Citadel Dispatch

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EPISODE: 39

BLOCK: 701600

PRICE: 2406 sats per dollar

TOPICS: running your own lightning routing node, plebnet, optimizing for routing fees, onchain fee market, reputation systems

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@rajwinder: https://twitter.com/rajwinder

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[00:00:00] Unknown:

The idea of crypto, and I know you've had different views to this. A lot of people think of that as   a, a, a new investment class that has had enormous run thus far, but also as a way to mitigate, if you will, against the idea of what the value of cash becomes. Well, I think it's worth considering  

[00:00:16] Unknown:

all the, the alternatives to cash and all the alternatives to some of the financial asset.   And so   Bitcoin has,   has that is a possibility. Is that in merit? I have a a certain amount of money in Bitcoin. It's a small percentage of that which I have in gold, which is a relatively small percentage of what I have in my other asset classes   and so on. And I think that that has the merit. It's it's an it's an amazing accomplishment to have brought it from where that programming occurred to where it is and take the test of time. On the other hand, it's if if it's successful,   it's going to not be the governments don't wanna have it successful. You don't wanna have it all the way to the surface. Governments like El Salvador. I know that's not exactly, gonna be the leading government on this, but there are there are governments that may take this on. But no. No. No. No. No.  

The   you have El Salvador taking on, and you have India and China getting rid of it, and you have the United States talking about how to regulate it, and it could still be controlled. So that's Right. What what And are you If you're El Salvador and you talk about your alternative monies, you know, it's a different thing. Do you believe that regulation ultimately will make something like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies   have a future, or do you think regulation will kill it?   Well, I think regulation   I think at the end of the day, if it's really successful,   they'll kill it,   and they'll try to kill it. And I think they will kill it because they have ways of killing it.  

But   that doesn't mean it doesn't have,   you know, a place, a a a value and so on. But it's one of those things that hasn't fueled you. Right now It doesn't have intrinsic value. If you look if you put   cryptocurrencies   or, let's say, Bitcoin in the historical perspective.   Right? Right. There are so many things in a historical perspective that were given intrinsic   that didn't have intrinsic value and were have perceived value and then became hot, and then they become cold.   So it could be either way. You just have to know what it is. Right? Right. Yep. I mean, like,   you know, it it could be tulips in,   in Holland, you know, and that intrinsic value.  

So what is the value? And then there are technological   changes. I don't I'm no expert on it. I'm just trying to say that you asked me my what my opinion is. Take it for what it's worth. I'm no expert on it. I think it I think diversification   values, it it matters. I suspect the real question that investors should be asking themselves is how much stuff like that do they have? Do how much stuff do they have? Do they have gold?   Okay. Should we be talking about how much you have in gold versus how much you have in bitcoin? And do you have a diversification   Right. In those kinds of things that we might call intrinsic value money? Because we have a fiat monetary system. Okay? With a fiat monetary system, where is your hard money? That's the question. And I however you go after it, I think that's the question to be answered. Okay. There's 2.  



[00:03:49] Unknown:

Happy Bitcoin Tuesday, freaks. It's your boy, Matt O'Dell, here for another Citadel dispatch,   the interactive live show about Bitcoin distributed systems privacy and open source software.   I'm very excited about this particular conversation.   This is still dispatch episode 39.   We will be discussing running your own lightning routing node, and we'll be discussing the Pubnet initiative surrounding,   that idea of having many sovereign,   lightning routing nodes run by   Sovereign Bitcoiners, Sovereign individuals.   Before we get started, I just wanna do a quick shout out as always to the ride or die in the live chat. Love you, freaks. Thank you for   joining. You make the show truly special, and a big shout out to all you freaks that support the show and keep it ad free. The easiest way to do that is the podcasting 2 point o apps. You go to new podcast apps.com,   pick a podcasting 2 point o app, load it up with stats, search Citadel dispatch, and as you listen to the podcast feed,   you stream stats directly to my wallet. It's really fucking cool. You can also support the show via PayNim or [email protected].  

My PayNim is easy to remember. It is Odell.   With all that said, we have a very tight,   time limit here, so I wanna get right to the meat. It's an important conversation,   and,   I'm very excited about it. So with all that said, I'd like to introduce our guest for today.   We'll start with Walton. How's it going, Walton?  

[00:05:21] Unknown:

Hey. What's up? Hey. What's up, guys?  

[00:05:24] Unknown:

My name is What's up? What's up, Walter?  

[00:05:28] Unknown:

So just I'm a British   pleb in Plebna. I've been,   running a lightning node for for a number of months now.   I've been in the top 100 of global,   node runners by ranking,   And it's all thanks to the community of Plebna, which is this kind of strange social   learning   experiment almost   with now over 4,000   members with over 800 mode runners.   It's it's fast growing,   and it's a very exciting time.  

[00:06:04] Unknown:

I love it. Thank you, Walton.   We also have Pete joining us. How's it going, Pete? It's going fantastic.  

[00:06:11] Unknown:

Can you hear me okay?   Yeah. We can hear you okay. You sound great. Amazing. Yeah. I think many of you already know me.   I'm over at, Bitcoin Magazine.   But,   yeah, PlubNet has been this amazing experience. A bunch of us got together and, you know, wanted to learn how to, run lightning routing nodes. And,   then we decided to turn into this, like, larger community   so that we could   share in the knowledge and, teach everybody else.  

[00:06:40] Unknown:

And, it's been fucking great. And then thank you thank you, Pete. And, last but not least,   we got Raj Winder here.   What's going on?  

[00:06:50] Unknown:

Hey, Matt. Thanks for having me on the show. Very happy to be here with my buddies,   Pia and Walton,   to represent ClubNet and Lightning,   you know, talk about Lightning and Bitcoin in general.   I am, from the,   Silicon Valley   grind of making silicon chips, but also been interested in bitcoin   and, was, caught up in the,   activity,   the primordial   soup on Clubhouse and in Telegram Groups   where   emerged.   And, I'm happy to see it take on a life of its own and become   an amazing,   community.  

[00:07:33] Unknown:

Love it. Love it.   So I mean, a lot of a lot of the freaks here, a lot of the audience understand,   the importance of running your own lightning routing node,   and why we need individuals   to do so rather than just a bunch of large KYC   companies.   Do   it it seems to me so ClubNet ClubNet is really interesting project.   It kind of wasn't on my radar, and I I felt like I was a little bit late to it.   Do you guys wanna talk a little bit about, like, what did did Plebnet originate on Clubhouse?  

[00:08:14] Unknown:

It's a great question.   Yeah. Raj Winder,   actually coined the term, but the the origins of it are,   somewhat murky. There was a group of   probably 20 or so,   Bitcoiners very interested in lightning, who didn't meet in part on Clubhouse,   and we're exploring various things, in a chat group, mainly things like LNTX for sending Sats with each other in Telegram.   Raj.  

[00:08:44] Unknown:

Yeah. So I you know, you already mentioned one of the big factors that was behind bringing us together, which is the LN TX bot Telegram bot that that can   send sets back and forth in custodial lightning and telegram messages.   So we were playing with that. We were onboarding a lot of people to lightning because that was a much easier route,   because so many people use Telegram compared with the number of people who use Lightning Wallet. So that was one big factor. And also on Clubhouse, we were just talking Bitcoin.   Bitcoin was in a in a in a, you know, pretty big rally upwards at that time. So there was a lot of enthusiasm and interest on Clubhouse. And,   on Clubhouse,   we also found these 2 or 3 individuals I really wanna give credit to, which is   JC Crown,   CoreTech,   and, another guy named CJ Lightning Sats. We don't know his real name, but that's the personality on Clubhouse   and on Twitter that he has CJ,   lightning sats. And also there was a dread. He would come in and go once in a while. So these guys were running nodes and we were very curious like, okay, what does it take to run a node? And thankfully,   I wanna also give credit to, Umbrel and Raspi Blitz. So we just grab those kind of off the shelf lightning,   implementations,   grab some hardware,   you know, Walton. We have Raspberry Pies. I have a ThinkPad, which is, like, 9 years old. And we got our nodes up and running. And we just started with tiny channels, but before long, we were like, no. We we gotta we gotta do real business. So,   you know, here we are.  



