No, you don't have to swap your bitcoins. The Lightning Network doesn't use any form of tokens; it uses real bitcoins. In order to be able to transact using the Lightning Network, you have to open a channel using a wallet which supports the Lightning Network (i.e. Zap, Eclair Mobile). When you open a channel, you lock up your coins in a multi-signature address which is controlled by you and the other node. Once you have opened your channel, you can send payments over the LN (with some limitations). Every time you send a payment over the LN, the balance of the channel updates but it's not broadcast to the Bitcoin network in order to save money on the fees. If you want to retrieve your coins on-chain then you have to close the channel. The amount of coins + routing fees you spent on the LN will go to the other node's address while the rest minus the closing fee will be returned to you.

It's a little bit more complicated than that; consider reading basics of the Lightning Network and The Lightning Network FAQ if you want to learn more. It's not a perfect solution. Keep in mind that some of your payments might fail and not many merchants accept LN payments.

Yes, your transaction will be broadcast once Bitcoin Core has been fully synchronised with the network after you go online. You can always sign a transaction in Bitcoin Core and broadcast it using third-party software without having to wait for the sync to finish if you need to spend your funds urgently (assuming you synchronised your wallet at some point).

You can download the website files (see GitHub respository) and run them on an air-gapped PC. This will ensure that the keys are not sent anywhere.


You don't have to install anything and you can easily generate a paper wallet if you don't trust other forms of storage. Paper wallets are not really convenient if you intend to spend your coins often and this one in particular generates only legacy addresses.

Yes, but I would recommend you to keep them. Electrum updates are not released very often but you also should verify their installation files especially if Electrum is going to be your main wallet. You might forget to reinstall them or skip the verification process which might result in a loss of funds.

There's a slight chance that the website might be compromised in the future; nothing is completely secure. The files might be replaced without any other changes to the website. Also, there have been many phishing attempts related to Electrum updates or typos in the official website's name. Verifying the signature can save you from a fatal mistake.

That's why you should follow this guide which was already linked in this thread. This process ensures that the installation file wasn't replaced with a malicious version which could steal your coins.


As long as the address belongs to your wallet, yes. In fact, you will see the coins a moment after they have been sent, but they will appear as unconfirmed.

No, a transaction hash has nothing to do with the current time and it doesn't require you to have a synchronized client. Take transaction data, calculate its SHA256 hash and do it once again for the calculated hash. You can find answers to some of your questions on the Internet. Do some research; you will learn more.

No, it was completely useless. You wouldn't even earn a cent using your CPU on the mainnet nowadays.


For small payments, even 1 confirmation is enough. Confirmed blocks are propagated quite fast (orphaned blocks are still a thing, though). The amount of confirmations ensures that coins won't be double-spent. Some wallets and services consider 3 confirmations as safe enough.


You confirm transactions by including them in blocks and mining them. The first confirmation is when a transaction is included in a block. Each new mined block adds another confirmation.

You don't need to mine real coins. You wouldn't be able to earn much anyway. Both testnet and mainnet are full of ASICs which are far superior to CPUs in terms of mining. If you need to use testnet for some reason then get coins from faucets. You can no longer mine with your CPU using Bitcoin Core since version 0.13.0.

You can use generatetoaddress to generate new blocks. If you type it in the console, you will see a detailed explanation on the parameters and instructions on generating a new address. I don't think if there is any point in me explaining it. Keep in mind that coins are spendable 100 blocks after they have been mined.

Take a closer look. There are no more blocks left to download and there are no peers to connect to since you are the only node in your local setup. You can now open the console and enter regtest specific commands.

You need to remove '#' which is in front of both testnet and regtest - https://pastebin.com/raw/q9eY936e . Replace your config with this and it should work now.

Let's do it the other way. Shut down Bitcoin Core, press WIN + R and enter %appdata%. You should see Bitcoin folder inside which there should be bitcoin.conf file. If you don't have one, create it. Inside that file enter regtest=1 and make sure that both testnet and mainnet are set to 0. Now, launch Bitcoin Core and you should be in the regtest mode. You can use commands in the console (Window -> Console).

It seems to be still synchronizing with the testnet. What are your startup parameters for bitcoind? Did you add '-regtest' there?

Testnet coins shouldn't have any value and shouldn't be sold. There are plenty of faucets which send under 0.1 tBTC at a time. You can google them.


Sure, it should suit your needs.

According to the blockchair.com block explorer, the size of the testnet blockchain is 24.26 GB. You can run your node in a pruned mode to save your disk space, but you will still need to download and verify all the blocks.

You can create any amount of coins you want and generate blocks instantly. You don't have to wait for the client to sync with the network since it's basically a private, local blockchain. This page should help you.

You can either boot the device into bootloader mode and reinstall the firmware or enter a wrong PIN 16 times to reset the device. The secret can be copied manually so one can have few SD cards or an encrypted backup.

Oh, I haven't tried the web interface because it doesn't support native SegWit. I have disabled '--force-on-device' option and tried it to access it. While it works just like you described on their web wallet, third-party wallets obviously don't ask the user how they would like to enter the passphrase; host entry is forced. I don't understand why it's not possible to change that behaviour under 'Advanced' tab in the web interface. People who don't want to expose their passphrase and don't know how to install trezorctl now have to wait for a software update of the wallet they use to access their coins safely.

Since you sent your coins to a legacy address, you only need to export the private key corresponding to the address you sent your coins to in Electrum (Wallet -> Private keys-> Export) and recover your wallet in Electron Cash. You should be able to use your recovery phrase there if you still have it so try using it first.