Lightning has been very successful so far, but adoption for small transactions in the web are still not as streamlined as much as I would like. You still need to generate invoices, scan QR codes, switch tabs, etc.

We already have a few lightning technologies that help with these things, like LNURL-pay, LNURL-auth, WebLN, lightning address, etc.

I found a great project that puts some of these things together in an easy to use interface. It's called Alby and you can see it here: https://getalby.com


With Alby you're able to do many things easily in the web using your own lightning node(or using a custodial one if you don't have one). Here are some of the highlights of the project from my perspective:

Easily send and receive lightning payments from the web


Login to websites with your lightning wallet, no more user/pass for each site


Generate your own lightning address which you can then use to get paid/tipped directly to your lightning wallet from different places, like your profile at youtube, twitter, reddit, etc, or your own website.


For example, if you visit my reddit profile you'll see the option to tip me directly from the web if you installed the Alby extension:



If you click on Send Satoshis, you'll see the following:



That's extremely easy to let anyone tip you from any platform you're using, even on custom made websites, directly to your own lightning wallet. Note that the lightning address works with any other software, it's not only for the Alby extension. That means you can just share it to someone and they can pay to you directly from their wallet using your lightning address (if supported by the wallet, of course).

The project is completely open source
The source code is available here: https://github.com/getAlby/lightning-browser-extension

You can use your own lightning node
Alby currently supports LND and Eclair nodes directly. If you don't want to connect your own node, or you don't have one, they also give you access to a free LNDHub that you can use with them. You can also use LNBits to connect basically any lightning node to it. For example if you have a c-lightning node, you would need LNBits.



You can of course send and receive lightning invoices as usual


Here's the send screen:


Here's the receive screen:


And finally, of course it is password protected


I really think this is one of the best streamlined experiences there are out there in the web with lightning. You can use your own lightning node, or a custodial one, it's open source, and it works great. It's worth checking it out if you're interested in using lightning in the web.

There's no need to believe or trust anyone. It doesn't matter if a million people say they are Satoshi. The real Satoshi has the private keys of known addresses that we all know belong to him. If Satoshi wanted to prove anything he would just sign a message with that key. Or move coins around. He has chosen not to do so. Anyone just saying anything when claiming to be Satoshi is meaningless.

And even signing a message with that private key won't be 100% certain, because someone could have stolen them for example. But at least it would give you a high confidence that the person is Satoshi, unless it's proven the keys are compromised.

Don't trust, verify.

Interesting. I didn't know how the winning number was selected. So basically you get the last two numbers of the block, ignoring any letter. Otherwise if you just use the last 2 characters, you'll have 256 options instead of 100.

Congrats Iced, and thanks cygan for the raffle!

Good catch, and congrats on the block! I would frame it or something.

He was always saying get an ASIC, he was just saying that even smaller ASICs can find a block.

In the specific case where they recently found a block through solo mining at the ckpool it was a rig of 6 GekkoScience Compac F USB miners.

Those are tiny ASIC miners. Still ASICS though. Your new fancy Mac Studio won't be able to mine anything remotely similar to a single one of those USB ASIC miners, because the M1 Ultra chipset is just bad at Bitcoin mining comparatively speaking.

After you make a lightning transaction you'll realize the future is here.

Check out Muun for probably the simplest non-custodial lightning wallet at the moment.

https://muun.com

Last time I checked the Bitcoin network is still there working flawlessly.

Good luck to you guys!

Here's a new ATH of your hash rate:

Live View Link:
https://solo.ckpool.org/users/bc1qfh060205z8209u3wqv2xfpxnhn3z9c0wrazdrk

{
 "hashrate1m": "25.8P",
 "hashrate5m": "24P",
 "hashrate1hr": "22.9P",
 "hashrate1d": "4.42P",
 "hashrate7d": "691T",
 "lastshare": 1646782380,
 "workers": 35,
 "shares": 98854000000,
 "bestshare": 103699099656.4076,
 "bestever": 103699099656,
 "worker": [
  {
   "workername": "bc1qfh060205z8209u3wqv2xfpxnhn3z9c0wrazdrk",
   "hashrate1m": "25.8P",
   "hashrate5m": "24P",
   "hashrate1hr": "22.9P",
   "hashrate1d": "4.42P",
   "hashrate7d": "691T",
   "lastshare": 1646782380,
   "shares": 98854000000,
   "bestshare": 103699099656.4076,
   "bestever": 103699099656
  }
 ]
}

