Quote from: hisslyness on Today at 04:59:20 AM

I personally have never been a big fan of raspberry pi as the main brain for bitcoind and lnd.

When i went down this path, i knew it was going to be on a bare metal computer and not a raspberry pi or similar. I also wanted to build, install and configure everything from scratch to really understand how things work "under the hood" and why it is done that way.

I ended up with the following hardware spec, most were just laying around... collecting dust...

LN Node Type: ClearNet (8DegreesWO)

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz
Corsair 16GB DDR4
Gigabyte ITX Board (Small Form Factor)
3 x 1TB Samsung PRO SSD (2 Drives in RAID1 with 1 Spare (Not connected Still in a Box))
Corsair 550WATT PS
APC 750VA Smart UPS

Software: CentOS/bitcoind/lnd

It may be overkill, but I think i have speed/redundancy and reliability covered...

The most important reason of having a ClearNet Node, in my opinion is, both TOR and ClearNet Nodes can open a channel to you at any time. Where as, if you are a TOR node, only another TOR node can initiate a new channel.

Some of the biggest nodes are TOR. This isn't the reason you are "missing out"

LN by nature isn't transparent, so we are never sure who is routing what, how or where. You will only ever see what comes in and out, never the origin or destination, so who you connect to makes a huge difference.

You need to really think about where to position yourself in the grand scheme of things. If you think you are going to compete with the big boys then you are going to need more than 270,000,000 SAT.

I also noticed you are primarily connected to the big LN Nodes. You need to step back and see the bigger picture, why would they route through you? when they can just go direct to each other, using their existing channels.

You need to visualize how the SATS will flow... Using the channels you have opened now, Do you think it will go from "BCash_Is_Trash -> YOU -> Kraken"?, "BCash_Is_Trash -> Kraken" is more likely how the SAT will flow.

You need to have a plan and strategy that make sense, not just open random channels with anyone. (BTW why do you have two channels with Kraken)

From my experience, it doesn't matter how balance each individual channels are, what matter most is how balance your overall LN node is.

The ratio I used is outbound:inbound. Try aim for 1:1 to 1.3:1. That means 270,000,000, have Outbound of 135,000,000 and inbound of 135,000,000 for a 1:1 etc....

I made some mistakes early in the LN games, almost threw in the towel, but have soldiered on and am now happy with where I am.

Been online 18th September 2021 (204 days)
Uptime: 99%
LN Node Size: 430,618,597 SAT (4.3BTC)

Routing Stats
Total Amount: 356,586,094 SAT (3.5BTC)
Total Transactions: 1,803
Total Fees: ###,### SATS

Channel Stats
Opened: 114
Closed: 56

I still get spikes in routing. Not a smooth daily consistency that you would expect. Some days you get ZERO routes. Other days you get 50+.

Also, if you are keeping this node active, I've got a spare 6M SATs i can open up to you with.

Thanks, that's some great feedback.

I can agree that I haven't had much of a strategy when opening most my channels. I have mainly participated in liquidity swaps at https://lightningnetwork.plus in order to gain both inbound and outbound liquidity. But that's a bit of a lottery. Some channels are great, others not so much.

BCash_Is_Trash actually opened a channel with me though, and it has performed pretty well too.

The reason I have two channels with Kraken is as follows, let me quote a previous post I made

Quote from: Krubster on April 01, 2022, 08:00:03 PM

Once they announced the support I opened a 0.15 btc channel to them (they were kind enough to open a 0.15 channel back to me as well) and tried to deposit some btc. The deposit was instant and the fee was 0 sats. Pretty sweet! Now I have some real use-case of running a node other than just supporting the growth of the network.

I don't know why they opened one channel back to me though. Maybe their script identified me as a customer, giving me both inbound and outbound liquidity with them. Either way, I'm not complaining. Balancing my node using their services is also fairly cheap compared to other options (e.g. LOOP). I can deposit funds to them without any fees via lightning, and then do an on-chain withdraw back to my wallet for a 2000 sats fee (their lightning withdraw fee is 1000 sats).

Oh well, I guess my node isn't performing that bad. I just think it could perform better running on clearnet with some proper hardware. But that project has to wait for a bit, I'm going away for a couple of weeks now.

Thanks for the offer on open a channel to me, but let me open one instead. I have been having more inbound than outbound lately, so I'm trying to get it as balanced as I can, as you suggested. Currently 1.34 btc outbound and 1.42 btc inbound.