Subnostr

What do you think? What benefits does hosting a node, and sharing with friends have instead of all of you using a node in the phone?

Probably hiding the cost from them? or?

Dikaios1517 9mo ago

Depends on the friends.

If they have a bit of technical chops, understand how lightning works, and are up for managing their liquidity themselves, then node-in-the-phone could work for them, particularly as various solutions for receiving while offline are becoming more popular.

If they are just getting into Bitcoin, or they just want something that works without them having to worry about it, and they trust you with their spending money, then it may be more convenient for them to just have you host their wallet on your node. For instance, my wife and daughters are absolutely not going to take the time to learn how Lightning works, so node-in-the-phone is just going to frustrate them. But I can host their wallet for them and they'll have no issues, and they aren't blindly trusting some big custodian.

This also helps keep Lightning more decentralized. If they didn't have me to host their wallet for them, they would use CoinOS, or Wallet of Satoshi, or MiniBits, and pretty soon all the Bitcoiners that don't have interest in running their own Lightning node, even a very basic one on their phone, will be with just a few major custodians.

Meanwhile, if you have friends who are passionate about learning everything there is to know about how Bitcoin works, and they like getting hands-on with the tech, then you should absolutely encourage them to run their own Bitcoin full-node with a Lightning node.

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Discussion

Crusty 👨‍💻 9mo ago

Thanks!

I had the impression before, when I used Phoenix, and Breeze, that they are not that complex in a sense, that they create the lightning channel and liquidity on receive. In Phoenix, you can also rent bigger channels. Of course it has a cost. Havent tried Zeus yet!

Btw, how do you look for other lightning nodes to connect to? Why would anyone want to connect to a new node?

Dikaios1517 9mo ago

Yeah, Phoenix and Breez both handle a lot in the background for you. However, because they do this, you can end up with an unexpectedly high fee when you are receiving a transaction and it exceeds the available inbound liquidity. That can be a bad experience for a non-technical person who doesn't understand why the fee is higher and how they could have avoided it.

For instance, because I knew that Phoenix was going to be creating an actual Lightning channel when I first deposited into it, I sent WAY more sats than I actually wanted to have in the wallet (5 million), so that Phoenix would open a really big channel. Then I swapped them back to on-chain via Boltz.exchange, so I wouldn't have such a large balance in a spending wallet. Leaving me with plenty of inbound liquidity in my Phoenix channel.

No non-technical person who doesn't understand how Lightning works is going to know that they should do this. They will send themselves 100k sats or so, and Phoenix will give them a channel of a few hundred thousand sats, and as they use the wallet more and more, they will be comfortable with keeping a higher balance on it, only to get randomly slapped with a higher fee because they ran out of inbound liquidity in their channel.

Breez's new Misty Breez wallet is looking really interesting for non-technical folks to have a better trust trade-off than going with a custodian, though. It still requires the responsibility of holding your private key, but that should be one of the first things a new Bitcoiner learns anyway. For my kids I will stick with hosting their Lightning wallets for them, but once they care enough to hold their own keys, I might be having them learn on Misty Breez.

As for how to find other nodes to connect to, I have seven channels. Five of them are with other Bitcoiners I know and can reach out to personally if there is ever any issue. They also reach out to me and ask what's up when my node is down. The other two channels that aren't with Bitcoiners I know are with nodes that are operated by services I use personally; namely ACINQ (Phoenix) and Boltz.exchange. As such, I have never had need to purchase a channel from a liquidity provider.

The best channel partners are Bitcoiners you know and can contact directly to troubleshoot issues with your channel.

Crusty 👨‍💻 9mo ago

Thank you for taking the time to respond!

I think with a previous version of breez, you got a wrapped invoice and already knew the cost before receiving. Somehow ended up using it for buying sats, and it was cheap. But I played around with multiple wallets at the time. So only for specific type of people.

Sounds logical to do it with other bitcoiners. Then I need some time to make some decent relationships with others here.

Thanks!

So many things to figure out!