you are interested only in profits, you are mistaken.
As much that many (shitcoiners) think are in Bitcoin for profits... we (bitcoin maxis) are NOT!
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I'm not routing by design. Every now and then I try to encourage sats to move from one channel to another by adjusting fees but that's a distraction from my real business.
If there's no money in routing and running the network, the infrastructure won't be there or will be captured by SBF and his pals.
Thank you for your great volunteer work but that isn't enough.
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No worry, LN will still work without your "capital".
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