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(Bummed that I missed this talk.)
This has nothing to do with the sort of routing that pretty much any other node in the network is doing.
The c= node has an exclusivity deal with CashApp so all their users's payment have to go through c=.
If the CashApp nodes would be open to accept channels from anyone the c= APR would be much lower because their entire operation depends on the special setup.
It's basically a combination of an accounting trick combined with obfuscated fees for the CashApp users.
CashApp could just charge their users a spending fee but instead they do not and split it of to c= which then claims to earn by "routing".
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Thanks for the insight.
So does this mean CashApp users tend to pay higher than normal routing fees to use the lightning network, compared to if you utilized your own node?
Or would it mean that people sending to CashApp wallets will pay routing higher fees because they have to go through c=?
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They are likely to pay higher fees compared to other services/wallets that have direct channels to the destinations they want to reach. To pay a CashApp user it's also very likely that you have to pay more compared to other services.
The c= node adds an extra hop to every route that goes from/to the CashApp nodes. Fees c= charges are 1000 to 3000 ppm, so 0.1 to 0.3 percent is added to each payment.
Since most of the volume CashApp produces is sending, the c= node gets outbound heavy so they have to close the channels that the CashApp nodes open. They use the funds from those closed channels to open new channels to the destinations the CashApp users want to reach. This is how they are able to earn so much from "routing".
Originally CashApp did only peer with select nodes because of legal and compliance reasons. I guess at some point they figured they could earn a bunch if they put a node running LDK between them and the rest of the network. It's frankly a bit strange how they act like they earn from routing while they are just an exclusive gatekeeper for CashApp lightning.
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107 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 29 May
Hmmm, I remember seeing recently LNbig posting that they make about 1%. How is this result so different?
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Similar reason as to why Jeff Bezos is so much wealthier than all of us I imagine.
I think part of the confusion stems from all us thinking about routing nodes like bitcoin miners - if you have the same energy cost and hashrate and hashrate efficiency, you’ll make the same as anyone else with similar stats.
Routing nodes have many more degrees of freedom so outcomes will vary wildly.
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where is the yield coming from?!
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Proud owner of block shares. As part owner I am happy with this performance and I can’t wait for this Sat yield to be paid out via dividends!
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What how
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Routing payments would be my guess. Is that it @k00b?
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My node is not giving me yield :) not in sats at least.
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10% yield seems pretty high for a node, since the average fee rate is about 0.1%. So to get a 10%/year yield from routing, you'd have to turn over your entire channel capacity 100 times per year? I guess that's possible
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Back when I was still running my node, I was at 12% APY when I was providing liquidity to LOOP. From what I gather from the related Telegram groups, this seems to be still quite a profitable endeavour. My largest channels would be depleted several times per day.
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10 sats \ 7 replies \ @OT 29 May
Might be a bit personal, but did you put up a lot of capital?
I'm wondering if this is because of their size.
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Size matters for sure. Not sure about the current status, but at the time, below 1 or 2M sats per channel, it didn't make much sense. For LOOP, I think I had 10M channels, at the very least. Probably more, but I don't remember the details.
One of the reasons I stopped is that I felt I was playing outside of my league. I had too much capital locked in those hot wallets, and I grew too fast, too quickly. Some hardware and software problems reeled me back in, and I never got around to doing it again, at least not as a routing node. To do it properly, what matters is size. So unless you own disposable Bitcoin at the 1+ BTC unit level, you're likely not going to reach this kind of APYs.
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According to Alex Bosworth, some people route at 4000ppm with LOOP. Even used to be 7000 pm at some point. 0.4 and 0.7%, respectively. You can see it accumulates quickly if you do it several times per day.
They have a few engineers and some cracked ML folks working on optimizing it apparently. They also do a lot of volume as custodial wallet.
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I'm very curious about it as well. Maybe they sell inbound channels as well.
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I read this as using CashApp you could make a 10% yield and I was about to be shook
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Incredible, 10% is too much, I would like to know how they are doing it exactly.
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impressive
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found a slightly better screenshot here