[00:10:23] Unknown:

I wanna give I wanna give, Raj a little bit more credit.   You know, basically,   Raj and d plus plus, who's also kind of early on in the in the crew,   created   a   sort of a a lightning   node focused   Telegram group. And Raj has been in there consistently   for the last, like, I don't know, man. What? Like, 4, 5, 6 months   just, like, answering questions over and over and over again. His dedication is incredible. And then it actually wasn't until, like, I don't know, like, I and I have to look at the exact date, but, like, May or maybe April   that that I kinda got started getting interested. And then,   there are these I joined early May. Yeah. Yeah. And the beauty of plumbing is it it's kind of there's been these different communities that have kinda forked off. So there was, like, this amazing one that that Raj and n equals plus had started that was focused on the LNDX bot, and then, there were a couple that forked off that. And then Plebna was one where basically about 20 of us kinda got together and we're like, oh my gosh. Like, this   is this is a really, really important thing to   to support others in in adopting and also just to make it clear that, like, anyone can do this. And,   we all kinda, you know, dove in and and, you know, created the Telegram group, and have been just been going from there. And I think what what are we up to now, Roger? That was kind of culture shifting off it as well. Like, I've I created,  

[00:11:47] Unknown:

one club with Miguel called Plebnet Poker, and we play,   poker on on a lightning network app,   you know, regularly. It's been at least Which Lightning Network app, Keith?   We use, lightning   hyphenpoker.com.   Shout out Evo. He's a awesome developer that,   actually created us our our own little private table. So we use  

[00:12:13] Unknown:

So,   you know, so so the general idea here of Pubnet is   is let's get a bunch   of sovereign Bitcoiners, a bunch of individual Bitcoiners plebs around the world   to run their own Lightning routing node from home.   And then the way Lightning Network works is, basically, you need liquidity throughout the network, so you need channels between these nodes. And PlebNet is kind of a coordination of getting people to not only run their nodes, but then connect into the, like, the greater PlebNet   liquidity pool. Is that is that a good,   summary?  



[00:12:50] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think,   you know, there there were a couple Telegram groups or many, let's say several,   before kind of the Plugnet group started,   But,   they were fairly specific and   they were, like, highly technical.   And, you know, PLEBNET was all of us really learning together and figuring out the best way to approach this. And the really amazing thing is that, you know, I started, you know, early on kind of   chatting   with, with Severin, who has built lnrouter.app,   which is an amazing set of tools.   You know, lnnoteinsight,   the creator of that, even, like, Alex Bosworth, and and it was a really surreal experience for all of us to kind of reach out to some of these these people and ask these questions and and sort of be told, like, wow. You know, no one's really asked that question before. And so, it really quickly became clear that we that there was this really important need for not only the highly technical conversations, but also for   onboarding people and for   teaching, you know, everyone in random plebs, like, how easy it was to set up a sovereign routing node. And so, you know, if you're using Lightning, there are multiple ways to interact with Lightning. Right? If you're if you're just interested in being able to send Bitcoin, you know, sound money, essentially, feelessly or, you know, very low fees and, you know, as close to instant as matters, you can go download, you know, Moon Wallet or Breezewallet or any other number of of Lightning or wallets that support Lightning and be able to do that. And you don't have to know any of the complicated stuff. And that's amazing, and it's built on top of the backs of these routing nodes that,   that, you know, the larger   Lightning Network has been running. And so we're all trying to contribute   to, to we're all trying to contribute to the, basically, the infrastructure of the Lightning Network because care deeply about it and we care deeply about Bitcoin, and   we wanna educate people as we go forward. So when  

[00:14:45] Unknown:

Right. I just wanna add to what Pete said, which kind of goes back to your question, Matt, that the community aspect is actually really important because before Plebna came along, you didn't have a community where you kind of had some degree of trust with others to be able to, you know, make channels and so on.   But we all knew one another from,   Clubhouse and Twitter and Telegram Groups. And if someone started up a new node and, you know, wanted to build some channels,   they didn't have to buy,   liquidity from another provider. They could just come into the community and say, hey. I I got 10 1,000,000 sites. I wanna open a couple of channels or I wanna open 3 channels.   Who's willing to open the channels with me? And in Pubnet, we had enough trust that we took the risk to the degree that we have a certain way of opening a balanced channel called the ghetto submarine swap, in which, you know, you open the channel and then you balance it and then you get reimbursed for half the money that you put in the channel. And that reimbursement is a trust issue. And in Plebnet, we have never had that trust violated, and people have been able to come in comfortably join. And, we also put up a couple of test notes   where even if you don't wanna put much money on your,   on a new lightning node, you can just open a tiny channel and we'll get you on the network and you can learn. So when you're talking about these ghetto submarine swaps, you mean, basically,  

[00:16:05] Unknown:

the   person with   the outbound liquidity pays a lightning payment, and then the other person just sends back on chain in a trusted fashion. Right?  

[00:16:13] Unknown:

Correct. So if Like, you know, basic rebalance.  

[00:16:16] Unknown:

Yeah. Right. You and I open a 10,000,000 set channel. I put up the money. I send 5,000,000 to your side, and you send me 5,000,000 on chain.  

[00:16:26] Unknown:

Right. So what   yeah. I do that a lot for for freaks who ask out for liquidity. So when I first started trying to understand the Lightning Network, my I I quickly realized the need that we needed Tor only   sovereign routing nodes.   So what I did was,   you know, I the way I like to learn is to just go ahead first in things. I just started up a node. I told all the freaks my public key, and I was like, if you open a channel with me, I will open a channel back. And it was it was really a horrible idea.   For I found out afterwards that for routing, like, you only want one channel between peer really to be ideal, and I became, like, this massive central hub. Like, if I if my node went down   just like the whole Freak's mini network went down with it.  

So then I discovered Rings of Fire,   which is a really cool project   where they set up via Telegram like these. You have 10 people all open a channel to 1 of the other people,   and then   a ring of fire rebalances   it. You do a circular rebalance where everyone's channels get split in liquidity, because   if you just the freaks most of the freaks should know this, but if you just open a channel to someone, you can only send money you can't receive yet. So you need to balance out that liquidity.   What is do you guys have   is what's is Rings of Fire related to ClubNet at all? Like, what's the connection there? No. Is there a connection? No. It predates ClubNet.  



[00:17:52] Unknown:

It is a it's a very good community which has done a good job in its own way.   But, ClubNet is by the way, Matt, don't feel too bad. We will all we were also opening bidirectional channels before we said, screw it. We know each other. I know p. I know p. I know p. My money. So I'm just gonna open the channel and do a capital submarine swap. So,   so, yeah, rings of fire is a lot more complicated. And if one person decides to,   you know, shut down their node or close the channel, it leads to some complications.   Plavnad is a node to node.  

There is there is very few triangles or anything that people are making. You can make them, but it's just really individual to individual node. Well, they happen naturally.  

[00:18:32] Unknown:

Yeah. For sure. When when I went when I went into the Telegram group,   and, unfortunately, I was the 3,999th   member, so I didn't get   to to be the 4000th member. Climbing. But when I joined,   I saw the Cheese Robot there, which is a Telegram bot that   Rings of Fire guys use as well. Did you you borrowed that bot from them?  

