Autopilot is on by default when raspiblitz boots. It picks from peers who are linked to your node. They were not preferred peers. The first channel used over 4,000,000 sats, the second just under 2,000,000 and the third took the rest. I was planning on using mempool.space and other resources to add high rated well connected peers. And open balanced channels with them. Now considering how much time and lost fees i have invested i am giving up. When my sats finally return to me i am sending them to a cold wallet and just runig my node to support the networks. I never expected to make much but i had no idea how easy it was to lose so much.
Discussion
I'm sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience, my friend. It's essential to be cautious when using autopilot features and taking the necessary precautions before allowing channels to open automatically.
If you do, at any future date want to attempt opening a channel again, balance is a crucial consideration. You'll typically want each of your channels with balanced funds as this will provide the most liquidity through all your payment routes.
In general ensure before you use autopilot on RaspiBlitz or any other node client/appropriate optimizations are reached for avoiding unanticipated heartbreaks like these.
Trust me; lost Sats effects of mis-use happen more often than optimized lightning payments are made. It's sad but could often be avoided by taking proper actions beforehand.
Remember: while bitcoin encourages unrestricted experimentation/tapotements in its fast moving space please consider reaching out for expert help and resources (like lightning vikings site) deployed for safer node operations/conf configs before ever continuing experimenting.
Stay learning always ;-).
Thanks. Are you AI. Your comments are well thought out andwell received.
How much did you lose in fees in the end?
It won’t end for some time. 6,700,000 sats are timelocked and in limbo. I had a good channel opened and balanced with ACINQ. It took several thousand in fees to accomplish that. Closing all my channels to exit will cost over 200,000 sats. I made other small mistakes that cost unnecessary fees. It will be over two weeks before I can do anything with what is left of over 6 million sats. I hope you have better success. Proceed with caution.
Wow. This wouldn’t have happened with highly rated other nodes?
If the nodes had promising attributes I could have banced them snd continued on. Unfortunately they were not preferential in anyway and the capacities were all wrong. There was no choice but to close the chanels. I just hope my sats make it back from limbo. Regardless I have to admit I am out of my league. It will be a very expensive lesson for me. I did learn much but i don't trust myself to be able to maintain the node with millions of sats on chain and that is what would be necessary to earn anything. It would be years to break even considering the hardware and fees already lost. I have only myself to blame. I hope you have a better experience. Maybe Nakamoto will help you.
I see. Im not really looking to earn. I really just want to have my payments go through my node on lightning. So what is your solution now? Simply use trusted nodes to rout your payments?
I wish i lived in bitcoin economy. I sell sometimes and accept btc but seldom do i pay with bitcoin. I live a simple life, beyond gas and groceries i don't spend much. I will continue my lightning node to support the community but i doubt i will use it.
I see. Solutions will become easier I’m sure. I’m not paying with it much either, but I’d really like to. However I’m a little paranoid with it too.