Gm. The most important quality of the Lightning Network is the permissionless nature of running a routing node, because that creates constant downward market pressure on routing fees. Permissionless means that ANYBODY can set up the software and start forwarding payments (including AI agents 👀).

Can we measure how well supporting permissionless node operations is going? Kind of! The Terminal list from Lightning Labs ranks the routing node market in terms of outbound liquidity, or how much capacity each node has to send payments. By my count, 80 of the top 100 nodes on the list are run by plebs, with only 20 associated with well-known businesses. That’s pretty great imo, let’s keep it up!

As long as we ensure that running a routing node is permissionless, and we keep increasing LN’s network effects, we are going to win! ⚡️
https://terminal.lightning.engineering