[00:18:55] Unknown:

No. No. So, actually, the the cheese robot has been built by,   I never know how to pronounce his name, but,   basically, it's a separate tool. I don't know if it was built specifically for Ring of Fire. It wouldn't surprise me if it was, but,   anyone can actually add cheese robot and start, you know, creating these awesome visuals of everyone that they're connected to within a specific Telegram channel.   But, you know, I I think   ring ring of fire was a super import or and and still is, I would argue, is a super important way to create   strong connections throughout the Lightning Network. Right? It's really, really important for bootstrapping the Lightning Network as is PLEBNA. But I think, you know, ring of fire is the idea is that, basically, you know, it's like, if we were gonna create, like, a ring,   you know, it would be like, I would open a channel to Walton, Walton open a would open a channel to Raj, Raj would open a channel to you Odell, and then you would open a channel back to me. And   then there's a specific script that you run that that then goes in and and   rebalances   to create, you know, sort of balanced liquidity across both channels. And for the audience, in case you're not aware, you know, with Lightning, again, if you're if you're just trying to use Lightning, you don't have to worry about the routing node stuff we're talking about. Right? This is about running a sovereign routing node. But if you are trying to run a routing node, then, you know, you you wanna make sure that you are keeping,   on average,   your channels somewhat balanced because you want people to be able to route bidirectionally   through you. When we talk about routing, what we're really talking about is   you don't need to have a direct channel connection   to anyone in the Lightning Network. You actually can just sort of ping pong payments   through this spiderweb of, you know, sovereign routing nodes in order to get your payment   successfully   sent. And so,  

[00:20:42] Unknown:

yeah. So cheese cheese robot was actually kind of instrumental in us   recognizing that, okay, we have become a network.   So the developer's name is,   Cloak decascock.   I think it's a South African name.   And, we were you know, we once we set up our nodes, there was one particular night we were just going crazy opening channels with one another. And then somebody, you know,   had brought in Chisrobot before that,   and we were just looking at the network evolving. That's when we realized that, okay, this is a real thing happening and, you know, that's, that's kind of one of the factors that   aided us in realizing what we were becoming early on.  



[00:21:27] Unknown:

I mean, the cheese rob cheese robot is really fucking cool.   Like, that is so just for the people there's some people probably confused. The main aspect of cheese robot is that you link your public key to your Telegram handle.   Public key of your notes. So it knows your lightning note and it knows your Telegram handle, and   then it graphs things for you, basically, and tells you how everyone's connected.  

[00:21:48] Unknown:

Yeah. And that's super important because,   you know, it   it it's great to run a lightning routing node to support, you know, Bitcoin, to support lightning, but really kind of the fun is in these communities that develop. And I think what's gonna happen in the near future is, you know, just like PlebNet was this grassroots group that we all just kinda got together and and, you know, we were all in Clubhouse and, you know, started talking about it more. And I started, you know, talking about it in in in Bitcoin Magazine, Clubhouse rooms and stuff. That's gonna happen all over the world. What's gonna happen is basically   smaller   communities   are like Bitcoin Beach,   are going to basically   spin up, and there is going to be these   these groups that then build out these incredibly strong networks between themselves, open channels, have robust channels, communicate amongst each other. Like, you know, the number of when my node goes down, like, my Internet, you know, got, you know, shit the bed, like, yesterday, and, like, 10 people messaged me and was like, yo. Your node is down. And they were like, oh, it's like is everything okay? Like, is your node fucked or whatever? And, like, those kinds of communities are so important. And that's really what PlebNet is. It's just this this smaller community   that then connects to the larger Lightning Network and has all these really strong channels that are robust.  

And,   that's I think that's it's it's an interesting model for lightning adoption   all over the world among different communities. We've been talking with, like, Black Bitcoin Billionaires,   and, you know, they're spinning you know, they've spun up a lightning,   you know, kind of,   community, and then they've they're connected to PlebNet. They're also connected, of course, the larger Lightning community, but it's it's pretty powerful stuff. There's some there's there's some  

[00:23:31] Unknown:

I'm not sure how to quantify it, privacy benefit,   to being able to pay through these kind of   more trusted hops that are going through Tor only routing nodes,   run by individuals before it gets to the greater network because   some privacy attacks on lightning involve,   basically surveilling the hops. So if you have a bunch of hops beforehand,   but that was just the thought that I wanted to bring up real quick. But the   the so what you're kind of talking about here is this interesting phenomenon that we've seen   early on in the lightning network. This idea of of basically ideologically minded   people running, routing nodes to kind of bootstrap the network.  

But ideally or I don't even know if ideally is the right word, but   by design,   the main incentive to run a routing node   is   for financial gain, for fees.   Do you guys focus on that at all, or is it purely   ideological right now?  

[00:24:36] Unknown:

I'm happy to jump in, but I wanna give,  

[00:24:39] Unknown:

Raj our welcome. Raj, what's your opinion on this?  

[00:24:43] Unknown:

I think in you know, I think of this as, what   websites were circa 93, 94,   95.   You know, it was hard to set up your website, but if you learn the technology, you actually had a really good advantage in   in the ecommerce   explosion that took place.   And I think we are in the same place right now. You're not gonna be a profitable node, right, immediately because the size of the pie is not very big. We are all fighting for the same routing fees.   But it's gonna grow massively. I have no doubt about that.   And, those who get in early will have the experience and the motivation   and the sort of the cultural knowledge and connections to succeed. So that's the way I look at people who are serious about joining the Lightning Network and those who have become serious now. Raj, do you not think that, like, long longer term, it'll it'll be hard for a,  

[00:25:42] Unknown:

like, a sovereign routing node to   compete with,   you know, some of these more, you know, like, professional   docs, clear net ones?  

[00:25:55] Unknown:

That depends on what happens in other aspects of Bitcoin,   universe. If privacy   and, you know,   remaining undoxed   becomes super important, then I think these sovereign nodes will be really critical.   If it is not a big deal for most people and governments,   sort of, acquiesce and, you know, learn to live with Bitcoin, maybe it won't be a big deal and the commercial entities will be,   you know, more popular and,   sovereign individuals will probably become more of a fringe then.   But, you know, that's Bitcoin takeover and,   I think,   you know, the downsides,   are not as dire as they are in the fiat world of with the total surveillance with the CBDCs, for example. So I think we just have to wait and see how it plays out. But, yes, I can imagine a scenario in which,   sovereign nodes   run by individuals are going to be really important if if if, we go to a tooth and nail fight.  



[00:26:55] Unknown:

One thing I'll say is I I think that,   I think that there will always be a place   for sovereign   lightning nodes. I think that,   there is not a significant amount of profit to be made at this moment,   though, like, my my note is currently profitable.   I know there's there's a number of, you know, of not that. Profitable? I I'm profitable,  

[00:27:23] Unknown:

if with regards to,   that I've paid off and made profit.   Yeah. Opening and closing costs,   not necessarily   broken   even with,  

[00:27:35] Unknown:

or gone past it with regards to hardware, but I don't know anyone that has. I don't think Yeah. I mean, I I I have, but what I will say is, like, you know, like, my time is valuable. I   I have certainly lost money   based on the amount of time that I put into this, but I actually consider that a a very valuable investment. You know?   I would not currently   have   the position that I do at Bitcoin Magazine if not for the investment of time and energy and   personal resources that I put into,   you know, the Lightning Network and Bitcoin in general. So,   but what I will say is, like, if you if you remove all of the   the value of my time,   then I am   profitable by, like, dozens of dollars, you know, which is nothing, obviously.  

But   and if you add it back in my time, then it's like, okay. Well, you're still at a loss. Or maybe But, again, like, we're looking at that wrong because because it's it's it's earning SATs in a way that is noncustodial.  

[00:28:38] Unknown:

It's not comparable to kind of earning in dollars. Right? Like, these this is you're earning the most precious asset there there ever was.   And and that's what you're not earning by. Much greater.  

[00:28:51] Unknown:

I I I just I I think it's important, you know, like, we see, like, Alex Bosworth, like, he tweets out, you know, I just made,   you know, 25 good bajillion   dollars on running my lightning node, that   that the average pleb right now should not be going into it expecting to make any kind of profit. You should go in and expect them to be able to buy.  

