Subnostr

How can a store owner keep channels balanced when 99% of transactions are incoming payments and constantly draining remote liquidity?

If shop owners of the world gravitate towards custodial solutions, there will be the risk of mass rug pulls.

I visited a bitcoin community recently, and everybody in the community is running custodial Lightning, and I suspect, using the “community node” for liquidity.

Assume that node is controlled by 5-7 people, we have recreated a central point of failure, etc. *Most people don’t know the people running the node behind the scenes.*

At least with the FED, we know who is rugging us.

Chriso🇺🇸🇦🇺🦘⚡️ 2y ago

While I’m not a shop owner, I’ve wondered this same thing. As a retail shop, payments come into your node, pushing the liquidity one way. If you periodically move to another node or to an on-chain wallet, would that not balance the channel? Understand, I’m asking here and only theorize this works. I’m an amateur node runner so I could be completely off base. I still get confused about remote and local balances😂🙃😂

Example-

Retailer Node A- receives funds pushing channels to one sided eventually have no liquidity..to get the liquidity, push funds from retail node to Node B (The Bank Node)

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Discussion

Bryan 2y ago

There are ways to do manage the liquidity in such a situation, but a vendor trying to sell ice cream at the beach or a restaurant owner isn’t going to be able to manage this issue.

Sats paa BTC 2y ago

But the ice cream vendor will have to buy his ice cream somewhere, f.i. a wholesaler. Wouldn't that help managing the balance?

Chriso🇺🇸🇦🇺🦘⚡️ 2y ago

Yes I thought about that. Of course if the economy is circular, that would take care of the liquidity issue. My mind goes to the idea that you will get the customer transacting in sats before you get the supplier. That is unless you can find local economies that are all transacting in BTC.

Sats paa BTC 2y ago

Of course it might seem to be a far fetch before we have a circular bitcoin economy, but it would be reasonable to assume that you could find a wholesaler at an earlier point that you'll have hundreds of people wanting to buy ice cream while paying with bitcoin...

Chriso🇺🇸🇦🇺🦘⚡️ 2y ago

Do you think my example is a solution? If so, the retail node would need to maintain liquidity for say 2 days sales at all times. Each night, management would be in charge of sending sats to the bank node located off site. I guess both nodes could be offsite, but if I were the retailer, I’d want node for collecting payments onsite.

Bryan 2y ago

The guy is selling ice cream. Should he have to hire an IT department?

*Just trying to be a better critic.*

Chriso🇺🇸🇦🇺🦘⚡️ 2y ago

I’m assuming everyone is a nerd like me and wants to learn how to use lighting and run a node. Once setup, it wouldn’t take much to manage. It could easily be done with an android or iPhone using Zeus and Tailscale. I’ve also seen software that allows for multiple wallets and wallet management that would work well for this as well since I think you could prevent spending of funds from the device. But that would get more technical than node management. I think the “boss” either has to have some technical skills or hires someone for consulting services.

I’ve often wanted to do some of this type consulting work, but I’m not comfortable enough yet. If I have to lose someone’s money, I’d rather it be mine than a client’s. That’s the main reason I haven’t tried to talk to clients about this as an option. It is also the main reason I have started running my on lightning node (get understanding and experience).

This is a good conversation, let’s keep it going to find a solution 🤙🏻⚡️