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Here's what I would do if I were starting a routing node today.

Hardware & Software Setup

  1. Follow the Raspibolt guide.
    1. For an affordable start, the Raspberry Pi 4 8GB is a decent option.
    2. I started with a Pi 4 4GB on Umbrel and tor but ran into performance issues. These are the guides I followed this migration guide to upgrade my hardware while keeping all of my channels: So I joined Cold Sats and upgraded to the same bare metal setup for a big boost in performance.
      1. See tweet thread of how Cold Sats upgraded his hardware. I copied his set up.
      2. Follow his guide to migrate your node to upgraded hardware, while keeping all of your channels.
  2. Follow this guide to enable clearnet hybrid mode to reduce latency.
  3. Install LNDg to automatically manage channel fees and rebalancing.

Open Channels that Flow

If you’re just getting started opening channels, I recommend a strategy that maximizes flow from the start, rather than profits. Profits come from flow, after all, so best to start there. Otherwise you’re just trying to squeeze profits from a service you’re not yet providing.

Here’s the general idea:

  1. Open lots of desirable channels to good nodes that won’t close on you.
  2. Incrementally lower your fees so that sats are always flowing.

That’s it. Pretty simple. Lots of channels. Low fees.

Here are some more detailed steps of how to go about doing this:

  1. Open lots of channels to high-value sinks. You can get an idea of high-value sinks by looking at my peers where I have higher fees set. For example WOS, River, ACINQ, Kraken, CoinOS, Nicehash, and bfx.
  2. Open lots of channels to good source nodes. You can get an idea of good sources by looking at my peers where I have lower fees set. I humbly recommend cyberhub as a good source.
  3. See How to Open Good Channels for more thoughts on opening channels.
  4. Loop out sats using your channels with looing services like WOS, Kraken, and bfx. This gives you weak inbound from sinks.
  5. Loop out more sats, but this time using your source channels as the first hop. This gives you strong inbound from sources. See Lightning Network Basics for more about looping.
  6. Set high fees to the sinks.