New node operator here! Just got my LND node synced. Would anyone be willing to open a small channel to my node? Pubkey: 037a9001b4ac7217a02f020831d3ffbaaaf6125d637c9eb3539db90ad5f76a7451
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New node operator here! Just got my LND node synced. Would anyone be willing to open a small channel to my node? Pubkey: 037a9001b4ac7217a02f020831d3ffbaaaf6125d637c9eb3539db90ad5f76a7451
Hi Mate, small channels don't make to much sense believe me (I was starting like you but now Im moving away from those channels below 1.000.000 sats even this number is not enough). Don't make mistakes people did before you :)
And as a new node operator your best friends will be sites like for choosing new peers, buying inbound liquidity analysing who to connect to what fees to set... :
https://amboss.space/
https://lnplatby.com
What’s your sense of the right size?
Right now Im trying to move toward 5-10m / channel. And avoid opening anything below 2m.
Are you not finding very large returns to opening additional channels?
I expected to see lots more transactions from opening new channels because of network effects, but it hasn’t really materialized.
maybe for smaller nodes (with few channels) but from a certain point opening new channels does not affect the number of transactions so much.
Now Im trying to find peers that improve my position in the network so I can get to more nodes with less hops. And when I find such nodes Im looking at the fees they have for example from the below picture coingate improves my hop rate and they have low fees so its highly possible to route through them. But if I find a node that has a flat rate of 1000ppm thats a no go.
Do you like to announce your node here? Could do a dual funded channel
Good suggestion! someone else suggested https://lightningnetwork.plus, do you know it or have you used it?
How you would compare all these?
Yes lightningnetwork.plus is also great and I did used it. all those sites are for something else :) so its not about comparing them its like when you are cooking and have a recipe with ingredients you don't compare them but you "need" all of them :)
Running a public LN node is not like "friending" on FBIbook. Is a serious business and you must learn to manage the "water flow" (see my explanation of LN here).
I recommend you to read first these guides and think twice what are you going to do in regards of what type of LN node you are going to run (public or private):
More guides about nodes here:
Yes I recognize is not a friendly game, but I also understand one must have good relation with peers in case something happen and avoid force closure or other channel closure resolution.
I'll read these guides, there's lot of material and links there!
I concur with @f_marek.
It's very tempting to run as a routing node.
And maybe I'll get back into it.
But running a node with unannounced channels is actually bliss.
It is a real life node. But it's yours for personal payments.
I actually do this for Bitcoin Fax and Bitcoin Payments. I only care about inbound liquidity.
Invoices have routing hints and it all just works.
This is what I want! shall reject public channel requests then?
Sure, if you don't care about routing.
congrats! I have not dived into this subject yet as it feels a bit too complicated for my understanding. How much are you making out of this per day? Maybe it will convince me giving it a new try into reading on the subject.
The routing revenue question deserves an honest answer: routing fees on a new node are close to zero for months, and probably never meaningful unless you have substantial capital in channels and good connections.
The real split is what kind of node you're running:
Routing node (business): You need 5M+ sats per channel, active liquidity management, fee tuning, rebalancing. It can eventually generate a few hundred sats/day per million sats deployed. The capital requirement and operational overhead is real. f_marek and DarthCoin's advice here is right.
Personal payment node: You're not routing anything — you're operating your own payment rail. The value isn't sats/day, it's removing custodial trust from every payment you make. No exchange, no withdrawal fees, no KYC for the routing hop. The 'income' is sovereignty + fee savings over time.
Most people who run nodes are doing the second thing but benchmarking against the first, then quitting. If you're asking about income, you're probably better served by understanding which one you actually want to run.