how does switching outbound to inbound liquidity work? is that an easy thing to do? and will the liquidity of my node change much even if i’m not using it (like other side moving liquidity through)?
Discussion
Every channel has a % of inbound and a % of outbound. The sum is alway 100%
When you spend sats, you increase the inbound of the channel
When you receive sats, you increare the outbound of the channel
100% outbound means you cant receive from that channel
100% inbound means you cant send from that channel
When you route payment, the global sum of your inbound and outbound dont change (if your fee are zero)
As node operator, you have to keep balancing outbound and inbound for reduce paymeny failure
gotcha, so the only thing that could change your inbound and outbound liquidity is essentially your own spending / receiving (any routing only would make minor changes from fees, if any)
i heard that with CLN i should be able to open a dual-funded channel? so, open a 3M sat channel that is already 1.5M inbound and 1.5M outbound?
and then if i got to a point where i’ve exhausted all my inbound liquidity, what are the options for rebalancing? is this where all the loop out stuff comes in?
I know its possible open dual-funded channel, but i have not enough experience for suggest or give useful information to other. What i know is used by LN+ https://lightningnetwork.plus/posts/232
If you want rebalance the liquidity of you channel, you can use tool like https://github.com/cryptosharks131/lndg or https://github.com/C-Otto/rebalance-lnd
Note that 100% inbound is not a bad thing: it means you can route big payment towards that channel if needed.
Expecially for small nodes, expect some periods of inactivy in your
i’ve wanted to use LN+ to open my initial lightning channels, so that way i get an outbound and inbound channel connection for being part of a liquidity triangle - but, i have no connections and no liquidity through my node atm, and most of the offers have decently high barriers to entry
i could try make my own i think, but i might introduce issues by getting into a liquidity triangle with two nodes that have no connections as well 😅
the rebalancing tools are interesting, but (from my understanding) that only really works if you have multiple channels (and you have to have available liquidity across those other channels)
what are your options for getting inbound liquidity if you only have a single channel, and it’s 100% outbound, or you have multiple channels but they’re all 100% outbound?
are your only options to like pay lnbig to open an inbound channel to you? (and i’m sure that comes with time limits, use limits etc)
or, i’ve heard about “looping out” when you send lightning to some invoice using your outbound liquidity (and therefore moving it to the inbound side), and then that same amount (minus some fee) is then sent to you on-chain?
i think that’s what i’m looking for, but it’s hard to understand how it all works, how i need to set it all up on CLN, and what (if any) services might be required to make it all happen?
You should do your own offer with LN+ with a low entry-barrier (not existing). Yes, you fill find other nodes wjth low channels and liquidity, but growing need a starting point.
You can also buy liquidity with lnbig, amboss'magma or lightning labs'pool. With the last two you buy liquiditu from other users
If you want a profitable node, the truth is just build a routing node without a massive amount ot bitcoin is not enough: it should provide some kind of service (lndhub for example, being used for process payment, etc)
gotcha, i guess the goal of my node was never to be a profitable routing node, i just wanted to be using the lightning network, but doing so in a self sovereign manner (i.e. using my own node)
essentially just want to have one, or a few, well connected channels for mostly receiving non-KYC sats over the lightning network (so majority inbound liquidity), and maybe the occasional spend if there’s something cool i can buy using light i g
but, i’m asking all these questions because i want to understand the process for:
(a) initially getting mostly inbound liquidity from well connected, stable nodes that won’t close on me, and
(b) when the inbound liquidity is eventually exhausted (and i’m left with only outbound liquidity), what’s the best way for me to regain mostly inbound liquidity, and send the now already stacked sats to cold storage (on-chain)
sounds like my best scenario would be to make a LN+ offer (with no barrier to entry so i can participate), hope that others participating are decently connected nodes, then begin receiving sats using my inbound liquidity, and then if i exhaust my inbound then i should utilise a “loop out” service where i sent some sats to a lightning address (using outbound, but gaining inbound), and then the loop out service sends me those sats on-chain, which i then put into cold storage?
is my thinking approximately right?
