Quote from: bigverm on Today at 05:25:07 AM

Quote from: n0nce on August 29, 2021, 02:34:11 PM

Quote from: bigverm on August 29, 2021, 02:23:44 PM

For Question #5 What can we do with our Node?
Can we choose to designate our Node into a Lightning Network Node?
This will help us earn extra BTC and Devs can take a fee from it.

Hey there, LN node operator here! Don't expect to make any significant amount of money from routing LN payments.

I am quite sure you can install lnd or c-lightning on the Apollo (don't have mine yet), and you should definitely do it, it always helps! But payments are meant to be cheap, so users usually pay 1 satoshi per hop, some node operators even run their nodes fee-less.

A payment takes a max. of 10 hops in my experience, so you're looking at 'locking in' millions of satoshis in channels just to gain a few (single-digit amounts we're talking about) satoshis in fees. So you won't really 'earn BTC' - you'd earn more Bitcoin working 1hr as a waiter and buying BTC with the money you got there Grin

(rough calculation: 10$ ~ 20KSat)

Thanks! Was wondering if I get in early and setup a lighting node and then overtime as transaction volume grows for BTC that it would be worth it.

There is certainly a point for getting in early: If you create a LN channel now with let's say 1M satoshi, it will cost you around 400 bucks and people can transact up to that amount in this channel back and forth. But let's say you keep that channel for multiple years, the value that can be transacted with 1M sats is ever increasing and e.g. might reach a point where it's the equivalent of thousands of $.

This way, channels created early (even small ones, <1M sats) gain usability and 'size' (in value terms) as Bitcoin value increases over time.

However, I don't think it will ever be something very profitable, even with many more transactions, since fees are by design low (1 satoshi - realize how little that is Grin

per hop) and the market is competitive the better the network is connected. The protocol tries to automatically use the routes with lowest fees - the more routes, the less chance people will use an expensive node since they'll find cheaper ones that bring them to their destination.