Drop the base with #zerobasefee

Recent research indicates that pathfinding on the lightning network becomes much more reliable if sending nodes would not have to fight with the base fee that routing nodes currently charge.

Dropping the base fee would allow sending nodes to find paths with larger amounts on which routing nodes would still earn a fee rate.

This website shows the percentage of channel update message that indicated a 0 base fee in the time window.

Fraction of channel update messages signaling zero base_fee

Note if you actually want to inveractively see the Network of zero Base fee channels you can check the lnrouter.app website by @SeverinAlexB Since 30. Jul 30.24% of channel update messages signaled #zeroBaseFee!

Note that we first explained the base fee issue on July 11th on the Honigdachs Podcast

Disclaimer

Is this like previous Segwit or Taproot activation?

NO! This is not even close! Droping the base_fee is not a consensus critical decision. It is merely a choice of routing notes betting on wallets picking up the improved path finding method if enough channels signal zero base fee. The novel method would just ignore all other channels. The larger payment amounts and higher reliability would probably allow routing nodes to earn a higher yield on their fee rate. So this is neither a vote for a protocol change nor an attampt to force anything on anyone. It is just a simple recommendation to people in a free market.

THANK YOU!

Your enthusiasm and very lovely feedback in the form of words, donations and actions was literally overwhelming for us.
I wanted to take a day off today and celebrate but the amazing
initiative by @markusturm and the community response also on https://donate.ln-rene-pickhardt.de motivated me to hack this little tool together!

List of 1669 nodes that my node has seen that have mainly #zerobasefee channels

Last updated July 31th 2021 at about 9:00 am CEST. Note it might take a while until your updates arrive at my note and this page also does not update dynammically.

History

July 26th

Since 25. Jul 18.47% of channel update messages signaled #zeroBaseFee!

On July 23rd

Since 22. Jul 23.58% of channel update messages signaled #zeroBaseFee!

On July 19th

Since 18. Jul 17.85% of channel update messages signaled #zeroBaseFee!

On July 16th

Since 15. Jul 26.92% of channel update messages signaled #zeroBaseFee!

On July 15th

Since 14. Jul 19.88% of channel update messages signaled #zeroBaseFee!

On July 14th

Since 13. Jul 18.46% of channel update messages signaled #zeroBaseFee!