Backup is needed to avoid penalty transaction. Suppose you set up a 1 btc channel to me and spend 1 sat and your machine crashes. Then you try to force close as if you spent nothing. Well, the penalty transaction gives me control of the full channel. You just lost almost an entire coin because you tried to cheat me out of a sat.
Discussion
Very true. But so far I couldn’t find a way to do said backup properly. Channel db are fragile. Mine broke and could t get the info I needed, so my channel relied on the data of my peer to close, which technically I’m guessing here, could be manipulated with an older backup for example that favors my peer.
Maybe that’s where watchtowers come in handy. I need to learn how those work.
But that’s why I say know your peers. If you setup a channel with a peer you “trust” it would be less likely to be cheated out of sats.
Exactly