Lightning routing revenue depends more on fee level than balance skew
Original title: Trim: Fee Level Matters More Than Skew in Lightning Routing
On solved channels the best flat fee stays within 1.6% of optimum, while a level off by two loses tens of percent.
Trim models a Lightning channel as two-sided inventory with costly refills and separates fee level from balance skew. The authors argue the level, set by demand and replenishment, dominates revenue, while skew is second-order insurance against refused forwards. On a 2026 snapshot with synthetic payments, no tuned tool beat Trim's revenue-success frontier by more than a few percent.
Unconfirmed: The comparison uses a 2026 snapshot and synthetic payments, not observed operator revenue.
- The median best flat fee came within 1.6% of the optimum.
- A level off by a factor of two loses tens of percent.
- Skew changed gross revenue by only a few percent in the snapshot.
- Trim posts one fee level on every channel and skew only in selected cases.
From the original article
1 min read at arxiv.orgLightning routing nodes lend their channel balance for a posted fee. Operators' tools move that fee with the balance around a hand-set level, and which part of the fee drives revenue is unclear. We present Trim, which models a channel as a two-sided inventory with costly refills.
By Huiping Sun · arxiv.org
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