21 sats \ 0 replies \ @gnilma 30 Apr 2023 \ parent \ on: Relevance of Balancing Channels bitcoin
Your send/receive node can route too, but it's just not optimized for routing. As such, the routing volume might not be very high, or the volume might even be insignificant / nonexistent. But if your goal is not to be a profitable routing node, then I don't think it's a problem.
Yes, running a profitable routing node is not trivial. You have to manage liquidity, set appropriate fees, and balance channels accordingly (but at the same time, need to be mindful of the cost of balancing channels). Many of the well connected channels on the network right now either pushes liquidity or pulls liquidity. That is probably why you are seeing a lot of your channels sitting one sided, with either all liquidity on your side or your partner's side. That's normal behavior. In fact, LND 0.16 onwards updated its routing algorithm to assume most channels are lopsided, where before, the routing assumes channels are balanced.