channel rebalancing support kind of exists already?

Posted by Robert Olsson

Feb 6, 2018/16:53 UTC

In this scenario, Bob has opened a channel with Alice for 2BTC and Carol has opened a channel with Bob for 2BTC. Both Alice and Carol are connected to others. However, Bob wants the channels to be balanced for better redundancy and appearance. To solve this issue, Bob pays himself an invoice of 1BTC and ensures that the route goes out through Alice and comes back via Carol. Bob pays fees so that it does not disturb the other balances in the network. Now, Bob has two nicely balanced channels, meaning he has better connectivity in both directions. The protocol already supports this kind of solution, and all that is needed is a function in the CLI allowing Bob to pay to himself, and specify which two channels he would like to balance. This could even be done automatically. However, there is a risk that the entire network will start doing this and it will start oscillating. It is up for debate whether this is a good idea or not.

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