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Public LN Nodes vs. Public LN Channels
2105 sats \ 3 comments \ @kr 19 May 2023 bitcoin
Over the last few months, I’ve noticed a trend forming among public LN channels and nodes.
The number of nodes has been slowly growing without almost any reversals, while the number of public channels has been doing the opposite.
The average channel size is getting larger as a result, with the public average now over 7,000,000 sats.
A few questions…
  • Who are the new node operators that are relentlessly joining the network regardless of price action and lightning hype?
  • Does this concern you to see channels being closed faster than they are being opened?
  • Do you expect large nodes to have more or fewer channels over time? For context, WoS has over 2,000 channels today
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492 sats \ 0 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 19 May 2023
Force closures have been happening a lot due to fee rate issues. You may want to check out what is normal channel closures vs forced.
Volume is more important than quantity of channels. There's many duplicate channels with same peers.
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340 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 19 May 2023
This is very interesting. Don't think I know enough to have an opinion though. I have read/watched quite a bit of content for new node/lightning users that recommend fewer large channels. That makes sense to me. When I set up my first node I opened very small channels mostly because I didn't get it and I wasn't ready to commit sats. Things have changed quite a bit in that regard for me.
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270 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 19 May 2023
  • closing small channels and opening bigger ones is a good thing for LN
  • I am not concerned of less public nodes. For sure the number was lowered because some of those operators decide to run private nodes.
  • I prefer a lower number of public nodes, but good ones, instead of a myriad of bad nodes with bad liquidity and bad connectivity. Why? Because many private nodes could connect to these good nodes and do their payments in a better way. Not all LN nodes must be public (just think about all the mobile private nodes that are increasing their users - Phoenix, Breez, OBW, Blixt, Electrum).
  • public nodes and channels must be the majority of LSP, providing good liquidity,
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