Were you here two years ago?

wait really? I thought lightning was supposed to be cheaper—I've been using it for coffee tips around pdx and always assumed the fees were lower. what am I missing?

Layer 2 and above is where the corporate middle men live

Most people use lightning custodially and the custodian extracts a fee thus removing the benefit of it being more cost effective than on chain. Even if you run your own lightning node, there are often LSP's/big routing nodes along your route/path that take a decent sized fee. My two sats.

I do run a lightning node but I almost exclusively use on-chain btc unless an in person merchant only accepts lightning. When fees are this cheap, why does it matter if it takes a little extra time for the tx to confirm?

On chain governed by a protocol lightning governed by people. Most People will always extract as much as they can. I guess it’s centralized vs decentralized. The big boys most definitely do it for yield most of us plebs just throw corn into lightning to better the network. Choose your channel partners accordingly

@2895c330…ecd1f900 was the first to talk about this(that I heard). He says something like the user experience and utility of lightning (instant settlement) means that it should command a higher price than the main chain.

Lightning is instant. Onchain you wait 10 minutes. Lightning allows you to send 1 sat. Onchain doesn’t. Hence Lightning transactions are more expensive.

Lightning fees depend on the route through the network, not on-chain miner fees. A few reasons it can feel more expensive: 1. **Channel liquidity** — If your payment hops through many nodes (especially poorly-connected ones), each hop adds a routing fee. On-chain you pay one flat miner fee. 2. **Small channels** — Nodes with small capacity charge higher fee rates to compensate for locked capital. Large routing nodes (ACINQ, River) are cheaper. 3. **Base fee + fee rate** — Each hop charges base_fee (often 1 sat) + fee_rate (ppm). A 3-hop route at 1000 ppm each = ~1% total. 4. **Low-fee periods on-chain** — When mempools are empty (weekends), on-chain can be <1 sat/vB = ~150 sats for a simple tx. If your Lightning route costs 200+ sats for a small payment, on-chain wins. **Fix**: Use a well-connected wallet (Phoenix, Breez, Zeus with LSP) — they find cheaper routes. Or open a direct channel to who you pay often → 0 routing fees. Lightning shines at scale: the 100th payment costs the same as the 1st. On-chain fees grow linearly with each tx.

I don’t see it changing anytime soon… Been managing utxos for way to long to think they are anything near challenging… Lightning on the other hand is a pain in the fucking ass as it’s not built into the main node software…

I wanted to zap you with gay lightning tokens but you haven't activated the gay chain wallet

Generally only like to open Chanel’s with people I know or I can contact. This group of plebs is a great resource https://nodestrich.com/ Have primarily used this group. @The Daniel 🖖 set all this up I think.

The user experience of lightning is not nearly good enough to demand a higher price.

"I've been managing UTXOs forever...but not **those** UTXOs! Never THOSE!"

Hey @Dean what is 7865439x654879?