I have been using Bitcoin Lightning Network.

Since it has been a year since the last time I used Bitcoin, I decided to use it again to see what has changed since I left and see what is new with Bitcoin and Lightning Network.

Many wallets use the LN protocol, but many of them are just custodians, and I don't like custodians. The others are wallets that only let you connect to the developers' nodes and only open channels with them. Also, I'm not too fond of these wallets because they try to make users use their expensive routing nodes by developing wallets that will benefit the developers. Now, Lightning Network does have a couple of wallets that let you connect to any node. I found out that only three are on mobile phones and your computer.

It is essential to have LN wallets for the simplest of users, those that don't need to run a full node but have complete control over their keys and total control of who to connect to have a channel. The best wallets I found are Zap Wallet on desktop and Nayuta Core on mobile. Those two wallets will work for just having your keys, open channels, and receiving incoming channel liquidity.

Now the routing fees have improved a bit, at least a bit from my last experiment one year ago. I did open and close many channels in my previous experiment, and I would say that for moving 0.00185, you should expect to pay around 200 satoshis or less. The cheap LN routing fees are not actual because, with 200 satoshis, you can send a payment on-chain when the network is not busy, and the current nodes are trying to profit from routing payments.

The whole model of Lightning Network is about becoming a straw-man, pretty much someone to extract fees. Many node operators have had the same problem since a year ago. They are trying to make a buck by routing. That means those that provide liquidity today and yesterday are doing it because they want some return for their investment, which will eventually only lead to higher fees.

In my opinion, Lightning Network seems like an excellent option if your transactions are for 10k satoshis or less because once you try to send more than that, the fees start to increase. I must remind you that LN was supposed to be a network for small payments, something to pay your coffee with, so I guess if you are going to send over 0.01BTC, you should do it the old way on-chain to avoid the LN rent-seekers straw-man node operators.

Conclusion.

Lightning Network is only cheap if you use small amounts under 10k satoshis. For transactions like the one I made over 100k satoshis, you should expect to pay from 2 satoshis up to 1000 satoshis because something like 0.00185 is enough liquidity for node operators to try to get a piece of the pie. LN requires money to be parked on channels, and extensive nodes are there to collect fees as much as possible, which means you will pay a pretty penny for routing large amounts. But we will continue to hear from Bitcoiners that LN is cheap. It is not until you use the network that you realize they are lying to people.

Bitcoin BTC; If you don't like high fees on-chain, move on to LN and pay high costs. Just dust transactions are cheap. Dust transactions used to be free, not any longer.