Dont' use LN on Blockstream Green \ stacker news ~bitcoin

3013 sats \ 48 comments \ @Monotone 11 Feb bitcoin

Hi everyone Today I would like to share with you my, let's say, "adventure" with using Lightning Network via Blockstream Green wallet. I hope my experience will be useful, especially for those who are still hesitant or just starting to get acquainted with LN.

In December 2023, I decided to experiment a bit and opened a channel in Green wallet for a solid amount of almost 1 million sats. But I never managed to make a single transaction through LN.

The application kept giving me some error messages, each time different.

After several unsuccessful attempts and complete disappointment in the possibility of making transactions, I decided that it was time to close the channel. "Okay," I thought, "it didn't work out the way I wanted, but I'll get my satoshis back and go back to Phoenix. That's when the real epic began.

After the channel was closed, my sats seemed to go into anabiosis. They were stuck somewhere in the depths of the blockchain. It's been almost two months, and I haven't been able to get them back. Green wallet support, although it responds, but so far only promises to sort things out and brings my hope back to life once a week at best.

Honestly, I didn't expect such an adventure. I realized that LN functionality is still in beta stage. But the fact remains that my sats are still in limbo. I am not writing this post to discourage you from using LN or Green wallet. Rather, it is an attempt to share my experience and perhaps caution those who are about to experiment. It's still early, I believe.

Would love to hear your thoughts, advice and maybe similar stories.

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157 sats \ 1 reply \ @TNStacker 11 Feb

I have personally spent entirely too much time looking at this screen!

I find the Blockstream Green Lightning Wallet slow and buggy. More like alpha release than beta. I am playing around with a 90K Sat channel and mostly ignore it as transactions are slow or fail a lot in both directions, but especially send. I have not tried to close the channel for fear of what your are experiencing.

Yikes!

22 sats \ 0 replies \ @Monotone OP 11 Feb

Yes, I confirm. The sending speed is also very slow. I saw this screen for quite a while before getting the error message.

231 sats \ 4 replies \ @pepe78 11 Feb

Phoenix is the best wallet out there

61 sats \ 1 reply \ @Monotone OP 11 Feb

Every wallet has its pros and cons. There's no one best.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Louferlou 11 Feb

Honestly I would agree. The trade-offs between sovereignty, usability and functionality/features seems by far the best even if of course everything is subjective

60 sats \ 0 replies \ @evanbaer 11 Feb

Phoenix is the best wallet out there

My payments always go through with Phoenix. It's what I recommend to friends.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @ek 11 Feb

Unfortunately, I made my first bad experience with Phoenix a few days ago: I wasn't able to lock a bond on RoboSats due to this:

If the total duraton of bonds/escrow invoices exceeds 450 blocks, then Phoenix will not allow users to lock the bond (Cannot add htlc (...) reason=expiry too big).

19 sats \ 10 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

I just zapped you 100 sats with my Green wallet (out of my SN account) and took 3 seconds for the tx to go through. I think is a normal time for a LN payment.

I used Green for many months now, indeed with small amounts but never failed me. It failed only once 2 months ago when I want to splice the existing channel in a bigger one. But that could be due to high fees too.

You have to understand that in this phase Green is not a release version and also the liquidity behind the Greenlight system is still in early phase. Some people could abuse this beta phase and do a lot of big txs in/out and for short period of time could affect the whole liquidity of Greenlight.

I think you still didn't understand how Green with Greenlight node works... this is not like any regular LN node with its own channels, the liquidity is some kind shared between users. And until is not a full release version I think is quite low, for testing only.

In regards of your closed channle, I supposed you still have the same onchain wallet you've created in the beginning. because to THAT wallet is linked your LN account. So when the channel is closed, the funds must go to that main onchain wallet.

43 sats \ 9 replies \ @Monotone OP 11 Feb

It's good that you don't have a problem with this wallet. But as you can see, I'm not the only one with this problem. I understood the risks, but it's still an unpleasant situation. And the channel's still open.

Still waiting.

15 sats \ 8 replies \ @Louferlou 11 Feb

Did you try it recently ? I just zapped you with it and I really think it's getting better and better, the success rate is improving a lot.

10 sats \ 7 replies \ @Monotone OP 11 Feb

No, since my sats hung up I haven't risked using my wallet or opening new channels anymore.

1 sat \ 5 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

indeed, you should not. Did you checked your main onchain wallet ?

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Monotone OP 11 Feb

It's empty. In the wallet itself this transaction is still waiting for confirmation.

