How to read the public Lightning network
Separate announced channel capacity, bounded node rankings and actual payment liquidity. The source date matters as much as the read time.
1. Start with the statistics date
The network summary has its own source added date and a separate response capture. A new read can return an older statistic. The view therefore shows its original date and age at capture; the 48-hour boundary is a local older-input label policy, not a provider promise.
Node rankings have a different capture and supply no as-of date. The network summary date is never copied onto them. Even nearby receipt times do not create a shared current snapshot of the whole network.
2. Public capacity is not an immediately spendable balance
Node count, channel count and total capacity describe the network visible to the provider. Capacity is in satoshis; BTC conversion uses exactly 100,000,000 satoshis per bitcoin. Mean and median capacity are distinct original measures, not two interchangeable estimates of a typical value.
A publicly announced channel reveals neither every private channel, the balance split by direction, available inbound/outbound liquidity nor success of a particular payment route. This screen sends no payment, tests no route and connects to neither a wallet nor a remote node.
3. Node capacity counts channel endpoints
A channel connects two nodes, so its capacity may be included at both endpoints. Summed node capacities are not unique network capacity. This sum is never turned into a global capacity share or a network ownership percentage.
Share bars use only the sum of the returned list for that same metric. They describe that bounded ranking. Omitted nodes do not have zero capacity or zero channels; they are simply absent from this response.
4. Identity and missing values stay explicit
Nodes are matched by their exact public key. An alias is source metadata, not a verified person or independent operator. Similar names are never merged into a supposed owner. If aliases differ between lists, the original text from each list remains available.
A capacity list may lack channel counts, and a channel list may lack capacities. A value is joined only through an established exact-key match in the other returned list; otherwise it is unknown. The separate capacity and channel endpoints currently return 100 rows each. The summary endpoint supplied only six, so the view reads both complete available lists. Missing rows are never invented.
5. One applied view and the complete result
Prepare and apply a metric change. Applying a ranking reuses the captured batch without another network read. A separate refresh may obtain a new response or the original fresh cache. Search, page and comparison change presentation only and never recalculate the share denominator.
Complete JSON and CSV contain both normalized source lists, the original-dated network statistics, every returned node and the common manifest. A local result establishes neither public data rights, decentralization nor payment availability of the network.
This is a guide to Datisto. Private features require sign-in and access to your own data. Personal models use your assumptions; availability and permitted use of source data are checked with the particular result. This is not investment advice.