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Javier 1y ago

I just posted an article about why I have closed my very old #lightning #bitcoin node.

Main reasons are:

- Too much work and time spent maintaining the node.

- Meager earnings.

- High technical knowledge requirements if you really want to have more than 5 or 10 channels and resolve technical issues that will undoubtedly arise in the years to come.

- Limited mobile options (forces you to set up a reverse proxy with a VPS in some datacenter if you want to use clearnet).

- Excessive risk, money is at stake and hardware can fail, or a bug in the software could arise.

- Limited automation options (the only one that works well is CLBOSS and it's only available for CLIGHTNING).

- Periodic headaches.

Have a look at the article:

https://stacker.news/items/486283

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⚡ Dee Kay ⚡🇸🇪🇬🇧🇨🇿🇧🇷🇦🇹 1y ago

Randomly Force closed channels for a fee 100x a daily "revenue" is the worst in my opinion.

We (hobby node operators) are just donating money to miners.

Secretly they must be loving lightning!

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Javier 1y ago

Yes we are donating money to them, but it is not true that they benefit from it much. In all these years, my node have routed like 200k transactions, imagine how much money in fees the miners didn't received. And that was from my single node. Imagine how much is being moved through LN globally!

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Boog 1y ago

The plight of a node runner. I feel your pain and you make great points. But I’m never giving up!! What’s the alternative? Hopefully once the tech gets more stable you can come back.

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Rene 1y ago

Wow, that definitely is a relief for me, I always blamed myself for not having lightning in my node. Since I started running a node, some years ago, I installed all the lightning stuff, but never opened a single channel. Even though, LND has crashed sometimes, and it got afraid of putting funds on it. Thanks for sharing!

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Javier 1y ago

Yes, you don't really need a LN node unless you have a lot of liquidity to share and some kind of greater purpose, like having a store, a social media, wallet, exchange, or receive quite a lot of money via lightning for some other reason.

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nobody 1y ago

Coincidentally, I'm spinning up CLN and installinng CLBoss right now.

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Javier 1y ago

It's an excelent choice, I tested everything and that combination is the best by far. Let me know if you have any questions.

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marksn 1y ago

U can use Tunnelsats instead of an vps or reverse proxy.

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Javier 1y ago

Nice what is that?

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marksn 1y ago

A vpn service to use clearnet for a lightningnode. Payable with lightning. No userdata transmitted…

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TAX EVADER 1y ago

Thanks for sharing!

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Citizen 1y ago

Yes, starting a Lightning node is one thing, keeping it running reliably over years is a whole other challenge.

I've gradually shrunk my node from a high number also to just a handful of channels. I might close what's left also depending on how it goes.

I can only see #Lightning getting more & more centralized as time goes on.

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Javier 1y ago

Same situation with me, I reduced more and more the number of channels and liquidity until I finally end the suffering. Enough is enough.

But I don't see LN centralized anyway. In this comment and my response we talk about it: https://stacker.news/items/486283/r/javier?commentId=486502

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xfire 1y ago

running 170-250 channels on my CLN since years. I tend to it twice a year, reopen channels, update CLN etc.

I run a reverse proxy on my dial up connection at home, dyndns does exist.

the earnings a meager, but I honestly never calculated then. between FC and regular on chain fees.

but I can understand if people throw the towel. but then, we are still early in the game, things should get easier - and this is already happening.

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Javier 1y ago

Your case seems very similar to mine. I also used a reverse proxy with autossh from a VPS, although I use 4G, which is very unstable because I move quite a lot.

Lucky you if you go only twice a year, I was attending to it almost daily and got tired.

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m00ninite 1y ago

Hold up, you can run an LN node on dial-up? Can you even download the blocks fast enough to stay in sync? 🤔

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xfire 1y ago

sure, just run bitcoind on another system/line....

alternatively I used the wrong word here 😅 meant to talk about consumer grade dsl lines with changing IP addresses etc, which is very common where I internet.

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m00ninite 1y ago

Ah, ok. Thanks for clarifying.

I am genuinely curious if it's possible to run an LN node on 56k, though. It would be an interesting experiment.

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⚡️Lightning Boy Martone 1y ago

I consider, then I head over to Phoenix or Zeus and the inbound fees send me back.

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Javier 1y ago

Consider the costs of opening and closing channels, plus all the effort. Breez is charging 0.4% which is nothing knwoing that they remove all the problems. But if you have a store, it is totally reasonable that you maintain a node, otherwise I don't see the point.