Nodes by ISP

What this measures

This ranking shows the 15 internet providers hosting the most public Lightning nodes, according to mempool.space. Each node is linked to a network operator through its IP address, via the autonomous system (AS), the numbered network a provider runs on the internet. The list mixes cloud hosts with residential internet providers. The unit is the number of nodes, not the capacity they hold.

What the ranking cannot see

Only nodes that publish an IP address can be linked to a provider. Nodes reachable exclusively through Tor announce none: they fall outside the ranking, even though they make up a large share of public nodes.

The ranking counts nodes, not funds. A provider hosting only a few nodes may hold a much heavier share of liquidity if those nodes are large routers. For geography, the ranking by country relies on the same IP address.

The cloud as a point of failure and a lever of pressure

Hosting a Lightning node in the cloud is convenient: a stable connection, constant uptime, no hardware to maintain. For a routing node, which has to stay online around the clock, that argument carries weight. But the convenience concentrates part of the infrastructure in a few companies.

The first risk is technical: an outage at a major host can take every node it runs in the affected region offline at once. The second is contractual. A host can change its terms of service overnight and cut off the customers who no longer comply. The third is political: an identifiable company, subject to a country’s laws, can receive a request from a state without node operators having any say.

Then there is custody. A Lightning node is a hot wallet: its keys sit on the connected machine. On a rented server, the host has physical access to that machine.

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The most direct answer is to run your node at home, behind Tor. The household’s IP address stays hidden and the node depends on no hosting company. There is a trade-off: Tor adds latency and a home connection is less stable than a data center, which suits a personal node better than a large routing node.

The sensitive point is not so much the outage as the decision: at a handful of hosts, a simple change to the terms of service could be enough to cut off part of Lightning’s routing.