How much Bitcoin is enough to make a Lightning node profitable?
662 sats \ 8 comments \ @wsnoopdogg 30 Dec 2022 bitcoin freebie
I’m setting up a LN node but I’m not very sure how much Bitcoin I’m gonna need as collateral. I know the larger the collateral is the larger the transaction I can handle will be. Also, can I with a very small amount of Bitcoin (300 000 sats) route a significant number of transactions to make my node profitable? Or at least don’t lose the collateral.
Thanks in advance fam!
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995 sats \ 3 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 30 Dec 2022
If you have to ask, then you shouldn't be doing it.
Run a node because you make frequent payments, want to experiment, or develop lightning apps. Don't do it because you think you'll make money off of routing fees.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @wsnoopdogg OP 30 Dec 2022
Not really into making it profitable but neither want to burn the sats I put as collateral, if I have to have 0.1 Bitcoin as collateral I will. But I would like to know at want point I don’t lose money to start by. I’m new to Lightning and I have much to learn, I though setting up a node will help me.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 30 Dec 2022
Don't put in more than you're willing to lose.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rijndael 30 Dec 2022
This. This all day. Profitable routing takes more capital, and either good automation or regular care-and-feeding to manage liquidity. It’s a competitive market. If you want to run a routing node to learn, or for your own uses, go nuts. But the idea that it’s a set and forget yield machine that you can put $100 and make money is not realistic.
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24 sats \ 0 replies \ @kristapsk 30 Dec 2022
can I with a very small amount of Bitcoin (300 000 sats) route a significant number of transactions to make my node profitable?
Most likely not. For routing you will need to split that amount to at least two channels, so it's 150K max for each, where some liqudity will be only on one side of each channel. Usually for routing nodes people do channel sizes in millions of sats.
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 30 Dec 2022
can I with a very small amount of Bitcoin (300 000 sats) route a significant number of transactions
😂😂😂😂😂 Are you serious?! 300k sats? Man you need to learn more about how Bitcoin and LN works, then start running a node. And as @TonyGiorgio said very well, you don't run it for "profit"... you run it to protect your stash and do your own transactions.
Start reading here, I posted a large list of resources: #77060
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 30 Dec 2022
Don't forget you can run a private LN node just for your own payments. You don't have to be a routing LN node
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @chairman_pretense 30 Dec 2022
Costs are channel opens and rebalancing fees.
With a small amount of sats your opening costs will be a much larger % of capital and you’ll need to rebalance far more frequently.
This makes it unlikely to break even or profit and likely will run at a loss.
I’ve got no hard model, but I suspect to get close to breaking even reliably you’ll need whole coin levels deployed.
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