Bitcoin Difficulty:
27.550.332.084.344

Bestshare:
103.699.099.656
7.754.401.072
1.809.823.920
664.570.562
9.857.3093
21.379.393

That would be ironic since the first version of Bitcoin was windows only.

The official docs say this:


In particular, here are the building instructions for Visual Studio on Windows: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/build_msvc/README.md

Why are you using MinGW?, you can install git for windows: https://git-scm.com/download/win

The error you're getting is because you're trying to clone the repository at root (/), and as a normal user you don't have permission to write in that directory. Just write this before your command and it should work:


After you write that you'll be at your home directory, which should be writable by that user.

Millions, not billions

68,000 * 100 = $6,800,000

Those projects you're mentioning are just pre-packaged solutions that use the core lightning projects.

The main lightning implementations are: LND, C-Lightning and Eclair.

Have a look at RaspiBolt For example: https://raspibolt.org/guide/lightning/


Instead of c-lignting, raspibolt uses LND, but the rest of the stack is the same as I posted.

You have more flexibility when using the core projects independently. But yes, if you just want to install something quickly, you can choose one of those ready to use packages like the ones you mentioned.

Until they provide an address or a lightning invoice to send Bitcoin in their checkout it's just rumours.

It's an interesting platform.

You can make interactive stuff there with bots, it can be useful for communicating with a group of people.

It seems to be very popular with many alts, and also open source projects. Blixt wallet for example has a Telegram group chat where you can talk directly with the main developer. It's things like this that make telegram very useful.

Here's a list of projects that you can use to create your own lightning node. Every part of this stack is completely open source so you can customize it however you want.

It's composed of three main parts:

• Bitcoin Core: The Bitcoin node, configured to run as a server. This is your private Bitcoin node that you will connect to. Setup a RPC user and password for it.
• c-lightning: The lightning node. This is a lightweight C implementation of the Lightning Network. Note that if you're running this on a different machine than the Bitcoin Core one, then you need to create an SSH tunnel between the two devices.
• C-Lightning-REST: This project generates a rest API interface for your c-lightning node.
  

Now you are able to access your Lightning Node through REST, making it compatible with many other tools. For example:

• Ride-The-Lightning: RTL is an awesome web based interface for managing your node.
• Zeus Wallet: This mobile wallet allows you to connect to your own lightning node through the rest interface.

And that's it, you can now use your lightning node with many of the new applications that are running on top of lightning.

It's always a good time to own more Bitcoin.

Recently there's been an influx of governments all around the world starting to accept Bitcoin as method of payment for public services, such as public transport, license fees, taxes, or even going all the way to declare Bitcoin as legal tender, allowing the direct payment of everything with Bitcoin. The specifics will vary a bit in each case, but the general idea is that more and more governments are starting to accept Bitcoin directly.

Here's a list of them with a link for more information about it:

• El Salvador
• Zug, Switzerland
• Lugano, Switzerland
• Chiasso, Switzerland
• Colorado, USA
• California, USA
• Fortaleza, Brazil

Others are preparing to join them. Like the city of Jackson, Tennessee in the USA for example. The Major of the city, Scott Conger, tweeted about his intentions. Also Miami Major, Francis Suarez, has said he has plans to accept Bitcoin for local fees and taxes.

The canton of Zug in Switzerland allows their citizens to pay their taxes with Bitcoin since 2021

Here's one of many sources.

Switzerland is probably already one of the most Bitcoin friendly places on earth, they're trying to create a "crypto valley" there.

Bitcoin is open to anyone, independent of their gender, age, race, or however else you might want to classify people.

The only thing you need is a device connected to the Internet.

This is great, thanks cygan!

I would like to take one spot:

38 - nullama