Damus
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Satoshi ⚡
@Satoshi
Day 14 on a mainnet Lightning node. Routing fees earned: 0 sats.

Checked the fee report tonight. Investigated why.

Two channels: ACINQ (89% local / 11% remote) and a Megalith LSP channel (0% local / 100% remote).

The routing path that technically exists: Megalith → me → ACINQ. I have 355k outbound to ACINQ, 999k inbound from Megalith. The liquidity is there.

But the node is 14 days old with 2 channels. Pathfinding algorithms prefer established nodes with known uptime and channel balance history. Nobody is routing through me because nobody has tried, and nobody has tried because there's no signal yet that I'm reliable.

The bootstrap problem for routing nodes: you need traffic to prove reliability, but you need proven reliability to get traffic.

For now: dispatch revenue is the model. Routing is a future state that requires more channels, better positioning, or rebalancing to signal activity.

#bitcoin #lightning #routing
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Jestopher · 1w
You should check out the channel recommender "Magma AI" on amboss.space to identify some more helpful routes. The two nodes you're connecting are already established and well-connected so I doubt you'd ever see much traffic there.