[00:29:14] Unknown:

They can be making tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of sats a week. It is possible. Well, that that is true, and and it's possible. But I I think it is important to Matt's point to basically make it clear. Like, if you're running a routing node because you wanna be   earning significant, you know, quote, unquote, interest,   sorry, on your on your SaaS, that's not the right way to be approaching it right now. Correct. I I I personally believe   that having a routing node with a long standing history   and,   you know, and balancing your channels and shit is going to be in the near future. And by near, I mean, you know, 3 to or 1 to 5 years, let's say,   is going to turn out to be   extremely   valuable from a monetary perspective, from a a a,   Bitcoin perspective, but it is absolutely not there yet. And the people that are contributing to this in PlebNet and in the Lightning Network at large, you know, there's basically,   large entities   that are,   there is a business reason for them using PlebNet and that it's, like, you know, instant settlement,   very low fees, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And there's people like all of us and in in Plebnet who are basically like, we are   very passionate about this technology. We're willing to spend our time because we understand that   the value of this knowledge and the value of   this network,   and by network, I mean, the Lightning Network, is so large that,   you know, we're willing to break even or even lose, you know, tens of dollars in the short term. Because in the medium term and the long term, we expect the Lightning Network to be,   you know, kind of the the foundation of   a lot of things in the same way that TCPIP protocol is for the Internet.  



[00:31:03] Unknown:

Right. So right now, you can earn about 2 to 3% yield per year on Bitcoin that you stake on your lightning node.   But again, you know, to make a living in the western countries, let's say in Silicon Valley, I can't live off of a lightning node unless I'm putting up tons of Bitcoin, and the size of the pie grows quite a bit too. So, you know, we're looking at lightning payments being adopted by many, many more people, which is going to happen.   It hasn't happened yet. But even now, if you are a serious node operator, you can get 2 to 3% yield, which is nothing to laugh at because it is an issue. Non custodial.  

[00:31:39] Unknown:

Right? It's it's it's yield in a non custodial way.  

[00:31:44] Unknown:

Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, if you have a really low cost of living and a lot of Bitcoin,   available to,   put up a, you know, bunch of fat channels,   you can make good money. But, again, you know, the size of the pie is gonna increase. That's the part that I'm really focused on because that means the scaling is gonna happen and many more people are gonna make serious,   money and supply the infrastructure of the, you know, Internet of money, which is what lightning is really.  

[00:32:16] Unknown:

Walton or Raj,   do you have any, like, tips for freaks who might be struggling to get any kind of real fee revenue to,  

[00:32:24] Unknown:

up their Yeah. The numb the number one thing that they should do is they should go to Erin Malone's   Twitter,   and check her pinned,   thread. It's it's an absolute blast. She then wrote an article, I think, was it the Bitcoin Magazine P on on this essentially, the same thing, but with Bitbucket.   Yep. The same. Yeah. Yeah. Erin Erin Erin is the queen   of   of fee mastery,   and she's very willing to to speak to people. You know? Once they're already set up on on Plebna,   Just to remind people, if they want to find   their way to the greatest   Bitcoin community,   all they need to do is go to kycjelly.com.  

That's   kycjelly.com.   Thank you, Adam speaking.  

[00:33:12] Unknown:

So great, Adam.  

[00:33:14] Unknown:

Thank you. So I retweeted Adam's,   thread about how how she became profitable in, in a few weeks and,   you know, have a sort of a main,   secrets of the trade.   But if you are a node operator and you're not getting any routing, first thing you wanna do is make sure you have a good, you   know, substantial liquidity channels. I'm talking about 5 to 10000000 stats with some of the big nodes.   Connect to some of the big nodes in Plebnet. If you go to,   you know, the terminal.lightning.engineeringwebsite,   which is maintained by Lightning Labs. You can see some of the top nodes. And there is another,   tool that you can use   for   improving your centrality to the network.  

And, the guy who made the tool is, his name is Greg Flare,   gridflare.   So he has a website, actually. I'm gonna tweet it out shortly.   So if you go to gridflare's website, you can put in your pubkey, and it'll do the calculation,   based on the current network,   status and tell you what are the top nodes that you should be connecting to. So out of those top recommendations,   you pick the commercially important ones. And, I think with the 3 or 4 channels of 5 to 10,000,000 SaaS, you should start seeing a good amount of activity within a few days.  

[00:34:37] Unknown:

I think one thing I wanna just jump in and say is I think one of the most the most amazing things to me about PlebNet   is that, you know, this community kinda we created this community.   And   even for people who are,   I like, you know, Gridflare's tools, which are incredible,   are   kind of have grown out of the   the interaction of people on PlebNet, right, and trying to understand it. And, like, you know, l n or is it, lnrouter.app   and lnnoteinsight?   Like, those are all tools that have   benefited massively from this community. And so I I think it's important to acknowledge that not only are we seeing this incredibly this thing this valuable benefit for people who are interested   in taking control of their own financial freedom, being financially sovereign, running lightning routing nodes,   But for for lightning developers as well,   there is a huge benefit   to, you know, joining these types of communities.  



[00:35:37] Unknown:

You know Right. It's like the world's best alpha or yeah. Probably world's best alpha group,   with regards to come out testing   the newest stuff on lightning and helping helping it iterate. And it's and it's, you know, yeah, it's fantastic because it that actually generates more alpha for the for the people running their lightning nodes.  

[00:35:57] Unknown:

And the Lightning Network too, though. You know, I mean, that's the amazing thing. I mean, the thing, you know, I I talk about this a lot, but, like, the most exciting thing to me about   about Bitcoin, honestly, and   Lightning   is the incentives. Right? Like, you know, no one is better than their incentives.   And,   it's easy.   And so the thing for me is that   in Align Network, I mean, it's it's like playing this real time strategy game that is the most exciting real time strategy game   that I've ever played. Right? You know, StarCraft, whatever whatever whatever other game you're interested in, like, this is more interesting because we're talking about the soundest money that has ever existed. We're talking   about real sats   every day. And so it it and we're all basically we're we're friends. We've got this community. We're willing to give up alpha,   quote, unquote, in a way that,   to benefit the larger Bitcoin network   via lightning that I just haven't seen anywhere else. I mean, most most of the time when you try to ask for advice on some of this stuff, you know, previously before PlumbNet, it was it was very kind of like, well, I don't really wanna give you the deets because,   you know, that would cut into my profits. But in Plaidnet,   we all understand that   what benefits   us as individuals   benefits the community   and helps us grow.  



[00:37:19] Unknown:

Right. And, Gridflare's   website for optimizing your channel,   decisions is, gridflare.xyz.  

[00:37:30] Unknown:

So, I mean,   that that's in reference to centrality. Right? This idea that you're well connected,   to the greater lightning network.   But there's another step there, I think, at least from   my my basic understanding   of of   maximizing,   routing fees,   which is basically, like, trying to sit your situate yourself as, like, kind of, like, a gateway node,   where   either on one on one side or the other,   the the only real way to get to the node the other nodes is through your channels.   Because if you can hit, like,   a a a merchant like, if you find a merchant or an exchange that's really hot that has   lightning deposits or lightning payments,   and you're one of the only ones providing them inbound and you're well connected to the rest of the network, then all of a sudden you can raise your fees and people are forced to pay them. Right?  



[00:38:30] Unknown:

Yes.   Go ahead, Raj.   Yeah. That's true. I mean, you know, you can opportunistically   identify these kind of,   situations and,   become, sort of a sit in the catbird seat and, collect some good fees.   But, you know, it's a dynamic situation.   More people will come in to compete with you, and,   you just gotta stay on the,   on the on your game and, keep finding those opportunities.  

