I’m wondering how many channels should one have open between other nodes to be benficial to the network? Not everyone has 2 BTC’s available to lock up in the LN network. Does it make sense to have only a handful of balanced channels?
Would appreciate peoples opinion.
In my opinion it’s enough to have 4-5 channels to reliably send and receive to virtually any other node. I suggest to rather err on the side of less channels with larger capacity, than the other way around.
Small channels are not going to route often, unless your fees are very low, but literally every node is beneficial to the network to some small degree. If nothing else, as a backup in case a larger node drops out.
What are the benefits of locking up 2BTC?
You would earn routing fees, but it’s very little. It does help everyone on the network for sure.
Seconded valuing larger channels over multiple channels.
I’ve found diminishing returns on opening more channels and it looks like bos and performance ranking values larger channels too. Take Octopus syndicate as an example; less channels and capacity compared to other nodes with similar rankings but channels are 2-4M range.