<p>You're technical understanding seems to be quite fine and let me point you to some additional resources / answer your questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes. Opening and closing a Hydra head costs ADA. It depends greatly on how many participants a Head has and how much funds need to be distributed. Also, different versions of the protocol will cost differently. These benchmarks are done on each commit to <code>master</code> and should give you a rough idea how much these transactions cost: <a href="https://hydra.family/head-protocol/benchmarks/transaction-cost/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://hydra.family/head-protocol/benchmarks/transaction-cost/</a></p>
</li>
<li><p>There is no limit in how much value you can store in a Hydra Head. However, we do limit to only commit a single UTxO per party right now (this limit will be removed eventually)</p>
</li>
<li><p>The <code>hydra-node</code> will need a connection to the Cardano network and submit transactions for opening/closing a Head. Furthermore, in the opening of a Hydra Head, the funds to be made usable in it will need to be &quot;comitted&quot; to the head in a layer 1 (mainchain) transaction.</p>
</li>
</ol>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-21T16:34:22.033Z
2022-09-21T16:34:22.033Z
Sebastian Nagel
<p>So i have few questions here, which i wasn't able to find direct answers to.</p>
<ol>
<li>Does it cost ADA from mainchain to activate/close a Hydra head ?</li>
<li>Does Hydra have similar &quot;channel limits&quot; as Lightning network does? as in i create a head and set limit as 5000 ADA, can that number be adjusted afterwards?</li>
<li>When im interacting with Hydra in general in which circumstances/possibilities i will be needing to use Cardano Mainnet to send/transfer/ funds.</li>
</ol>
<p>I Tried to ask questions best to my ability based on my somewhat limited tech understanding.</p>

<hydra>
Opening Hydra Heads & Other Cost Related Questions
# Opening Hydra Heads & Other Cost Related Questions

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-09-18)

So i have few questions here, which i wasn't able to find direct answers to.

1. Does it cost ADA from mainchain to activate/close a Hydra head ?
2. Does Hydra have similar "channel limits" as Lightning network does? as in i create a head and set limit as 5000 ADA, can that number be adjusted afterwards?
3. When im interacting with Hydra in general in which circumstances/possibilities i will be needing to use Cardano Mainnet to send/transfer/ funds.

I Tried to ask questions best to my ability based on my somewhat limited tech understanding.

**Tags:** hydra

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2022-09-21. Score: 3

You're technical understanding seems to be quite fine and let me point you to some additional resources / answer your questions:

1. Yes. Opening and closing a Hydra head costs ADA. It depends greatly on how many participants a Head has and how much funds need to be distributed. Also, different versions of the protocol will cost differently. These benchmarks are done on each commit to `master` and should give you a rough idea how much these transactions cost: <https://hydra.family/head-protocol/benchmarks/transaction-cost/>
2. There is no limit in how much value you can store in a Hydra Head. However, we do limit to only commit a single UTxO per party right now (this limit will be removed eventually)
3. The `hydra-node` will need a connection to the Cardano network and submit transactions for opening/closing a Head. Furthermore, in the opening of a Hydra Head, the funds to be made usable in it will need to be "comitted" to the head in a layer 1 (mainchain) transaction.


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