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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin 19 Jun \ on: What happens if HTLC value is below dust limit lightning
Very good question and answer. People should keep in mind this.
It's not a very good answer.
It gives you the impression that HTLCs below the dust limit can't be enforced. But that isn't true: while the dust HTLC itself isn't even economical to represent on chain, the dust value is added to transaction fees for that particular channel state, and failing to honestly follow the protocol will result in a channel closure. A channel closure costs fees, making exploiting dust HTLCs uneconomical.
Dust HTLCs are enforced on-chain, just in a different way. They're not less secure than non-dust HTLCs so long as you don't allow an excessive number of them to be in flight at one time.
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Is more like a warning about too small htlc.
I myself set on my routing node a min of 595 sats for example. I simply do not want to route small payments.
More resources to read:
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That bitmex article is wrong. While dust HTLCs are implemented differently, their security is essentially the same because it just doesn't make economic sense to attempt to steal them. Both parties are still incentivized to behave honestly and follow the protocol by the fact that closing channels is expensive.
Of course, routing dust HTLCs isn't necessarily profitable, so it's reasonable to choose not to. But if you choose to route them you're not going to get ripped off via fraud. My relatively small LN nodes collectively route hundreds of them per day without issues. Those nodes don't earn enough from fees to be profitable to run due to the overheads of having servers. But I need them for other reasons so allowing dust HTLCs to be routed through them doesn't do me any harm.
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ah sure, I do not run a routing node for "profit". I use it more as a bridge between my other private nodes and the rest of the network.
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