Functional Description of Channel Types

[ShahanaFarooqui]

I want to explain channel types in tooltips for our users, which can help them to better understand these types. Could you please give a short functional description of standard, static_remotekey, anchor_outputs_zero_fee_htlc_tx channel types?

[t-bast]

I'm not sure it's a good idea. We currently support various channel types, but it's only for backwards-compatibility purposes, anchor_outputs_zero_fee_htlc_tx is superior to all the other alternatives for node operators, so we should strongly nudge people towards using that one. I don't think a UI should even offer the choice to explicitly downgrade...

[ShahanaFarooqui]

@t-bast Thank you for the quick response. I removed the channel type selection. We will open all channels with type anchor_outputs_zero_fee_htlc_tx now.

[t-bast]

Actually it would be even better if you didn't explicitly specify a channel type. If you don't specify anything, we will automatically use the most modern one available based on our peer's features. If you do specify anchor_outputs_zero_fee_htlc_tx and the peer doesn't support it, the channel opening will just fail, which is bad UX. As cln still doesn't support anchor_outputs_zero_fee_htlc_tx, it's a bit early in my opinion to explicitly require it all the time.

[ShahanaFarooqui]

Thank you for the explanation. Removed channel type altogether for RTL.