Predictable fees for Lightning
1228 sats \ 7 comments \ @ek 29 Dec 2022 bitcoin
I tried to look up information if there are any plans to tell the user before sending how much fees the tx on Lightning will cost. However, I haven't found anything.
Isn't it possible to have a "confirm" before sending where the fees are shown? Like for onchain transactions?
That's the thing I don't like the most about LN: I am always surprised by the fees - may they be low or high.
I don't think it's good UX to surprise the user with fees. They should know in advance.
Also related to #114534
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12 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 30 Dec 2022
You have a good point with this question, but is hard to implement and will never be an exact estimation. To estimate fees before the tx is sent, the wallet need to do a heavy probing. And probing over LN is really bad, is fucking the whole routes.
Maybe when something like "valve system" Rene Pickhardt proposed in his latest study (and also I was proposing this even before in this experiement) we could not have a good estimation and also without damaging too much LN path finding and routes.
But yes, I agree with your point, user need to have at least a close estimation about how much will be the fees. Nowadays we have too many predators that only want "profits" from running a LN node...
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32 sats \ 0 replies \ @vindard 30 Dec 2022
Some wallets do this by probing the payment first and then using that probed route to make the payment once you confirm (see Bitcoin Beach Wallet for e.g.).
You can also set maximum fees for a payment at the implementation level to avoid being surprised, but I'm not sure many end-user wallets expose this to their users as yet.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @NorthKoreanHostage 30 Dec 2022
It's probably not ever even going to cost you a penny. Who cares? Fee estimation is good enough anyway.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek OP 30 Dec 2022
200+ sats are more than 3 cents at the moment
Also, I don't see any fee estimation in most wallets
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @NorthKoreanHostage 31 Dec 2022
Try Phoenix wallet.
My lightning transactions are always 1 sat.
Channel openings cost more than lightning transactions.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek OP 31 Dec 2022
I am using Phoenix. See #114369
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek OP 29 Dec 2022
Oh, I actually wanted to link to the parent post: #114369
But #114534 is actually a good example of unpredictable fees, lol
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