Since you just want have your own node in the lightning network, you can just open a channel to a big node and/or buy liquidity by a provider.
This way you will be able to send and receive sats. LN+ is also a way for get both, but as you say, a bad connected node might give you payment failures
If you exhaust your inbound, your option are:
loop out
spend sats
sell sats (https://learn.robosats.com)
yeah okay, so it feels like a good plan might be to open a 1.5M channel with someone like lnbig (to get some instant inbound)
then, that gives me one channel at least, so i can do a LN+ offer for 1.5M but now i can set a one channel minimum on the offer and participate
then i should have two 1.5M inbounds and one 1.5M outbound
and then hopefully buying some no-KYC sats weekly utilises the channel enough to have it not get closed
and if i run out of inbound i’ll probably just loop-out on-chain so i can store the sats in cold storage anyway
how much do you know about channel closing? is it a risk to get it closed on me? and should i be taking backups, along with running a watchtower, or doing like a watchtower swap or something?
This thread quickly became the “all you wanted to ask about Lightning and never dared to ask”. Thanks nostr:npub156ndcn2xqlav8wrty2gk8x9qtmen7wx2uhl2hmrxsvkwq2duza2sw03y3s and nostr:npub1dtcn2yuw2w5rpz09azk47zxyf30zd6kgk2cnzgw78njpv0nn3xqqd7m357 . I heard about these thanks to nostr:npub1yn3hc8jmpj963h0zw49ullrrkkefn7qxf78mj29u7v2mn3yktuasx3mzt0 ‘s L189, but reading this is being enlightening. Please keep up with the discussion. Really wanting to know as well about closing channels, backups, watchtowers...
no stress at all mate, thanks for reading and dropping a comment 👍🏼
i’ve gone through the “gruelling” process of setting my own bitcoin raspberry pi node up from scratch, all on ubuntu server (i.e. completely over ssh) - had a lot of help from the “ministry of nodes” tutorial series (just search that up on youtube if you’re curious)
but, all this lightning network stuff is a lot newer, and has a fair bit more complexity to it than meets the eye (at least for me) - i’ve just been asking questions here, and nice people like nostr:npub1dtcn2yuw2w5rpz09azk47zxyf30zd6kgk2cnzgw78njpv0nn3xqqd7m357 have been helping me out 👍🏼
i just wanna buy non-KYC sats weekly over robosats through my own node 😅
There are two kind of channel closure: cooperative and forced.
cooperative closure is the standard way of close a channel: one node initiate the closure and the other one "agree" to close the channel. Both node must be online for this
Forced closure is the "emergency shutdow". Both nodes keep a special transaction with the latest channel state (=i own X sats and you own Y sats if we close now). Only one node is necessary for this procedure and allow to close the channel, but:
- who initiate this closure pay higher than normal fee
- The sats of the closed channel are blocked for some days (=cannot be spend)
A malicious node can keep previous state of the channel for initiate a force closure where it can receive more than what own (=stealing for you), however, if your node is online (or a watchtower who is protecting you) while the channel is force closed AND the fund are still blocked, a punisent transaction will be used for force the malicious node to give to you the fund you really own
Backup in lightning is still a problem. To be simple, prevententiom is the key:
- You can backup your channel information (thunderhub and RTL make it easier) for kindly ask to the other nodea to initiate a force closure (because you probably have lost all channels information and are not able to do it anymore)
- you can use watchtowers as insurance, they will send the punishment transaction for you. LN+ have a section for find a watchtower with a mutual defense agreement. Public open watchtower may be overload this days. You can still have more than one watchtowers
- If you have the knowledge, put the data of your lightning node on a RAID-like storage. Never do spot backup of these data because restore a previous state of a channel can make you lost the sats of that channel