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I notice that if you want to transfer 1, 2, 10 sats and there are nodes on the route that charge 1 sat base fee it sending such a small quantities becomes relatively expensive. I would like to be able to send literally any small amount. But even without that i am wondering what will prevent nodes from setting a high base fee? If we are at a point where lightning nodes are all profit driven, than what is the rational setting for base fee?
141 sats \ 2 replies \ @HODLR 6 Nov
The LN protocol always look for the cheaper and faster path, with min amount of hops. It also depends on which wallet you are using, it may has some service fees too, usually 1% especially if custodial... if not, your node must have good connectivity with other nodes, otherwise the payment path will be expensive.
i.e.: for bigger payments, in low fee season, an onchain payment could be cheaper than lightning due to the fact that not many nodes have big channels.
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Hello. Sorry to say but you didn't answer my question. What you explained is some basics of how lightning network works, which I do already know.
By default the pathfinding in LND with allow up tp a 100% fee for payments less than 1000 sats and a 5% fee for amounts greater.
It's up to you to specify your max fee when paying an invoice.
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Base fees are rational and should be expected, just because lightning is capable of sending super small payments doesn't mean it's economical, there's a real world cost to each HTLC
Apps/wallets should really discourage users from sending <100 sats, too much trash out there is encouraging single digit sats and that confuses uneducated users. Wallets should warn users when the cost of a send cost exceeds a sane percentage, parameters for this already exist in LND.
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Sending significant amount of real money is the best way to introduce new people and demonstrate how things work. And besides you can do that with fiat cash. I don't want fiat cash to have advantages over bitcoin (or maybe that's impossible).
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 6 Nov
If we are at a point where lightning nodes are all profit driven, than what is the rational setting for base fee?
Profit?
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