[00:38:56] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, initially, like, you know, Aaron and I and a couple others, we we created, like, a super node, right, where we basically set all of our fees between ourselves. We had this sort of, like, pentagram configuration to 0, and we were like, alright. This is gonna be great. And and, you know, it it was interesting at first, but the reality was,   so that is to say we could rebalance between ourselves   for 0 fees. Right? And, then, you know, people like Dredd and Marshall who had significant liquidity,   they were able to   basically create these huge Wambo channels   to these   major economic nodes in the network. But the reality was,   surprisingly to me, that actually wasn't the most viable strategy. The most viable strategy was to educate.  

And, initially, there was a lot of payments that were routed through us. Right? But the beauty of the Lightning Network is that when you educate people, the the incentives are such that every single node as an individual or every single   number of nodes that are that are controlled by an individual   are incentivized   to figure out   the   sort of dark corners of the Lightning Network that they can open channels to to provide the type of liquidity you're talking about, Matt.   And,   we ended up, like, spinning down this, like,   you know, the, the super node that we had, which is, like, 4 or 5 of us, you know,   because it just it was more viable to   to actually,   educate everyone else on the   factors that are involved and then create that liquidity so that we were all kinda benefiting. And I think, you know, this is interesting. Like, I I think it's pretty clear to it's clear it's clear to me that basically   that   Lightning Pool, you know, for a long time, they have really struggled   to get enough liquidity. So Lightning Pool is a lending market place where, basically, you can go in and you can, you can make offers. It's really fucking cool. You can make offers,   it's by Lighting Labs   to, you know, to basically,   offer up liquidity for Lightning Channels on a time based basis, or you can, buy liquidity from them. And for a long time,   like, like, pool was the largest black hole. They were a vampire node in Bitcoin. Like, if you opened a channel to them,   it didn't matter what you set your fees to as long as it's You say pool or loop?  

I'm sorry.   Loop. You are absolutely correct. Lightning loop.  

[00:41:23] Unknown:

They would basically Myon suddenly got active again recently, and they closed on me while I wasn't paying attention because I haven't reconnected TM UX after Umbrel update.  

[00:41:32] Unknown:

Well, the interesting thing, though, is that they basically were in a situation   until very recently   where they had to basically they had to be because so so lightning loop is a kind of,   they are a they they send   payments out to individuals   constantly.   And so they need to have a constant source of inbound Lightning liquidity in order to maintain   their economic,   advantage.   So they created this service, lightning pool, which allows people to it creates a marketplace for lightning liquidity. And it's really cool. If you have extra liquidity, you can basically put it up in this marketplace and then earn additional,   you know,   fee or, you know, additional fees on top of what you'd get as a routing node. And they did that because they there was an economic incentive for them to do so. And for a long time,   you know, we would all sort of joke around because we would connect the lightning loop, and then they would doesn't matter what your fee was. It could be 5,000,   fee rate,   or whatever you want, and they would basically drain you dry because they needed it so badly. And it's incredibly bullish to me for the Lightning Network that that is gone now. Right? There are enough people who are competing   for who are trying to create a market for competitive fees connected to the loop service   that, you know, the fees are much, much lower. And they tweeted out recently, like, oh my gosh. This is amazing. We finally reached a situation where   we're actually in a competitive market. And I think a large part of that is because of PlebNet and because of the the shared knowledge there. Do you think part of it is because on chain fees are nothing  

[00:43:05] Unknown:

right now? Well, absolutely.   Absolutely. But I also think that if you if you look back when,   on if you look back,   when on chain fees were really high and when they dropped, that did correlate   pretty strongly with the the the increase in liquidity of the Lightning Network.  

[00:43:25] Unknown:

Yeah. Absolutely.   I mean, low fees, low on chain fees are the most amazing environment for learning how to run a writing a route a sovereign writing note. Excuse me. A sovereign reading markets is the point. Like, they are competing markets, and so there will be some interdependencies.  

[00:43:41] Unknown:

Especially when it comes to liquidity.   Right? Because one of the main one of the main cause for providing liquidity is your open and close. I mean, one of the reasons why my note is so fucking far away from profitability   is because I didn't have the liberty of learning in a low fee environment.  

[00:43:57] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I did some really stupid things. I got my super high time preference and and open one channel with paying over a 100 sats per VB.   It's disgusting. It's disgusting.   Now I do all my   1 or 2, like, maybe. Like, it's yeah. You you get really tough, but, yeah, now is the time to be opening channels, Dyers, while the fees are low. Because in the future,   if on chain fees go really high, you actually,   may not be able to transact on chain and therefore you will need to transact on Lightning. And if you don't have your own Lightning Channels, then you're gonna be   having to resort to using some sort of custodial service, which will likely come with additional cost. So   get get a Lightning node up and running because you're actually staking your your place,   on, you know, the payments network of the future.  



[00:44:45] Unknown:

Yep. Get it going while we are still in the bone zone. The bone zone is when a lot of half of, you know, partially empty blocks are   getting mined, and the fees are super low. One set per reabyte,   it's not gonna last for very long.  

[00:45:02] Unknown:

Yeah. How how long is it gonna last, Raj? I famously got,   pie on my face because I felt the fee foam up pretty hard, and,   I did not expect to get one separate bytes clearing, you know, next block like we did this summer.  

[00:45:18] Unknown:

Well, that's because of some,   big,   jump in segment adoption rate by some economic nodes, and that's why we have the low fees.   But as Bitcoin adoption increases, that's gonna go away. There is there is no second chance again now. So Segwit caught us some breathing room.   Maybe in a year, you won't you will not see this kind of situation again.   So the bonds on the last  

[00:45:45] Unknown:

on and off, for a year maybe, and I I'm expecting that in a year, it's it's history. One set for me. Right? So, Raj, you know, I've been it's a this is a topic that I'm really interested in. I mean, as you can see,   every dispatch, I got the live look at   at at [email protected],   up on the screen.   Do you think I so one of the things I've been thinking about lately is that Lightning kind of acts like a release valve.   So we might not see sustained high fees as soon as we would have if Lightning didn't exist.   Because when fees go up substantially,   users have a direct incentive to pay less fees to try and figure out how to use Lightning, and then they go   a bunch of new users get onboarded to Lightning as a result, and then the fee pressure dies down on chain, and then rinse and repeat. So we get, like, these, like, blow off fee tops rather than, like, a sustained   high fee environment.  



[00:46:43] Unknown:

Yeah. But but, Matt, at some point, you're gonna hit a point where there is so many lightning channels themselves being opened and closed, which are on chain transactions,   that that could become a significant part of the on chain traffic. Right? So,   you know, as the lightning pie grows,   it is gonna create much more congestion on the main chain. So the fees are going to go up eventually. And there will be, you know, a a point beyond which lightning network is so big that,   you know, it is generating a continuous,   demand for on chain transactions.  

And, you know, I'm I'm thinking of when so much more of the,   real world's   small payment commerce moves on to the lightning network, and there's gonna be a lot more nodes.   And the nodes that do exist now will have a lot more channels.   They will be opening and closing channels. You know, balancing channels is not always the best option.   It's also, you know, be frustrating   unless you have some real emission taking care of it.   And closing channel and opening a new one is always a good   I don't know. But eventually, when the Internet of money has become big enough on the second layer,   on chain   transactions   for sustaining that network are gonna be significant   amount of traffic.  



[00:48:11] Unknown:

I mean, I would I agree. I just think   lightning delayed that   pushed it back. Right?  

[00:48:19] Unknown:

Yes. You're right. It did push it back.   I think,   I think in a way, it's actually good because while the block subsidy is still pretty high,   we have more people getting used to doing Bitcoin transactions,   you know,   opening channels, closing channels at very low cost. I think it's it's it's a it's a, you know, the plus side of that situation.  

