Hey everyone, I'm kinda new to the Lightning Network. I just set up my node and want to create wallets for my family, not using TOR or VPN. I went with Zeus via Lightning Terminal. It works for sending and receiving, but I was surprised that a transaction between two of my family members went through ACINQ and had fees. I thought their sats would just stay on my node without any fees when sending between them.
Setting Up Lightning Node with Zeus and Lightning Terminal
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Well, you can create multiple LN wallets by opening channels with other nodes. If each family member has their own channel, it’s like they have their own balance. But, honestly, the Lightning Network doesn’t care about locality. It’s a network of channels, not all nodes are connected directly.
Right, if you connect your node to a family member’s directly, there’s no fee for sending through that channel. But if you use another channel, and it has a fee set by the runner, you’ll get charged a tiny amount. So yeah, you probably just sent through a channel that has a fee attached. But don’t worry, it’s usually super low.
I’m running one node with multiple wallets for my family. It’s been pretty straightforward.
What about your channels? Do your family members have separate ones connected to different nodes? Channels actually hold the bitcoins, not the node itself. The wallet just shows total capacity, but it’s managed by the channels.
Yeah, it's one node with multiple wallets, everyone uses the same node. I opened Lightning Terminal, connected it, set up a custodial account, and scanned the QR with Zeus. So the channels and liquidity are shared.
Got it, so it’s a custodial setup where your node holds the funds. I think each custodial account acts like it has its own virtual balance, so that’s probably why it routed the way it did. Have you checked if this happens with other transactions between these custodial accounts? Might be worth looking into the wallets involved.