Self custodial is a little confusing when you first start out. When I set up my first channel I opened a 100k channel to Olympus and only after setting it up and testing receiving zaps did I realise you need to spend to free up capacity 🤣

when you open a channel you’re basically allocating funds as spending capacity which when spent can be refilled as receiving capacity. You pay a small fee but for the pleasure of doing it, but… if you close your channel later you get it back on chain, well… what you have left in spending capacity.

Other options are to buy receiving capacity which you can do in Alby hub, there you pay more because you’re essentially locking up someone else’s funds to fund the channel. 😁

Hope that helps, sure I probably got some facts wrong in there which hopefully people will correct me on. We’re all learning here, well most of us are 🙂👍