pull down to refresh

Payments over 250$ are still fragile and likely to fail using a non-custodial lightning node. And the fees may become ridiculous aka much higher than on-chain. It seems that some channels are optimized for micropayment but are too expensive for goods and services purchases.
Lightning fees tend to be about 0.5% at the higher end; on-chain fees are currently about $1, though it does vary day to day. So LN is cheaper if you are sending <$200 at a time. There's lots of goods and services that cost less than that.
Also, lightning is a superior experience in many ways. Settlement is a matter of seconds, not minutes. And privacy is significantly better than on-chain in most cases. So personally I always prefer LN even if it's more expensive.
I've done lots of ~$1000 LN transactions with my own self sovereign node, both sending and receiving. You do need channel capacity to well connected nodes for thet to work. But if you do it works fairly well.
reply
Yes, the experience paying with lightning is much more superior than on-chain and payments up to 100$ are working smoothly.
For higher amounts the non-custodial node and its channels have to be carefully curated what sometimes is an art and a science at the same time.
reply
+2 year using muun. +1 year using phoenix wallet. (before these two I was using a LND node for a year or so). 250$ payments have been normal for me for a long time.
reply
Something we’re considering working on at Voltage are tools to help people identify the best peers to create channels too to facilitate large txs and to maximize routing earnings
reply
Strike direct deposit Bi-monthly 1k transfer to Cash App to pay bills 90% success rate, but fully custodial
Alby connected to my node works extremely well
reply
You're paying proportional fees so it probably makes sense to make payments below $300 anyways on LN unless you really want the speed of LN
reply
Really how do you make payments