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I set up Lightning node (LND) and wanted to receive a payment. Autopilot for managing the channels always creates channels w/ zero remote balance, thus nobody can route a payment to/through my node.
The command for manual channel opening is lncli openchannel [command options] node-key local-amt push-amt. If I specify nonzero push-amt, the remote balance is then, unsurprisingly, nonzero.
But what I find very confusing is "whose" money that was? Have I just given my peer free bitcoin?
The help command for openchannel push-amt states: the number of satoshis to push to the remote side as part of the initial commitment state (default: 0).
In case those money now belong to the counterparty, I just wonder what's the purpose of this option? It's basically equivalent of opening a channel followed by
sendpayment. That's harmful behaviour. I still think I misunderstand something. Why would anyone want to just give the counterparty free money to load the channel? That doesn't make any sense to me. – jakob – 2018-07-08T13:08:51.9101Yes, my understanding is that it's equivalent to opening a channel and performing a payment. Why is that harmful behavior? The point of a payment channel is being able to perform payments. This option lets you combine opening and paying in one action. – Pieter Wuille – 2018-07-08T21:02:15.213
My problem was that I had LN node running for about 10 days (24/7, port forwarding set correctly, alias Chainanalytics). And for the whole time nobody had opened a channel giving money to their side. I couldn't receive any payment. So I consequently thought I opened them incorrectly and I had to "tell" the peers via that command "to put the specific amount" of their money into initial channel state. I did it several times, cs it fixed the problem of being unable to receive payments. I thought when I close the channels, the money will be sent back to my wallet. Instead I just made a giveaway. – jakob – 2018-07-10T17:34:15.000