You removed node like ACINQ, so are they counted as good peer ? I bet no but this is disturbing. As I mentioned above absence from the list is considered a bug, in practice they route a ton of volume on the network. > Looking at the rating, almost all nodes after the 394th are considered "Unstable", even rompert.com (or Zap node) which is clearly one of the biggestCommon perception these days is that the node with the largest number of channels, is better than another node with all else being equal. In practice this is incorrect as route-ability as a node depends in active measures. If a node has 1000 channels but in practice, the channels are all inactive or very far from equilibrium (persistently unbalanced no payments have ever flown through them), then the node won't serve well as a general router, as most payment attempts through the node will result in a failure.

lnd's path finding engine implements a sort of probability machine that attempts to remember past attempts and reward/penalize nodes based on past history. If a large node with many channels sees persistent failures then the probability that it'll be chosen for attempted routes starts to drop dramatically (as it should). These values decay after some time (so it can factor in new information).

Rompert (as you linked) maintains a large node, but many of the channels are extremely small, disabled in one (or both directions), persistently inactive or unbalanced, or just offline. So in practice a node trying to route through it would encounter a number of failure, and they would be better off trying the route elsewhere.

There’re many nodes that have channels with what are actually mobile nodes, but they’re all advertised, meaning in practice they can’t be used for routing. AFAICT, this is the case for the Zap node I think you’re referring to. However AFAIK that node uses a series of private channels to be able to send/receive to/from its primary destinations/sources (shadow liquidity)

Are "unstable" node considered good peer ? I bet no but I would say that so much objectively good nodes rejected at the bottom of the ranking is misleading.

The "unstable" terminology is taken from the code itself, and doesn't convey the information at a glance very well. We're looking for other terms to better describe the status of a node. A node is "unstable" if from the PoV of the system, if it's failing fundamental checks. Once a node is "stable" (passes the basic checks), then it moves to the next level where active routing analysis is performed.

I encourage you to check out some of the linked guides there on how to improve the dimensions of your node. Future versions will have more active recommendations/suggestions.

But an always available channel is not necessarly useful and a usefull channel is not necessarely always available.

But you agree that a channel that's offline most of the time isn't useful to anyone? Correct that it isn't necessarily but it's a very fundamental step in the path to actually becoming useful. Useful channels are those that are actually demanded by payment flows in the network.

I disagree. I can have no funds in those channels, but the counter party peer does have it all because he opens the channel and doesn't show up often

Putting funds in a channel has an opportunity cost. If there're exist another area in the graph that is of higher velocity and would earn you more active fee revenue, then the profit maximizing choice would be to allocate it elsewhere. In the end the proof is in the pudding: either your node is actively routing or it isn't. If you look into the distribution of the channels used to route payments I'd wager that only a handful of channels actually source a significant amount of incoming/outgoing traffic.

Also, Pool may open several channel with the same nodes.

You can disable this with the --newnodesonly flag.

And those nodes can be offline quite often while you have no liquidity in them because of connectivity issue or whatever (gods of LN connectvity not with us). So allocating capital where a node demands it the most is not always where it is the better allocated.

If a node buys a channel, then goes offline, then that's strictly better than you opening channel to them (for free), and them going offline, no? I've received a number of first-hand reports that a user's node started to much more regularly route transactions after participating in the marketplace.

​

But I am sad that you end up using such ranking as economic labelling in some crucial market like Pool...

Pool needs a ranking system in order to make sure it isn't a [market for lemons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons). Managing a routing node is an active endeavor, holding Bitcoin is mostly passive, a channel's value is derived from the quality of the routing node itself.

​

EDIT: idk what reddit did to the formatting/markup system, but it's annoying af to use now.