<p>Lets say we have three people/nodes, Tom, Jack and Bob. Tom wants to send Bob 50 satoshi. Tom has a channel with Jack with 1000 sats capacity (the multisig transactions contains 1000 sats from Tom and 0 from Jack). Jack also has a channel with Bob, where Jack has spent 1000 sats and Bob 0 sats. Lets assume Bob is a coffee owner and therefore never sends money to Tom, since Tom is his customer.Now Tom buys a coffee everyday for a while, routing the payments through Jack. Since both Jack and Tom only ever send money in one direction, eventually it will get to the point where they both run out of capacity. Since each hop channel needs to be able to cover the full transaction (which means the channels need a combined capacity of number_of_hops*money_to_be_sent) eventually their channel is useless. Which means they have to both empty their now useless channel (submitting the two final commitments to the blockchain), which incurs bitcoin on-chain transaction costs for both of them (on top of the transaction costs they both had to pay in order to open the channel). Jack may make a profit if his routing fees exceed the bitcoin transaction costs, but for Tom its a complete loss. Is this correct so far?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-01T08:24:24.393Z
When you write *"for Tom its a complete loss"* What exactly do you mean, didn't Tom receive coffee every day? Don't all purchases, regardless of payment method, necessarily involve monetary loss? You have to pay for the coffee after all.
RedGrittyBrick
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-01T08:27:42.927Z
Yeah but unlike Jack, Tom has achieved no positive balance. He only ever spends coins, leaving him with nothing (aside from coffee, but that has nothing to do with the channels). The main question is whether or not his channel is now useless or not (since Bob will never send money back).
user2741831
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-01T08:34:20.733Z
I believe the expectation is that, if Tom buys a coffee everyday for a year, the 365 lightning transactions and two Bitcoin transactions are cheaper than 365 Bitcoin transactions. Are you asking if empty channels can be topped up as an alternative to closure?
RedGrittyBrick
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-01T08:36:58.167Z
You write *"Tom has achieved no positive balance."* But doesn't Tom have a positive balance when he pays money in to open the channel?
RedGrittyBrick
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-01T08:57:40.790Z
yeah but there is never any coins flowing towards Tom. guess more accurate is to say he never achieves positive cashflow
user2741831
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-01T09:00:52.203Z
My question is, if I run a backbone lightning node where bitcoins only flow into one direction, will I have to routinely close and reopen channels (probably with the same bitcoin) in order to continue processing lightning payments?
user2741831
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-01T13:33:21.193Z
Does this answer your question? [Why can't lightning network channels increase balances？](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/63349/why-cant-lightning-network-channels-increase-balances)
RedGrittyBrick
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-06-01T14:32:01.163Z
I mostly just want to know if it is true that to send 50 sats from node_1 to node_2 to node_3 to node_4, each node need to have capacity of 50sats in the direction of the transaction. And if once that transaction is processed, each of them loose 50 sats of channel capacity in that given direction
user2741831
<lightning-network><ln-channel-balance-management>
Am I correct in assuming that for-profit Lightning Channels need to be regularly "emptied out"?
user2741831
# Am I correct in assuming that for-profit Lightning Channels need to be regularly "emptied out"?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-05-31)

Lets say we have three people/nodes, Tom, Jack and Bob. Tom wants to send Bob 50 satoshi. Tom has a channel with Jack with 1000 sats capacity (the multisig transactions contains 1000 sats from Tom and 0 from Jack). Jack also has a channel with Bob, where Jack has spent 1000 sats and Bob 0 sats. Lets assume Bob is a coffee owner and therefore never sends money to Tom, since Tom is his customer.Now Tom buys a coffee everyday for a while, routing the payments through Jack. Since both Jack and Tom only ever send money in one direction, eventually it will get to the point where they both run out of capacity. Since each hop channel needs to be able to cover the full transaction (which means the channels need a combined capacity of number\_of\_hops\*money\_to\_be\_sent) eventually their channel is useless. Which means they have to both empty their now useless channel (submitting the two final commitments to the blockchain), which incurs bitcoin on-chain transaction costs for both of them (on top of the transaction costs they both had to pay in order to open the channel). Jack may make a profit if his routing fees exceed the bitcoin transaction costs, but for Tom its a complete loss. Is this correct so far?

**Tags:** lightning-network, ln-channel-balance-management

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: When you write *"for Tom its a complete loss"* What exactly do you mean, didn't Tom receive coffee every day? Don't all purchases, regardless of payment method, necessarily involve monetary loss? You have to pay for the coffee after all.  
> **username_0**: Yeah but unlike Jack, Tom has achieved no positive balance. He only ever spends coins, leaving him with nothing (aside from coffee, but that has nothing to do with the channels). The main question is whether or not his channel is now useless or not (since Bob will never send money back).  
> **username_1**: I believe the expectation is that, if Tom buys a coffee everyday for a year, the 365 lightning transactions and two Bitcoin transactions are cheaper than 365 Bitcoin transactions. Are you asking if empty channels can be topped up as an alternative to closure?  
> **username_1**: You write *"Tom has achieved no positive balance."* But doesn't Tom have a positive balance when he pays money in to open the channel?  
> **username_0**: yeah but there is never any coins flowing towards Tom. guess more accurate is to say he never achieves positive cashflow  
> **username_0**: My question is, if I run a backbone lightning node where bitcoins only flow into one direction, will I have to routinely close and reopen channels (probably with the same bitcoin) in order to continue processing lightning payments?  
> **username_1**: Does this answer your question? [Why can't lightning network channels increase balances？](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/63349/why-cant-lightning-network-channels-increase-balances)  
> **username_0**: I mostly just want to know if it is true that to send 50 sats from node_1 to node_2 to node_3 to node_4, each node need to have capacity of 50sats in the direction of the transaction. And if once that transaction is processed, each of them loose 50 sats of channel capacity in that given direction  

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## 0 answers

