Do relay nodes need to have money in order to relay transactions?

Do relay nodes need to have money in order to relay transactions?

Imagine Alice wants to send 0.5 btc to Bob. They both open channels with Carol, a relay node that has no money. They create single funded channels each of 1 btc.

Now Alice updates her channel to be 0.5 to her and 0.5 to Carol (nevermind LN fees for now).

To relay this 0.5 to Bob, Carol (the relay node) needs to update her channel with Bob to be also be 0.5 her and 0.5 Bob. But she doesn't have any money on her side to do this. All the money is on Bob's side -- as I said earlier, Carol doesn't have any money.

What's the workaround for this? Do relay nodes need to have money to relay transactions?

http://ift.tt/2C0K1ha