<p>Yes, it is technically possible.</p>
<p>But it seems to be more of an economic question rather than a technical one. Ultimately it is answered by the question: &quot;how high a fee are buyers ready to pay?&quot;.</p>
<p>This has nothing to do with Lightning, or Bitcoin in particular. Hidden fees are everywhere.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-05T14:15:05.763Z
Thanks for your answer.

I guess I was more so curious about a node's ability to proactively (rather than reactively) prevent other nodes from opening channels directly to it using LND or c-lightning. The economic scenario was simply an example to highlight the potential negative outcome of that functionality (if it exists) and to inquire about a potential fix to avoid that scenario. I suppose I'll go look deeper into the LND and c-lighting codebase for that answer.
bry
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-05T14:31:11.940Z
This functionality does exist. But you can't have a technical "fix".
Antoine Poinsot
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-06T20:04:38.437Z
I see. Well thanks so much for your helpful and insightful responses.
bry
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-09-05T08:45:52.137Z
2021-09-05T08:45:52.137Z
Antoine Poinsot
<p>If so, that would make it possible for that same node to have 1 very well funded inbound channel with only 1 other node that they also own and price gouge fees to route payment to them through this one connection.</p>
<p>For example, let's say that the company is a major financial institution, service provider or retailer with a high market demand. The company then creates a Lightning node (call this node A), and node A has only 1 inbound channel for billions of USD in SATs with only 1 other node (node B) on the network, which the company also owns/controls. The company then forcibly denies all incoming <code>open_channel</code> requests to node A, and only allows and/or advertises connections with node B. Users then have to connect to node B to route payments to node A for products or services. The company then jacks up the fees to route through node B forcing all users that send money to them to go through node B and pay this exorbitant price. Since the company is very widely used and popular in the market, demand for their services is high. Thus, consumers would be forced into paying a crazy fee until a competing service enters the market. Given the large amounts of capital available to this company, the cost of closing / opening a channel between the nodes is not a large concern give how cheap that on-chain txn is in comparison to the profit in fees.</p>
<p>Is this scenario possible? If so, is anything being done to mitigate it? If not, why?
What would prevent a company from doing this other than bad publicity?</p>

<lightning-network><lightning-routing>
Is it possible to programmatically or preemptively deny any/all open_channel Lightning messages coming into your node?
bry
# Is it possible to programmatically or preemptively deny any/all open_channel Lightning messages coming into your node?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-09-04)

If so, that would make it possible for that same node to have 1 very well funded inbound channel with only 1 other node that they also own and price gouge fees to route payment to them through this one connection.

For example, let's say that the company is a major financial institution, service provider or retailer with a high market demand. The company then creates a Lightning node (call this node A), and node A has only 1 inbound channel for billions of USD in SATs with only 1 other node (node B) on the network, which the company also owns/controls. The company then forcibly denies all incoming `open_channel` requests to node A, and only allows and/or advertises connections with node B. Users then have to connect to node B to route payments to node A for products or services. The company then jacks up the fees to route through node B forcing all users that send money to them to go through node B and pay this exorbitant price. Since the company is very widely used and popular in the market, demand for their services is high. Thus, consumers would be forced into paying a crazy fee until a competing service enters the market. Given the large amounts of capital available to this company, the cost of closing / opening a channel between the nodes is not a large concern give how cheap that on-chain txn is in comparison to the profit in fees.

Is this scenario possible? If so, is anything being done to mitigate it? If not, why?
What would prevent a company from doing this other than bad publicity?

**Tags:** lightning-network, lightning-routing


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-09-05. Score: 2

Yes, it is technically possible.

But it seems to be more of an economic question rather than a technical one. Ultimately it is answered by the question: "how high a fee are buyers ready to pay?".

This has nothing to do with Lightning, or Bitcoin in particular. Hidden fees are everywhere.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for your answer.  I guess I was more so curious about a node's ability to proactively (rather than reactively) prevent other nodes from opening channels directly to it using LND or c-lightning. The economic scenario was simply an example to highlight the potential negative outcome of that functionality (if it exists) and to inquire about a potential fix to avoid that scenario. I suppose I'll go look deeper into the LND and c-lighting codebase for that answer.  
> **username_1**: This functionality does exist. But you can't have a technical "fix".  
> **username_0**: I see. Well thanks so much for your helpful and insightful responses.  

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