<p>You are not required to forward htlcs and engage in routing if you join the network. A relative easy way to achieve this is by only having non public channels. However that does not guarantee you that your channel partners might not learn about your channels and still use them.</p>
<p>Another way to achieve this is by only having a single channel (though that makes you pretty dependent on your gateway node)</p>
<p>With various implementarions you can take several measures to prevent / disencourage routing through the means of configuration.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-22T13:02:59.790Z
2021-08-22T13:02:59.790Z
Rene Pickhardt
<p>A basic question:</p>
<p>A wants to send money to C, but there is no channel between them. But A is connected to B and B is connected to C.
So A sends money through B to C.</p>
<p>But what is necessary to (not) become &quot;B&quot; in this case?</p>
<p>Is it possible to use the lightning network without being the &quot;middleman&quot;/&quot;intermediary&quot; for others, or can't you do anything against it? The intermediary gets some kind of reward for transmitting the transaction and that can be relevant for taxes.</p>
<p>Or is there just a differentiation between &quot;people who just send and receive&quot; and &quot;people who also transmit from X to Y&quot; in the lightning network?</p>

<lightning-network><channels>
Is it possible to use the Lighning network without being a middleman/intermediary for others?
hardfork
# Is it possible to use the Lighning network without being a middleman/intermediary for others?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-08-22)

A basic question:

A wants to send money to C, but there is no channel between them. But A is connected to B and B is connected to C.
So A sends money through B to C.

But what is necessary to (not) become "B" in this case?

Is it possible to use the lightning network without being the "middleman"/"intermediary" for others, or can't you do anything against it? The intermediary gets some kind of reward for transmitting the transaction and that can be relevant for taxes.

Or is there just a differentiation between "people who just send and receive" and "people who also transmit from X to Y" in the lightning network?

**Tags:** lightning-network, channels


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-08-22. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

You are not required to forward htlcs and engage in routing if you join the network. A relative easy way to achieve this is by only having non public channels. However that does not guarantee you that your channel partners might not learn about your channels and still use them.

Another way to achieve this is by only having a single channel (though that makes you pretty dependent on your gateway node)

With various implementarions you can take several measures to prevent / disencourage routing through the means of configuration.


---

