Two Questions for Lightning Experts \ stacker news ~lightning

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715 sats \ 20 comments \ @siggy47 5h lightning

Do most node runners still use watch towers?

When I started learning, watchtowers were an absolute necessity. Nobody seems to talk about them much any more.

Is there an LND equivalent to CLBoss?

I recently started using CLBoss and I really am shocked by how plug and play it is for someone who wants a well run node but doesn't have the time or ability to manage it. I know about and have used LNDg and Balance of Satoshis, but they don't do as much and require more work.

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181 sats \ 19 replies \ @justin_shocknet 3h

No I don't think most distributions configure watchtowers by default.

I wouldn't say they were ever an absolute necessity, but insurance you definitely want if dealing in more than play-around and spending sats.

Attacks aren't trivial to pull off and the fact that a watchtower might exist, with justice txs, is a good deterrent.

I'll also add that proposals to remove the justice tx are an attack on LN themselves, by removing the onlineness incentive and therefore undermining reliability for the network as a whole. It's all fake L2 astroturfing.

Lightning Terminal / Autopilot do automation, can't speak to how good it is as I don't use it having looked at their recommendation output. I've tried loop thats part of it, and the taproot shenanigans were hard to follow, slow, and expensive. Would rather build my own than figure out their mess.

Will be working on more simplified operator-level automation in Lightning.Pub soon™️

17 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 OP 2h

I'm not sure if you have seen this doc which is linked to the CLboss github, but it is pretty amazing, if it is true:

https://zmnscpxj.github.io/clboss/index.html

I wouldn't know about the details, but all I do is deposit some sats on chain and watch the results.

I have looped out on Lightning Terminal, but haven't tried auto pilot.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 55m

It seems fairly similar to LL's autopilot as far as what it takes into account. I think my inherent dislike of these is the notion an algo can solve it. Allocating to channels, atleast initially, is more of a fuzzy logic. Attempts to automate will result in centralization and suboptimal routing, and the lack of traction any of these tools have is a good indication they don't work at scale.

Swaps to rebalance are an obvious and simple enough solution for some conditions, but over-reliance on them presents its own problems and costs. If you're going to the chain often you're undermining the efficiency of the second layer.

This comes back to my thesis that Lightning ideally should never have had its own gossip network, and if Nostr had existed when Lightning was created it'd have been a better medium for peer discovery based on actual personalized economic activity and webs of trust.

0 sats \ 16 replies \ @ek 2h

I'll also add that proposals to remove the justice tx are an attack on LN themselves, by removing the onlineness incentive and therefore undermining reliability for the network as a whole.

Earning fees by routing payments is not enough?

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @justin_shocknet 1h

Most nodes aren't, nor should they be, routers.

Routing fees are not meant to be earned, they simply make the system work... Fees in offset fees out. Lightning isn't a yield farm, it's free transactions on-net. Only a handful of value added services attract yield.

The only purpose to removing the justice tx is for fake nodes on mobile devices, which are unreliable and generally useless for receiving.

Mobile nodes are upstream of all the fud, trust, and stupidity that goes on in lightning, and the provenance of fake L2's.

The illusion they can be made to work holds lightning back.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 2m

Most nodes aren't, nor should they be, routers.

doesn't matter, we're talking about reliability and only routing nodes matter for that

Routing fees are not meant to be earned, they simply make the system work... Fees in offset fees out. Lightning isn't a yield farm, it's free transactions on-net. Only a handful of value added services attract yield.

Okay, then let me rephrase it: isn't offsetting fees enough?

But no matter what the argument to start running a routing node actually is, removing justice tx doesn't change it.

Or would you say someone will say: ""Oh, there are no justice tx that can make me lose all my money, so I won't run a (reliable) routing node (anymore)."

I think I would actually start running a routing node if I know there's less risk of losing funds while running one.

The only purpose to removing the justice tx is for fake nodes on mobile devices, which are unreliable and generally useless for receiving.

Surely nobody else would ever make a mistake and accidentally lose all their funds in a channel because of a justice tx

Mobile nodes are upstream of all the fud, trust, and stupidity that goes on in lightning, and the provenance of fake L2's.

The illusion they can be made to work holds lightning back.

What's your take on Phoenix?

0 sats \ 13 replies \ @siggy47 OP 2h

These are punishment for a bad actor seeking to publish an old commitment transaction, right?

36 sats \ 12 replies \ @ek 2h

Yes

0 sats \ 11 replies \ @siggy47 OP 2h

So isn't that a disincentive?

36 sats \ 10 replies \ @ek 2h

It’s an incentive to be online so you can publish the justice tx in time

My reply is that I don’t think removing them is “undermining reliability for the network as a whole.”

Routing nodes are online to route payments and earn fees, not just to not get robbed.