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238 sats \ 9 replies \ @SimpleStacker 15h \ on: Question for everyone who runs a lightning node lightning
- You don't actually need to set up a bitcoin node to use lightning. Some self custodial lightning wallets use remote node services to interact with the Bitcoin network
- Like I said, setting up a lightning node/wallet doesn't require you to run your own bitcoin node. (See above)
- Yes the lightning wallet will need to get funds from somewhere. But it doesn't have to come from a "connected" bitcoin wallet. It can come from any transaction on bitcoin.
- Yes, though it isn't a requirement for the lightning node you make a channel with to be well connected, it's just useful.
- Depends what your goal is. For simple sending/receiving on Stacker.News with Alby Desktop, it's almost zero maintenance. If you want to route payments for a fee and be profitable, that will take quite some work in terms of channel balancing and fee setting.
Depends what your goal is. For simple sending/receiving on Stacker.News with Alby Desktop, it's almost zero maintenance.
I have also re-started running an LN node in Jan 2025(I experimented with it a couple of years back and got fed up with channel management), and it is quite a bit of work as you need to rebalance the channels to receive sats even for private channels. Setting up a channel with Stacker News is straightforward, but you can only send sats through that. If you want to receive them, you need to rebalance the channels by a loop-out facilitated by Lightning Terminal or by pushing out Sats using ThunderHub(less preferred option). I cannot do this on Alby Hub.
This is my understanding; if there is a simpler way to do that, please let me know.
In summary, I would say the amount of work to maintain private channels is tens of hours of investment in the initial stages, but once set up, it should be an hour or two every quarter or six months, depending on how much you deplete the sats in your channels. This is assuming your node doesn't crash, haha
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I tend to rebalance my channel just by buying gift cards from Bitrefill. No need for any loops that way
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I guess now you can also buy cowboy credits. This has the dual effect of giving you CC to spend and increasing your ability to receive sats.
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Yeah I'm aware there's custodial lightning 😂
I'm specifically curious - if you run a node, what does that time/money investment look like from month to month?
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what does that time/money investment look like
None.
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No, I am not referring to custodial lightning. I am referring to non-custodial lightning wallet where you control your own keys. It still doesn't require you to run your own bitcoin node.
Money investment is only the on-chain transaction fees to set up the channel and any routing fees for pay when using LN.
Time investment is almost zero once you have your channels set up. Time investment only necessary if you want to run a profitable routing node.
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Ah gotcha - I misunderstood. Yeah I'm aware that exists as well - wasn't asking about those though. TBH I'm kind of skeptical of non-custodial lightning wallets where you control your own keys as a long term solution - I've seen several app devs just completely ditch that headache after a while...
I think "trying to make a profitable routing node" is probably where I've gotten confused about the cost thing.
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True, long run app support is still pretty shaky. But I think it's the best "middle" solution since running a full bitcoin node is gonna be a hefty lift for most people, and custodial lightning has a lot of rugging / regulatory risk.
And yeah, the time investment and cost for routing is mostly related to rebalancing and liquidity. I also think you need to make pretty big channels in order to route profitably... that's a lot of sats you put at risk.
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