Does Alby Hub manage channel rebalancing? Can I make a transaction from or to a specific channel?
#asknostr #bitcoin #lightning #plebnet
Discussion
Cloud or self-hosted?
Good question. nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm nostr:npub1xv8mzscll8vvy5rsdw7dcqtd2j268a6yupr6gzqh86f2ulhy9kkqmclk3x 👀
currently not.
we try to default to less, but bigger channels with very well connected LSPs so more complicated things like rebalancing should not really be needed.
but it’s a feature on the radar.
Thanks, I started to use RTL to rebalance, but I'm making all kinds of poor decisions at the same time. I was trying out channels to some smaller nodes but I'm reconsidering that haha
I tried to zap nostr:npub1xv8mzscll8vvy5rsdw7dcqtd2j268a6yupr6gzqh86f2ulhy9kkqmclk3x from Primal but it didn’t seem to work. 🤔
and what does primal and strike say?
There’s usually an error message but not this time. Zap seems to work initially but it’s no longer there when I revisit the note. 
Maybe it’s a receipt/relay issue. Sats have left my wallet. 
yeah,
there are so many moving parts in zaps (two wallets, zap service, nostr relays, clients, different nostr events) that this is often hard to debug and actually often fragile.
if the payment works it is independent of the wallet I think.
I see the zaps on amethyst now too. Just took a while to propagate I guess.
Not directly within Alby Hub, from what I can see. You would need to use something like Thunderhub or Ride the Lightning for that.
Thanks, yeah I used RTL.
I’m using the hosted option and a single decent channel but there is no channel management required with the hosted option other than adding liquidity if you want more on a particular channel. I still have a lot to learn about lightning and the app but it seems to me that if your node has more than one channel it’d be opportunistic for channel selection based on finding the most efficient route.
Interested to hear anything you learn.
The main reason I have the hosted service is because I’m not transacting huge amounts on lightning and if there’s a hardware issue, Alby sorts it out. I’m not faced with a potential loss of 1M sats for each decent channel, and the need to replace my node hardware.
I messed around with a self hosted node on Start9 and while it is pretty easy to do, I wasn’t willing to risk a couple million sats and mess around trying to find reliable channel partners for experimentation purposes. I don’t have the time in a given week to be maintaining and troubleshooting liquidity and other issues if they arise. And they do. My Alby service went down for a while because the machine that my hosted Alby Hub was running on had a hardware issue. It took a week, but Alby sorted it out. If it took them a week, such an issue would have taken me a month on my own self hosted lightning node.
If there’s one thing that will deter me from continuing my subscription, it’s the price. Since it is denominated in USD I’m paying more CAD for the service than I think it’s worth just for sending and receiving zaps. But I’m mostly eating that subscription fee gladly every month for now, and treating it as tuition cost and perhaps supporting the network and devs along the way.
As far as node operating goes, I’m quite happy just to have a Core node humming away with Electrum allowing me to connect wallets to it. I just don’t have the free time for a full fledged Lightning deployment. nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm hub is a nice fit for users that don’t have the time or free sats to risk, but it mainly comes down to time. The subscription fees that will likely end up being $250 CAD for me this year are guaranteeing that I won’t have to mess around for hours managing channels and solving hardware issues if they arise.
I’m monitoring the experience and how Alby handles billing and reliability month to month and will renew my subscription according to the utility I am getting out of it. For now it’s a pretty premium service just for sending and receiving zaps, but I like the promise Alby Hub has as a means for me to set up vendors to accept Bitcoin.
Yea because I’m trying to add liquidity to my Zeus channel.
I try to rebalance but always fails
I don’t want to get force closed on either
nostr:npub1xnf02f60r9v0e5kty33a404dm79zr7z2eepyrk5gsq3m7pwvsz2sazlpr5 nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm