⚡︎ █

  • Connect
  • Clearnet recommended for stability
  • Happy routing
  • Fee/Balance Policies
  • Lightning Routing is still very experimental and our policies may adjust outside of this documentation page as we figure out new methods of routing. Do not use this page as gospel to our operational methods.
  • We are currently experimenting and developing the Cooperative Fee Strategy, a game-theory optimal fee management system in which it wins even if everyone uses it (and especially well if everyone uses it). This system is in validation and development phase as fees are adjusted to create balanced channels. We are currently aiming to eliminate failures. Due to software compatibility issues, this is currently delayed.
  • If sats are stuck on our side, you will need to rebalance or reduce your outbound fees to other channels to enable flow--or enable routing discounts. You can also install PeerSwap and use L-BTC to swap the sats back in to your side using "swap in".
  • When swapping with PeerSwap, try to use larger amounts to make the swap more efficient (lower PPM equivalent).
  • While zero-base fee was a great experiment, only a few channels will get this as we have seen a lot of spam traffic that abuses 0/0 channels so we default to 1 sat base.
  • Private channels are responsible for rebalancing. If they are not rebalanced by the channel opener, they will likely be closed quickly as we cannot rebalance them for you (unless your node has public routes that we find useful).
  • Channel Open/Close Policies
  • We are not currently opening dual-funded channels. We are much more lenient on actions for channels opened by the other side. If you are a smaller node, please open to us as we are unlikely to open to you first. Channels that open to us do not incur negative points for going offline as the risk of force-closure fees are on the opener and so are less of a concern for us.
  • If 90%+ sats are on our side and no movement happens for a long time (e.g. 30+ days), channel may be scheduled for co-op close (will aim for low on-chain fee time). Use PeerSwap or Rebalance as needed. Additionally, channels will be regularly purged to keep the node light if the channels are not performant or need to be reallocated.
  • If we are the channel opener and the partner node is found to have many long periods of offline time while pending HTLCs are present (meaning the partner node did not go offline via an intentional, safe process and is risking a force-close), the channel may be scheduled for a co-op close when fees are low. If you are the channel opener and are going offline with live HTLCs unsettled, the risk is yours and we will take no action.
  • Once a channel proves valuable to our neighbors, we will open a fatter channel. We may also downsize a channel if it's not moving and has been sitting at a low fee. Sometimes we will intentionally leave 2 channels open so we can use one for pushing all sats to the other side as a rebalance output and use the other channel for bi-directional traffic. When fees are low, we wil cleanup channels with high numbers of channel update to reduce db size and open new channels (sometimes with different sizes) to replace them.
  • Private channels that drain to our side without rebalancing back are likely to be closed quickly. If you wish to open and maintain private channels with Zap-O-Matic, please contact us to alert us of your routing intent. We may set fees to 0/0 on private channels if you wish to rebalance them and re-use the sats as input.