Topic: Lightning Network Observer - page 33. (Read 14270 times)

I'm not 100% sure as I haven't yet had to restore a node myself, so I can't comment on that for sure but I'd tend to agree with your assessment.

What is this UI, by the way? I've never seen it myself so far.

Interesting! I have very limited experience with LND, but the theory of using the backup plugin and restoring a backup with is indeed pretty straight forward. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out in practice!
Did you set it up to save the backups on an external drive?

Like shown here?

I was able to restore the database so I must have had the right hsm_secret ?  I guess I have to wait now for the node to finish syncing to see if we have the keys to anything...  Or maybe the node is just working?  That would be odd.

My understanding is the sqlite database backup would not restore with the wrong hsm_secret.

The HARDEST POT to watch boil:

I put a LOT more work, time and value into LND.  Through the last 7 months I have run the CL node, I am feeling a LITTLE like it is a more well rounded smartly designed product.

[5] Initial channel state backup

To be honest, I also trust my channel partners (a few of you are right here) and am entirely comfortable with them force closing the channels as they see fit.  I also realize I am vulnerable now, and those partners could decide to broadcast a channel state I may not be able to argue with.  I am hoping they will not.

But honestly my main hope is I can still produce the private keys to the addresses the close transactions will send my funds to.

One nice bit of info for our CL friends here... if you ever get in trouble this is what the respiblitz devs are suggesting.  I assume if you are using the backup plugin the sequence would be similar.

https://gist.github.com/openoms/3516cd8f393d69d52f858c3d47c9e469

Is there an IOS app that can use Lightening Network? I know of CashApp. Any others?

for the first time.. (treat next sentence as humour)
so you are predicting it will DROP and it might hit 4000  a second time, seems your not confident in future growth

Yuck! Good luck with the recoveries!
As for LND, I have no idea; for Core Lightning did you use its backup plugin? If not, I'd prefer to prevent running the risk of losing one (or more) channel's full balance and rather ask counterparties to force close them (or wait until that happens). If you are 100% certain that the backup doesn't differ from the latest channel state, you can restore it safely and prevent any losses. But honestly at current mempool sizes, force closing channels isn't too expensive and it's the safer route, in my opinion.

~

for the first time.. (treat next sentence as humour)
so you are predicting it will DROP and it might hit 4000  a second time, seems your not confident in future growth

LN Finally crossed the  4,000 BTC threshold for the first time.

I believe that we have only started to scratch the surface with "what Lightning is". It might not be merely for cheap/fast payments as originally advertised. Bitcoin was first conceptualized to be a "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" too, but obviously it has become much more as we started going deeper in understanding of what it can truly be.

Shower thought, NO KYC exchanges built on Lightning, with NO KYC as the value proposition. Is this possible?

FEES AND CHANNEL BALANCE... thoughts and questions!

Hello lightning observer!!!

OK.  It's time for a post in here, isn't it?

I have some questions that some of you galaxy brains might be able to answer.  I have been running an LND node since 2019 (not counting the one I had in 2018 that I killed), and only recently added a CLN node about 6 months ago.  My questions have to do with both, but the LND node sees much more traffic with between 200-2000 transactions routed a day generally.  

I have 4 channel state scenarios I see.  But only want to really consider the LAST one.

• Some channels seem to want to almost auto balance themselves.  In this case I assume my channel partner is a little OCD and is doing that.  I have tried some of that myself, but it does not suit my personality really.  I am more interested in using passive techniques to balance my channels more organically.
  
• A few channels seem to slosh back and forth entirely.  I have some fairly large (~0.16BTC) channels with the exchanges that have come on board, Bitfinex, Kraken. And these channels like to slosh back and forth wildly.  Makes sense.  Someone wants to deposit $3k worth of bitcoin on Kraken?  Well my channel can handle that, and then same with withdrawals.
• Some of my channels just don't do much.  I assume these are nodes with low traffic and low use.  I have begun to close these to instead open channels with folks that fall into the other three categories.  Waste of time, these.
• Then there is my fourth type I would like your help with!  There are the channekls that see great deals of action in ONE DIRECTION, then stop.  In general, I open a channel to an channel partner, and the all the liquidity rushes over to one side then just stops.  Boom.  Done.  It can go either way, but generally it goes to their side.

I see two ways to deal with these:

1.  Once the liquidity is over to their side, then just close the channel, and open a new one.  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
2.  Coax the liquidity back over to the dry side of the channel.
(3. Well I could also just leave it alone and end up with a channel that is effectively #3 up there.  And that is pretty much what has been happening.)

So.  The easy solution is to close and reopen the channel.  I have even notice that certain commercial LSPs you open channels to, once the liquidity has all rushed over to the other side then slam the channel closed themselves.  Wham, bam, thank you mam.  And actually, I plan to start setting those channels back up with a fee structure that will make more sats than it costs to open and close the channel, and start being that kind of liquidity... In fact these sorts of things may be the most profitable of all.  

But my bias is to basically run as much liquidity as I can without losing money.  So I am glad to charge NO FERES AT ALL if I can figure out how to keep the liquidity moving back and forth...  

So that's the question.  What strategy would you guys use to, once all the liquidity has flowed to one side, coax it back over to the other?  In fact some of my channels with various bitcointalk forum users are the main ones that work this way... I honestly do not need to make any money off a channel we share.  I just want to help make the LN be a success.  I would even consider closing and reopening the channel over and over... but in that case I would probably want to make a couple thousand sats on the the life of the channel to make that worth doing...  So I am more interested in sustaining open channels without closing at all (which, frankly is the point right?)

Hope you are all well!

Any ideas?

PS.  I forgot to mention one thing.  I am biased towards ZERO FEES.  Like I said I just want the damn lightning network to actually succeed.  But I do not want to LOSE money.  So though I prefer very low fees, I do not mind tweaking them for the sake of accomplishing the ability to keep a channel open definitely... The incentives for running a lightning node are actually somewhat elegant the more I think about them!

Absolutely. For me, Lightning is about cheap and fast payments as well as privacy. It's definitely possible that you also have legal advantages when building something fully off-chain instead of using on-chain payments, but I'm not sure about that.

In general, it's been proven that crypto-only casinos are easier to run long-term and I believe it's actually the standard model today. I may be wrong, though, since I'm not a big betting man.

I guess the rub would be failed payment.  So if the site required you to open and fund a channel?  Then I think it would work well, but that's not going to be what most users do.  On the other hand if people using hosted wallets wanted to play then things like WoS would usually be reliable, AND most likely have that channel open too.

That said... I think it makes the most sense to have a "deposit" like payment to be made with a withdrawal when you actually take the chips off the table.

I don't see why it shouldn't work; every move could be encoded in a mSat-amount payment - unlike smart contracts on Ethereum for instance, more or less activity in a channel doesn't put more strain on the network (channel / blockchain respectively), so you can absolutely use payment channels for high-frequency 'data transfers'. The utility or need for it, can be questioned, but it's fun from a technological perspective.

What if NO KYC services built directly on top were the value proposition of Lightning? Many people in the community don't like KYC, no? Would that help onboard more users?

One of my first channels I ever opened was to them!   I don't play much just because I am not a great fan of -EV games...  But it's fun to dump a few sats at it from time to time.  But it is STILL open and has routed afew million SATS.  Not my busiest channel, but been up since 11/2019!

I was thinking a poker game that is 100% lightning would be cool...  My original thought was all the hands would literally pay out to lightning addresses each time.  But I suppose that would never be foolproof.  Someone DID make one that works in a more standard fashion. 

https://lightning-poker.com/