STORY
Can BTC HODLers earn yield by providing Lightning liquidity?
AUTHOR
Joined 2022.06.04
DATE
VOTES
sats
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Can BTC HODLers earn yield by providing Lightning liquidity?

Are there any lightning liquidity services that allow bitcoiners to deposit or "stake" funds to help node operators and larger cloud services like Voltage open and close channels?

As someone who owns a small amount of bitcoin, I'd like it to sweat (or earn "yield") for me as other traditional investments (or even shitcoins 💩) do. I'm wondering if there is a way of being able to use my bitcoin to help node operating services provide liquidity to the lightning network, without having to directly interact with channel openings and closings myself. I could earn interest on my BTC through routing fees etc, whilst providing the lightning network added liquidity. It seems like a win/win for both the user and the network.

How could a service like this work?

How could this service work?
  • User owns some BTC and wants to earn some "yield" on it

  • They deposit their UTXO (this could be directly into a channel opening TX)

  • As long as the channel remains open and the UTXO is locked, the user can earn some yield from TX routing fees, or other means

  • After a set period, the channel can close and the user get their funds returned (+ any interest)

  • If the user pulls their BTC early and force closes the channel as a result, there could be a penalty

Any thoughts? Drop them below 👇