Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: lightning network, basic questions
by
Rath_
on 21/06/2021, 00:02:37 UTC
If you are worried about your node going down then you can set up a watchtower on some cheap VPS or a Raspberry Pi at a different location. The watchtower can publish a penalty transaction if the other party attempts to cheat while your node is offline. By default, one has to wait 144 blocks (~ 1 day) before an uncooperative channel close can be settled. Mobile wallets usually force the other party to wait 2016 blocks (~2 weeks).

Also, you don't need to run your own node. If you are comfortable with using a custodial wallet then you can consider using BlueWallet. You wouldn't have to worry about launching your wallet every now and then since you wouldn't be managing channels on your own.

This can be a maximum of 2016 blocks, which works out to 2 weeks at average block times.

It can be more than that if the remote peer changes that default maximum value. Still, ~2 weeks is more than enough.