A question and an inconvenient truth about the Lightning Network.

Posted about 1 year ago by ochra

As a new node runner I questioned myself from the very beginning about the “real” volume of Lightning Network. By “real” I mean the total transactions related to actual payments omitting those related to the re-balancing of the lighting channels themselves.

May be I should have utilized some AI tool because up to this moment I have no answer to my question. I speculate it must be a relatively small percentage but i found no evidence.

Nevertheless - as it often happens – google may not give your the answer you are searching for but on the road you may discover some gems.
One of them is the following article (from Mr Vlad Goryachev) which is certainly worth sharing here:

I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

Lastly, in case someone has an idea my initial question is still searching for an answer.

3 Comments

LN+

LN+ Admin wrote about 1 year ago

It's hard to estimate. Probably 50-70% is real, the rest is rebalancing.


ochra

ochra wrote about 1 year ago

Interesting! I would expect it much lower.
I see this number as a measurement of the efficiency of the system. I assume that as the network grows it will become more efficient and  will balance itself. 


LN+

LN+ Admin wrote about 1 year ago

Well, in a way rebalancing is a good system, because it allows pre-processing of channel re-balances to prepare for users to make quick payments. I don't think it's a problem at this point.

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Lightning Network Node
Ochra
Rank: 8 / Gold
Capacity: 217,118,105 SAT
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