Fee Distribution

The Fee Distribution dialog (Lightning > Forwarding History > Fee Distribution):

  • discretizes routing events to 10k sats

  • calculates frequencies and probabilities

  • calculates normalized frequencies and probabilities (gaussian distribution)

  • graphs the probabilities

_images/fee_distribution.png

Discretization

Discretization means the node’s historical routing events are all converted to 10k sat routing events. So a 100k routing event would get converted into 10x 10k routing events. This is to get a stronger signal from our routing data.

Utility

The highest probability fee should be the preferred fee that is used on the channel. The higher the PPM the better (a PPM of 0 would tend to get the highest routing frequency, but that’s not useful in terms of making sats).

In this particular example, we can see that ln.nicehash.com has historically routed the most at 150 PPM. This is the fee that should be set when the channel’s ratio tends to the node’s global ratio.

Interpretations

A smooth curve with many points suggests the channel has a good fee setting algorithm, and that routing event fee distributions are highly predictable based on fees.

Ideally you’ll want the curve to be a traditional bell-shape, with the head of the bell curve aligned with the node’s global ratio.

An erratic curve suggests an unpredictable relationship between fees and routing.

A very simple curve (e.g a line) suggests the channel only has a few different fees set.