I'm in Mutiny wallet purgatory, stuck between lightning channel sats and on chain BTC. Maybe someone here can share some insight. Kinda long story, but my question is at the bottom.
Here's how I got here:
  • I tried to send 100k sats (the minimum) to the Mutiny wallet to set up a lightning channel. Things didn't go through, so I tried a few times.
  • Finally, it went through, but somehow it wound up as an on chain tx. After fees, I wound up with 44k sats. Ouch, them fees.
  • I was pretty sure I'd asked to make a lightning tx (not on chain tx), so I asked in the Mutiny matrix, what's up? They asked for logs and suggested that I'd used multiple browsers and that may have caused the mix up. This was true, I'd tried on mobile and on desktop browsers. So, maybe the error was on me.
  • The person who'd helped me (very responsive by the way) said I could use the "convert" icon by the on chain BTC to switch from on chain to lightning channel. That sounded good. However, tapping the convert icon for 44k sats gave a message like "it's silly to open a lightning channel with less than 100k sats").
  • Okay, so now I was stuck. I figured I'd try again to open a lightning channel with a new 100k sats. I sent 100k to the Mutiny wallet and I successfully opened an LN channel.
  • As a result, I now have an LN channel with 79k sats (100k minus fees) AND an on chain balance of 44k sats.
  • I figured I could now convert the 44k on chain over into the 79k channel. When I hit the convert icon, I get the same message: "it's silly to open...<100k sats".
So, my question then becomes...
If I convert the 44k sats, will it send them into the established 79k channel or will it open a new LN channel with a silly <100k channel?
If the 44k conversion goes to the established 79k LN channel, it's all good. I'll do that.
However, if the 44k conversion goes to create a new channel, that's not good and I would cancel it. Then, I wonder what I should I next? Option A, send the 44k BTC back out of the wallet? I really don't wish to have on chain BTC in Mutiny, but I also don't wish to send it out and pay the high fees to do that. So, option B, send more BTC in on chain so as to get it up over 100k. I don't particularly like this option either because I don't see a reason for two open LN channels. Hmm.
Maybe y'all could help me answer my first question up above as a step one:
If I convert the 44k sats, will it send them into the established 79k channel or will it open a new LN channel with a silly <100k channel?
@TonyGiorgio might can help or might be busy (or might of already been the person you chatted with).
reply
If ur tinkering with smaller utxos in a mobile lightning wallet like than id suggest phoenix or green wallet 🤙
My experience with zeus, blixt and mutiny greatly improved when you start with one larger channel open, say 500k sats minimum.
reply
I have phoenix, but nothing in it currently. The idea of moving over to phoenix occurred to me, I'm a bit reluctant though because I thought I'd then have yet another LN channel open. Thanks for the suggestion and info.
reply
I highly recommend green wallets lightning wallet ( currently experimental ).
reply
Just curious why you recommend an experimental over Phoenix. I don't really know, but Phoenix seems more mature to me.
reply
my testing with green wallet went very smoothly, especially onboarding my btc curious friend. Green wallet's UI is professional, and you can have all your btc, liquid, lightning all living under one recovery phrase. Very easy for normie to manage. It was also extremely cheap to mess around with which hasn't always been the case for me when messing with phoenix (that could ofc be beginner's luck with green). in short - it is the most impressive normie experience i've seen for using btc on all layers.
reply
No, the on chain "swap" functionality just opens another channel and you won't be able to do that with that small of amount.
reply
Argh, was afraid of that. Thanks for the answer.
reply
Good luck to ya
reply
Not using mutiny wallet anymore, phoenix is the way to go....