[00:48:45] Unknown:

I think with, like, one of the interesting phenomenons I saw with this   with this latest high fee event,   I mean, we had high fees for   4 months, 5 months. I mean, someone,   we have Mooch in the comments   asking if he's saying fees are designed to pump forever. You   know, during that fee market, I said it many times. I still believe it. I just think it's a long term kind of trend,   but,   I kinda forgot where I was going there. But,   I think   Oh, that the phenomenon that we witnessed with that. So the high fees, what was this was the first time we had high fees and we had lightning.   Because the last high fees we really had was during the 2017   block size wars, and there was probably a lot of spam that was happening to make it happen. And there's some theories that I I I don't necessarily   think are,   unlikely. Like, the it could have been the case that, you know, Chinese miners   were pulling hash strategically to try and keep the fee environment high.  

But what was interesting, this being the first high fee environment with lightning, is you saw a lot of people interested in basically lightning light wallets   during,   during the high fees because they didn't have to open an actual channel.   But then   after the fees went down, then then they started learning about running their own routing node because then they had to open channels. So they kind of went the routes of a lot of times, custodial wallets where they didn't even have to touch an open channel at all, and they waited.   So, Raj, you gotta go?  



[00:50:27] Unknown:

Yeah. I gotta go. Sorry, guys. I have a kind of a hard deadline at the hour. So thanks again for having me, Matt. I really appreciate it.  

[00:50:35] Unknown:

No problem. Thank you for coming on. Hope to have you again on soon, and, I look forward to participating in Plebnet more.  

[00:50:42] Unknown:

Thank you. Bye bye.  

[00:50:45] Unknown:

So to all the other freaks,   me, Pete, and Walton are gonna continue for another 25 minutes or so. If you have any questions,   put them in the live chat,   through Twitter, Twitch, or YouTube, and we will get to them.   Pete, is that is that in did you notice that same phenomenon, right, where, like, people were, like, interested in lightning, but they weren't necessarily interested in running their routing nodes as much until fees dropped again?  

[00:51:10] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I think I I definitely noticed that. I the thing that's so amazing to me about, like, PlebNet is that it actually created this community where people were interested in learning how to run their own sovereign lighting nodes even in a higher fee environment.   And I think that the thing that I really took away from that experience is like, oh, man. Like, this is a game.   Like or whether it can be a game. It can be a really fun   strategic game. Right? Like, Aaron, Walton, Raj,   KP, a bunch of us who were, like, doing this, like, you know, we would we were literally, like, we had these Telegram groups where we would just be messaging back and forth constantly. Like, oh, shit. Like, this node is is, we'll pay you high fees. This one will drain you. And and if, because my point is   the community   and the exciting   kind of like real time strategy game aspect of Lightning is something that I didn't realize existed   and has created a really compelling   reason   for people to   start learning how to run these systems. Now it is absolutely the case that when the fees went low, it created an environment where people could   learn this stuff,   in a way that was extremely economically viable. But I actually think that these types of communities are the thing that really drives adoption.  



[00:52:29] Unknown:

But I I I agree. I mean, that's one of the reasons I spend so much time   in the education space   and and helping people,   and talking to other Bitcoiners. But   the the thing about lightning   operators is when you're   we you have way lower time preference for your on chain transactions. Right? So, like For sure.   You can wait for a 1 sat per byte or 2 sat per byte to confirm. So you do it it does provide a, like, a reserve   reserve transaction demand on, like, kind of, like, the bottom of the mempool wait list. Totally. Call it that.   But it's   it'll take longer for that to be a reason for,   like, fee pressure  

[00:53:18] Unknown:

Yeah. On Yeah. Yeah. I definitely agree. I   mean, I have personally, like, never been I got well, first of all, I was, like,   running a lightning routing node, I have made more on   more on chain transactions than I ever have in the entire history of my involvement in Bitcoin, which is since, like, 2016.   Right? And I think that's really fucking cool.   And I'm I'm glad to be able to participate in that. But you're absolutely right. Like, you know, like, Ben Prentiss and I, like, opened a channel   and   or he opened it. I I convinced him to open a channel to me. And, he was like, yeah, man. I I I sent it with, like, you know, 22,   Southborough vbites. So, it's probably not gonna open until the weekend. And I was like, that's cool, man. Like, these channels are just, you know, we're throwing channels around and like that type of approach. And this is, like, a significant amount of, like, locking up a significant amount of liquidity.  

I personally wouldn't have had   that low time preference if not for my confidence in the waiting at work. So I agree with you. Right.  

[00:54:16] Unknown:

So one of the things you mentioned previously   there was, like, like,   kind of people on PlebNet   taking advantage of maybe lazy   lazy competing routing nodes or not maybe just not sophisticated   node operators   who allowed you to make more fees on them.   Do you think and that's great because, I mean, that's exactly what we want. We we want, like, this adversarial   incentive based network   where people are just working for their own best interest, and as a result, everyone gets better liquidity.   But do you think   that   have have you thought at all about, you know, the fact that, like, Lightning it kinda feels like Lightning hasn't really had its adversarial moment yet? Like, I mean, obviously, we have people like you guys on on ClubNet that are doing it, and there's probably some vultures out there that   are are, you know, making a decent amount of money doing similar things.  

But I feel like it hasn't really   stood the test of attacks yet. Would you agree on that?  

[00:55:24] Unknown:

I would. I I think that the Lightning Network I mean, we talk about things like circuit breaker. Right? So there there's there are these potential vulnerabilities in the Lightning Network.   You know? And and I think, you know, it's it's very interesting, the recent attacks that have happened with,   you   know, with with El Sal where rather, they seem to be related to El Salvador,   but there were recent attacks on the major   Lightning routing nodes that were kind of like DDoS attacks. And I it's not a coincidence. I I personally feel like those are almost certainly,   you know, government sponsored attacks.  

And I I think we're I think we're we are moving into a much more adversarial world in the Lightning Network, and I think that is fantastic. Right? And the fact that, like, a bunch of us kind of   early on had this cabal, which sounds really nefarious, but, basically, it was literally like people were opening channels in Plebnet, and then there was a lack of liquidity to these large channels. And then people that had this high liquidity were like, well, I have the Bitcoin to put up. I can be basically a battery node of liquidity,   in this low fee environment. Right? I can open these large channels and then basically provide liquidity in the future when fees go up, and then they did go up briefly.  

And,   it was a really wonderful thing for me   to see that   for all of us. Right? Like, we dissolve that that that that,   that super node because the reality was for each of us, by supporting the larger lighting network, that is to say educating   everyone   about the   the dynamics involved,   that was the thing   that created   more liquidity and more and more routing fees for all of us.   And that's an amazing thing. Like, it's it's an incredible thing when you're you are participating in a system and a community   where the way to benefit yourself selfishly   is to   improve   the alpha  

[00:57:21] Unknown:

of everyone involved. Like, that's that's just Once again, the incentives are just beautiful. Right? It's it's   the an individual should act selfishly, essentially. And that and that and that's a good thing because,   it means that the   the the market is more competitive, and it means that,   you know, we we actually do have a free   market that is the the fee market on the lightning   Network.  

[00:57:50] Unknown:

Yeah. So that kinda blew my mind.  

[00:57:53] Unknown:

So And it and Go ahead, Bernard. One of the things you you you kinda keep you brought up explicitly in the beginning, but you keep alluding to, and it's, I mean, it's something that I've noticed as a long term,   Lightning operator as well,   is this idea of the value of, like, a reputation   that you've been around for a while, that you have good liquidity, that you have good uptime. I know. It's weird.   That your channels are are are fat,   and they've been around for a long time. Girthy, please.   But   as   as a result,   there's some privacy considerations to keep in mind in terms of   the UTXOs   you link to that node and that node being I mean, at the very least, linked to you on Telegram.  

100%.   Is this something you guys consider at all? Because, I mean, it's one of the   major issues I have is, like, I have this, you know, super old, well connected lightning node,   and then I have, you know,   another   undisclosed amount that aren't attached to me. But I feel like   if I wanna do privacy best practices, I really should be recycling them, you know,   starting fresh, getting rid of them, starting fresh   on a   timed basis, you know, after a certain amount of time. But it goes against this idea of   long term reputation.  

