Is it safe to open channels with people you don't know?

"How secure is it to open lightning channels to random unknown people just to support the network?

The risks of opening channels with unknown people.

Alright, it's perfectly secure to open lightning channels to unknown people -- but keep in mind that if you open channels to nodes that are not well connected, or you open channels to nodes that are not online frequently or consistently, and go down or are badly maintained then your channel will become stale. Essentially it will not be usable because you can no longer co-sign transactions with the other party and you're going to need to exercise the refund clause to do a non-cooperative close of the payment channel. And that means that your money can be in limbo for three or four days on that channel while you close it and wait for the timeouts to expire.

Worst case scenario of opening a channel with an unknown person.

So the worst case scenario of opening a lightning channel to a node that is not well operated or consistently online is that you have to wait some time to get your money back. If you enjoyed this video please subscribe, like, and share. All my work is shared for free, so if you want to support it join me on patreon.com/aantonop. Thank you!