remember the dream. remember the promise of LN being the route to 'sub penny tx's
That promise is still true. Users are free to use other channels. Both LNbig.com and Alex's node charge outrageously higher fees than other Lightning Network nodes. Most people would argue that they provide a lot of large channels and paths for payment routing. While the latter is true, the former will become less and less relevant over time because of multipart payments.
wel onchain fees are ~$2 each
and a $30 LN is 0.1 - 0.25% = 3-9cents
so not even sub pennies.
You're right. The LN fees for larger payments would be nowhere near subsatoshi level if all nodes charged 0.1%-0.25% per transaction. Longer routes would be completely cost-inefficient. I believe that there will be plenty of smaller nodes offering lower fees. Currently, most LN nodes route payments at the default settings. Here are some of my calculations. Assumptions: BTC price - $10.000, routed payment value - $30.
LN fee = basefee + (amount * feerate / 1000000)
Default settings:
https://i.imgur.com/a7ehBXo.pngCurrently known LNbig.com settings:
https://i.imgur.com/e3T4lHL.pngIn my opinion, 1200 sat for a $30 transaction is way too much. If such payment was divided into 4 equal parts and sent through 4 different paths consisting of "default nodes" then
1 hop would cost:
This is the perfectly summed up version of what the factual argument is. The charges currently are outrageous but smaller players can somewhat benefit from that by hosting your own network. I mean, to be even more practical, you could set it up with partner and split the costs depending minimum channel size, however that'll only make sense if it's atleast around 1M sats. I think it'll be even more lucrative to contribute equal amounts only if it's substantially more. From my experience, it's generally hard finding someone who is actually clued up enough to know what they're signing up for, so I had to rely on the internet. There are plenty sites and forums to sift through and "trustworthiness" isn't exactly at the top of the requirement list but I found someone competent enough on Microlancer.io, it supports the use of Lightning Network transactions and is perfect as a starting point. Of course, you could also actually get paid(in sats) for someone else who's already looking for a partner. All the Best !