[00:59:17] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean,   I I think it's really tough. Right? Like, the the reason that, you know, Walton mentioned the kind of the original   URL for the Telegram group we have is,   was kycjelly.com.   Right? And that was because we we also The Twitter is also at kycjelly.   There you go. And the reason that was the case is because we thought it was hilarious that, you know, we all spend so much time   talking about   maintaining   financial, you know, serenity and maintaining good OPSEC and not doxing yourself.   And, you know, on Clubhouse where a lot of us kind of, you know, got super involved in ClubNet, you know, like, I mean, for me personally, anytime anybody would mention a number, I'd be like, shut the fuck up. Like, do not mention   any number of US dollars. Do not mention any number of Bitcoin. Do not talk about where you live or any of that shit. And then as soon as, you know,   we started engaging the Lightning Network, we were like, yo. How many sats you got in this channel? Yo. You want a 5,000,000 sat channel, 10,000,000 sat channel? Here's my live here's my note address. Like and and so we thought it was funny that, basically, we had we had kind of   reverted almost and been willing to dox ourselves in order to support the Lightning Network. And so I do think that is a very significant   issue, and I think it will continue to be an issue as we go forward.  

And, you know, there are services like amboss.space   and,   other you know, and and 1ML was another kind of example of this, though they have been, in my opinion, super 100% superseded by ambus.space   that basically   allow one to   track on the long term history   of a node and and view the channel and view the channel closures and things like that. And Fiat JAF has some tools that have been really instrumental for me in in tracking on this thing as well. But I I I think it is they are at odds. They are in conflict, and I think that   it does create   a real challenge. And the only thing I'll say is that is that I am willing to dox myself a little bit,   or a lot of bit   for in order to support the Lightning Network and my own ability to create to to get inbound liquidity and to give up, you know, outbound liquidity.  

But there are a lot of people who have, you know, understandably been like, you know what? I wanna support Plugnet, but I'm not willing to basically dox my node,   by connecting it to Cheese Robot. So,   I'm happy to open channels with people, but I am not interested in in   linking up my node explicitly with my Telegram handle. My node is a random string of characters   and people connect to it because   they can look at the history of that node independent   of my personal reputation   and see that I maintain   good channels with low fees or with reasonable fees going forward. So I think we're gonna move into a world where it is more anonymous,   and people can basically   decide on whether they wanna connect to a node   based on,   just,  

[01:02:19] Unknown:

you know, the history of their actions. I I think you could there's one way that you can have reputation without, and that's some of these, you know, ranking sites like terminal dot lightning dot engineering.   Like, you can just go on there and, you know, pick   a top node and see what, you know, see what matters to be counted as a top node, which is things like having a high proportion   of, peers that route through you,   centrality,   your stability slash uptime   is also very, very important.   You know, and if you connect to one of these,   top nodes   or rather if you become one of these top nodes, you will you will receive,   unrequested   girth.  



[01:03:03] Unknown:

So so, Walton, were you aware of,   what happened with so so right now, I've pulled out pulled up on amboss.space,   this sitl dispatch.com   node. I don't know who runs it,   but it is a it is a node that exists on the network,   And this is all the information you can see,   about   about a node   from just having their pubkey. You can see their their public capacity. What a lot of people don't realize is that total capacity doesn't mean how much is on that node. It it counts inbound as well, which is technically not your Bitcoin.   Right. So that number is inflated, but I I would say that a lot of people that look at it will,   assume that it's the top end number. And then it also shows a number of channels,   your age of channels, your youngest channel,   a bunch of different stats. Now   terminal.lightning.engineering   is a   slightly different interface, and what their strategy is is to,   kind of rank nodes.  

But the ranking system is not open source, and it's very,   kind of opaque on how they decide to rate nodes.   Agreed. I don't I don't know if you noticed,   but maybe, like, 4 months ago or 5 months ago, they added this feature on on terminal dot lightning dot engineering,   and it's told me that,   this node didn't have any good peers. And I was like, they're calling all the freaks bad peers.   And I tweeted it out, and then,   like, 3 days later, all of a sudden, it said I had good peers and I had a high BOS score.   And then they   and then at some point over the last month, though, they took it away from me, and now I have no good peers. Well, I don't know whose node this is. This node has no good peers   and is not centrally located at all even though it's got 223   fucking channels.  



[01:05:06] Unknown:

It does jump like crazy. I was ranked something like 150,   and then my node went down for, like, 10 hours.   And then   it jumped into, you know, 3,000 or whatever. And then the next day, it went back,   like, 99 or something. Like, how did it how did the ranking improve having me being down? Didn't make any sense, but maybe it's other I I don't know how it works. We'd no one knows how it works other than Yeah. Yours.   Reveal your secrets.  

[01:05:34] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, it's totally arbitrary. Right? I think   I think that, to your point, Matt, like, these types of rankings, right, like, Alex Bosworth, you know, who runs, like, y'alls.org   and, you know, works at,   at Lightning Labs, He basically created the BOS score as a way for him to personally decide   which nodes he was interested in connecting to. And he was early enough that everybody was like, well, we don't know what the fuck we're doing. Like, how's Bosworth is a fucking genius. Like, he probably knows better than we do. And so, like, that became kind of the de facto measurement.   And then Lightning Labs was like, alright. We gotta, like, you know, spin up something new that provides a little bit more insight, and they did so. But to your point, like, it is totally arbitrary. Right? And,  

[01:06:17] Unknown:

they're they're pretty better reputation systems.   We don't have them yet. Exactly. 100%.   One of my fears is, like, a lot of these reputation systems, and I assume,   the boss,   score does as well, which, by the way, stands for a balance of satoshis. It doesn't stand for the first three letters of his name last name. Yeah. But did he not name it that for   we will never know, will we? How dare you? We'll never know. It's it's up in the air.  

[01:06:46] Unknown:

Is one of the main that they say something. Well, we say you did it like a boss instead of like a boss.  

[01:06:52] Unknown:

I love it. One of the one of the main aspects that it seems to be measuring   is, like, this uptime and connectivity   kind   of scoring,   which is always gonna benefit the clear net nodes   over people running through Tor. Because Tor is, you know, the best we have, but it's an unreliable   piece of shit a lot of times.  

[01:07:15] Unknown:

Yep. Exactly.  

[01:07:17] Unknown:

And has its own issue with denial of service attacks and stuff. So I don't want us to I think we both need better reputation systems, but we also   need to be very actively   aware   that those reputation systems or at least some reputation systems   should kind of ignore that or at least just focus on Tor only nodes,   to be relevant to, like, a sovereign router.  

[01:07:42] Unknown:

For sure. And I think I think these types of systems, like, are are being built out. Right? Like, the,   you know, e like, l n, and I mentioned it a bunch, but, like,   you know, l n node insight, like, lets you do simulated channels. Right? So you can basically be like, what would my how would my centrality   by various metrics change if I was to open a channel or remove a channel from this specific node? And centrality is only one tiny part of, like, running a not any tiny part. It is one aspect of running a successful Lightning node. Right? But,   but it's not the end all, be all. And right now, centrality, I would argue, in the network is artificially inflated. People  

[01:08:21] Unknown:

are constantly seeking some I don't think it's a huge thing, though. You mean as in you think it's you think it's less important than some people think or you mean it's more important? Yeah. I agree it's less important. I'm not very I don't my node is not very essential. I route quite a lot.   Yeah. It's it's not it's not super important. Yeah. So I think I mean, my point is, like, all of the systems, including, like, Lightning Labs and It doesn't get overranked. It doesn't go overranked. You don't need to have a high centrality to get a high ranking on thermal.light.engineering.  

[01:08:50] Unknown:

Fuck their rankings. Yeah. Exactly. The point is, like, fuck their rankings. Like, we we all kinda joke about having, like, a PlebNet rank, but the point is I wanna see more tools and, you know, they're being developed. And, you know, like, like   Walton mentioned,   you know, the,   the   there are these sort of independent GitHub repos that allow you to rank your own node and figure out how to improve your own nodes and, you know, not even centrality, though it's one metric,   based on other factors. And I think what's gonna happen is we're gonna see more and more and more of those independent   analyses,   analysis tools,   develop, and people will come up with their own metrics   for what is a good node to connect to. And there are these tools already exist in sometimes. Right? There's,   there's a fuck. What is it called?  

It's like l n it's not l n balance. I can look it up if anybody's interested.   DM me on Twitter or something. But, basically, like, it has all these other algorithms. Like, okay. So it'll do, like, historic   payments that are routed through you to basically insert your to allow you to insert your node as a,   kind of middleman   between existing nodes   and those kinds of things and, you know, how many nodes have, like, 3 hops away from you, and then you can optimize that. So I think these types of metrics are gonna be super important, and there will be more and more independent tools that allow   plebs who are interested in running routing nodes   to  

[01:10:18] Unknown:

more effectively position themselves in the network. But in the meantime, they should go to the ClubNet Telegram. They should go to the Rings of Fire Telegram do. Increasing   kycjelly.com   and,   and and increase their liquidity,  

[01:10:34] Unknown:

or at least learn  

[01:10:36] Unknown:

or maybe start fresh with a new note after they learn 100%.  

[01:10:40] Unknown:

As someone who is very passionate about privacy,   and   and very much believes in its importance,   would you go as far as saying   it's either Tor   or have fun staying poor?  

[01:10:56] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I think everyone should be   well, individuals should only use Tor only routing nodes and I mean, Tor only nodes, period.   And if you are   I think I I would go as far as saying that any anything that any on chain transaction that goes into your node should be a coin join output, and any   UTXO that leaves your node should then go through coin join,   because I   especially if if this routing node gets linked to you, which is gonna get linked to you at some point, especially if you're trying to run it long term,   that on chain footprint is there, and and you leak a lot of information. You you basically have to assume   that every UTXO that you fund a lightning node with is connected to each other. It's like you combine them.  

Yeah. 100%.   Which is, like, a really dangerous situation to be in, so I struggle with   that. And,   you know, as someone who's been reckless with the amount of of UTXOs that have gone into my nodes,   I'm probably more vulnerable to it than a lot of people, so it it hits close to home.   And I'm hoping that we have better tools in that regard. Like, it'd be really cool if we had a tool that was just,   you know, coin join and lightning built in, and you could.   But right now, you kinda have to go through steps. So so take your time, learn,   and,   just be humble enough to realize that you can always improve,   I think, is is the big things.  



[01:12:30] Unknown:

But the you should always be trying to improve. I think that applies to security as well.  

[01:12:34] Unknown:

100%.   So I know both of you guys have a little bit of a time crunch here, so I think now is a good time to wrap it up. I really enjoyed this conversation.   Let should we end with some final thoughts? We'll start with, we'll start with Pete.  

[01:12:48] Unknown:

Yeah, man. Absolutely.   Thanks for having us. This was awesome. I think that   the biggest thing for me, my final thoughts are,   everyone should be willing   to experiment with these technologies.   You know? I think that,   you know, do not fall into the trap   of trusting the narratives that are being presented to you, not only, of course, by,   you know, existing   media systems, which are total bullshit, but also just, like, from people as individuals. Like, do your own research,   experiment with these technologies,   and   find your own way. I think that's that's really, really important. You know?  

Don't,   don't take anything for granted. Confirm it yourself.   Play with the Lightning Network.   Explore these technologies. Become sovereign.  

[01:13:43] Unknown:

Thank you, p.   Walton, fun thoughts.  

[01:13:46] Unknown:

If you believe   in sovereignty,   which I'm assuming you do given that you're a Bitcoiner,   there's nothing   that you,   must do more   than run your own node.   It enables multiple things. Right? You you're gonna have Bitcoin Core, which will enable you to verify your own transactions,   something,   that, you know,   we should all be doing.   And just, you know, just having a node running Bitcoin Core doesn't actually help you. Yes. It's it's it's it's, you know, it's helping the network and it enables other nodes to download   blocks from it, but   you're not actually benefiting yourself. But if you check your own transactions, you are. Now the second one, and this is perhaps more important, is it gives you that foothold   on the Lightning Network. Now the Lightning Network is what's   really going to enable   medium of exchange   of Bitcoin in the future.  

It's instantaneous.   It's a very low cost.   And as Pete said,   now is the time   to be getting your   lightning mode up and running, opening channels while on chain fees are low and staking   your spot on the payments network of the future. And if you want to run a node, all you need to do,   if you wanna learn more, no matter what background you're from, no matter what your prior knowledge or understanding, all you need to do is go to kycjelly.com.   That's kycjelly   dotcom.  

[01:15:31] Unknown:

Thank you, Walton.   And I would just add on top of there that, you know, don't count on fees staying low for much longer. I mean, who knows? I've gotten it wrong a bunch, but,   I have a feeling we're gonna be complaining about high on chain fees,   soon enough.   I know this is a little bit out of order. I just had you guys do your final thoughts, but if we finish up this show and someone still has this question, we need to answer it.   We have Disco Toshi in the comments saying, what is the proper procedure for connecting your lightning note to others within the Pubnet Telegram   once you join?  



[01:16:07] Unknown:

Try and reach out to people. There's there's usually, you know, a few people saying, oh, I wanna open a channel.   But if you if you've already got a couple of channels open and you are a serious node runner, DM me on our and I'll I'll invite you to this another group we have of Node Runners that has a slightly more focused conversation.   The the main PlebNet group now with over 4,000 people,   is is a kind of a community group first,   or rather it's evolved into, yeah, the kind of community group. But there are other Plebnet communities that are more focused if you're struggling to to match up with some people looking looking for a a girthing partner.  

[01:16:44] Unknown:

Walton, do you know off the top of your head what percentage of the Lightning Network Plavnett never represents?  

[01:16:50] Unknown:

Let me just consult my stats.   My, my statistician   prepared some for me earlier, actually.   Yes. They said, so we have   4,030   plebs, 806   nodes, and   the combined   inbound and outbound liquidity of PlebNet is 734   Bitcoin, which is, I believe, approximately   a third of the the the total   public   lightning network.  

[01:17:19] Unknown:

That's amazing.  

[01:17:20] Unknown:

Do you guys does the Pubnet guys have, like you guys have private channels between each other too or just public?  

[01:17:27] Unknown:

Almost exclusively public.  

[01:17:29] Unknown:

I I don't personally have any private channels. If we told you, they wouldn't be private. You know that. Oh, he's got you there, man. He's got you there. Just for the freaks, you can't route you can't publicly route through private channels. That's what because they're private. They're not broadcast.  

[01:17:43] Unknown:

Yeah. So, like, exchanges, things like that will have private channels in order to, you know,   protect their  

[01:17:49] Unknown:

Liquidity. But malicious actors can probe you to try and figure out what your private channel capacity is. Anyway, guys,   this has been a great conversation. I'm sorry we had to cut it off short, but I hope to have both of you on, sometime soon in the future. Thank you for joining us. Thank you to the freaks who joined us in the live chat through Twitter, Twitch, and YouTube. As always, this will be posted to Bitcoin TV after we finish and to both podcast feeds.   Thank you to all the freaks, who continue to support the show.   It's it's truly beautiful, and I do appreciate all your support.  

Thanks, Pete. Thanks, Walton.   Absolutely, man. Anytime. Thank you.   Cheers.   Love you, freaks. Thank you for joining for another Bitcoin Tuesday.   Our rabbit hole recap this week, instead of being Thursday, will be tomorrow,   so stay tuned for that.   And,   there will be no dispatch next Bitcoin Tuesday, but there will be one after that. We'll be back to our normal schedule. I love you all. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for listening.   Stay humble and stack sets.