1 sat \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

Why did you close it?
Are you sure you were connected well to the network in the moment of closing? Maybe you weren't connected and the tx wasn't broadcast. That means, Green team must add a feature in the wallet to re-broadcast the closing tx.
That is the LN account. I was talking about your MAIN onchain wallet that is linked to this LN account. Logout from LN and enter into your onchain wallet.
Contact Green team, and explain them all steps you did, in details. Or even post a issue on their github. By communicating all these aspects to devs you help them identify where is the problem and also improve the UX. Just complaining is not the right way.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Monotone OP 11 Feb

As I wrote, I couldn't complete any LN transactions, so I decided to close. I kept getting an error.
Yes, I'm sure the network connection was stable.
I see what you meant. And once again I reply that it's empty. The onchain account. It's empty. I understand the difference between onchain and LN)
I contacted them back in December and still no solution, they only give me promises that they will solve the issue soon.

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Louferlou 11 Feb

Ok fair enough

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @TheBTCManual 11 Feb

Lol that's why its marked as experimental, its pretty buggy for sure, sending with it take an eternity and receiving is super unreliable, you never know when or why our invoice fails

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Monotone OP 11 Feb

I was aware of all the risks. And at the moment it is better not to use LN until it becomes stable.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @designsats 11 Feb

Same same. I was like "Its impossible they can open a channel for 1200 sats on hight of fee spike". After many unsuccesful attempts I managed to escape my sats. Transactions where sloooow. I dont close it, I just sent sats out.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @idsera 11 Feb

My experience with lightning in Green Wallet is not good too. I have a balance of 3500 sats and always when I try to send some sats, it fails.

5 sats \ 2 replies \ @Gian 12 Feb

I confirm this problem on Green wallet and the same problem with Aqua wallet...I don't like these wallets..

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Monotone OP 12 Feb

I think they will eventually fix these issues, it's just that for now it's very risky to use LN with green wallet

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Gian 12 Feb

I think so

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @Louferlou 11 Feb

Greenlight via Green was a nightmare too at the beginning (90% of tx failing for no reason) but recently it seems to work better for me with almost all payment going through even if it is much slower than the average wallet (I often wait between 15 dec and one minute to make a payment)

But I really noticed improvements in the last few weeks with now 90% succeeding

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

It's all about the liquidity management on that Greenlight. I think we need to be more patient with this new concept.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Louferlou 11 Feb

Yep. 100%.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @justBrian 11 Feb freebie

Ive got 140k sats stuck in lightning on green wallet. Cant send or receive, no seeming way to close the channel and recover on chain, and blockstream has nevr once responded to my inquiries. Its a long, long ways from being usable unfortunately. Sorry for your sats 😞

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 13 Feb

There is a telegram channel for blockstream green, great for support questions

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Monotone OP 14 Feb

Alas, I tried it, the result is so-so.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @stackerjim 12 Feb

My experience too, but hey "experimental"... I'm sure they will straighten things out in the future.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @GregAsks 12 Feb

I don't use at all their products. Like their shitcoin liquid etc...

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Monotone OP 12 Feb

No one is forcing you to use Liquid, etc. It does not cancel the positive properties of this wallet.

0 sats \ 12 replies \ @shyfire 11 Feb

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101 sats \ 11 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

Interesting is that you just use it, by posting this comment. How that is not working? Your lack of understanding how LN works is disturbing.

101 sats \ 5 replies \ @rblb 11 Feb

Not self sovereign and also most likely not lightning, afaik once you deposit on SN all the zaps are just database updates.

1 sat \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

Why are you still here then?

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @TonyGiorgio 11 Feb

Why are you?

2 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

to piss you off :)

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @rblb 11 Feb

Because i like SN... also i don't think lightning needs to be usable in a self sovereign manner by the average user to succeed, it already works with custodial solutions and with fedimint, cashu, LoL etc.. we can get the same usability with less trust involved.

I was just pointing out an inaccuracy in your argument

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @shyfire 12 Feb

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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @TonyGiorgio 11 Feb

LOL at thinking SN is self sovereign lightning.

2 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

"self sovereign" is a pleonasm... you can't be self sovereign. You are sovereign or not. Who came up with this pleonasm and push it into people mind?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @shyfire 11 Feb

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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 11 Feb

sovereign means by yourself, not a bunch of dudes.... You have much to learn about sovereignty...

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @shyfire 12 Feb

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Eobard 11 Feb

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