[BTC LN CONCIERGE] Your Guide to the World of Bitcoin Lightning Network

[bpovtmg]

The time has come ! The Lightning has stricken!

Bitcoin Lightning Network (BLN) is a technology that makes BTC transfers faster and cheaper. Jump on this bandwagon and you will benefit immensely.

This thread is designed as a central service point around all things concerning Bitcoin Lightning, how to start, how to use, how to benefit etc.

It will be supported by reputable members of this forum willing to move that technology into the real life of  common bitcoiners.

Below is the current list of services provided by the hosts of this thread (will be continuously expanded):


ESSENTIAL SELF-SERVICE: GET THE IDEA
https://blog.bitnovo.com/en/what-is-the-lightning-network/
https://cointelegraph.com/lightning-network-101/what-is-lightning-network-and-how-it-works
https://decrypt.co/resources/bitcoin-lightning-network

SERVICE #1: I UNDERSTAND LN BUT HAVE QUESTIONS
Status: Active
Description: Get all the answers to any of your LN-related questions.
How to Get: Just post your question in this thread.

SERVICE #2: GET YOUR FIRST 200 LN SATOSHIS FOR FREE
Status: Active
Description: install any Lightning-enabled wallet and leave your request below in this thread. You will get your sats in no time!
How to Get: Just post your request in this thread

SERVICE #3: PLAY 100 SATS LIGHTNING DICE
Status: Active
Description: play a simple dice game (bet = 100 sats) with live LN enthusiasts and learn how to send/receive satoshis across the BLN.
How to Get: The game is hosted in Telegram here: https://t.me/bpovtmg_giveaways

SERVICE #4: TAKE A DEEPER DIVE
Status: Active
Description: move your first $10 btc from onchain into LN and have the transfer fee compensated (up to $1)
How to Get: Post your transaction ID and the screenshot of your LN wallet transaction showing $10 coming into the wallet. Your transfer fees from onchain btc to LN btc will be compensated (up to $1).


SERVICE #5: PLAY WITH YOUR OWN LN NODE
Status: In development
Description: <>
How To Get: <>


SERVICE #6: BUY STUFF WITH LN BTC
Status: In development
Description: List of the Most Useful Sites accepting BTC LN payments
How To Get: <>


SERVICE #7: BTC LIGHTNING 100SAT EXCHANGE
Status: Test
Description: Buy/Sell Lightning BTC with just 100 satoshi commission
How To Get: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5279265


More services will be added in the future.

Ride the Lightning !

  

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[LoyceV]

SERVICE #4: TAKE A DEEPER DIVE
Status: in development
Description: move funds into LN satoshis at a very cheap rate.

The cheapest I've found to convert on-chain Bitcoin to the Lightning Network:
BlueWallet (custodial!): only your own on-chain Bitcoin transaction fee.
Phoenix Wallet: 0.1% plus your own on-chain Bitcoin transaction fee.

Note: I didn't include fees for sending LN payments later on and/or withdrawing to on-chain Bitcoin.

[bpovtmg]

SERVICE #4: TAKE A DEEPER DIVE
Status: in development
Description: move funds into LN satoshis at a very cheap rate.

The cheapest I've found to convert on-chain Bitcoin to the Lightning Network:
BlueWallet (custodial!): only your own on-chain Bitcoin transaction fee.
Phoenix Wallet: 0.1% plus your own on-chain Bitcoin transaction fee.

Note: I didn't include fees for sending LN payments later on and/or withdrawing to on-chain Bitcoin.

Thanks for your post, really appreciate your opinion.

My point here is that we need to avoid btc transfer fees AT ALL by moving funds (fiat, e-money) DIRECTLY into the LN wallets. This is especially important for micropayments. It does not make sense to move $5 into LN and lose $1+ on transfer fees. It becomes feasible only at $50 and up.

Imagine the scenario: Bob from the US wants to move $10 of fiat into LN and quickly send it over to Nigeria

1) He buys btc for his $10 at an exchange (he pays around 2-10% commission)
2) Occasionally, he needs to go from onchain btc to LN (losing another %)

There is huge cost inefficiency here killing the LN benefits on the spot. Entry barriers to LN are too high for small payments.  

Maybe i'm missing something here. But my idea is to find a way of sending small fiat amounts from point A to point B very very cheap using the LN as backbone.

[LoyceV]

1) He buys btc for his $10 at an exchange (he pays around 2-10% commission)
2) Occasionally, he needs to go from onchain btc to LN (losing another %)

It's possible to find an exchange that charges 0.25 to 0.5% on trades, let's take the higher one: That's $0.05.
The real problem is going to be withdrawing Bitcoin, most exchanges charge 0.0005 to 0.001 BTC in transaction fees, which can eat up your entire $10. This problem will disappear the moment large exchanges start supporting LN directly. You can get around this by converting to for instance Doge (there goes another $0.05), transfering to for instance CoinPlaza.it (ref link in my Mobile sig), and exchanging it to Bitcoin LN (there goes another 1%, so you'll end up with just under $9.80 in LN. I didn't do KYC on CoinPlaza so I've never tested their fiat deposits. There are probably (small) exchanges out there that accept fiat deposits and offer LN withdrawals too. That solves all problems you've mentioned here.

There is huge cost inefficiency here killing the LN benefits on the spot. Entry barriers to LN are too high for small payments.

LN is most efficient if you're going to send and receive many small transactions, not just one-time. If you open your own channels instead of using a custodial wallet, you'll end up with on-chain fees for opening and for closing your channels.

Maybe i'm missing something here. But my idea is to find a way of sending small fiat amounts from point A to point B very very cheap using the LN as backbone.

LN isn't meant to send small fiat payments, it's designed to send small Bitcoin payments. It would be interesting to see if there's any demand for a small-jobs-thread on the forum: anything under a few dollars, paid in LN.

[-CryptoViking-]

1) He buys btc for his $10 at an exchange (he pays around 2-10% commission)
2) Occasionally, he needs to go from onchain btc to LN (losing another %)

It's possible to find an exchange that charges 0.25 to 0.5% on trades, let's take the higher one: That's $0.05.
The real problem is going to be withdrawing Bitcoin, most exchanges charge 0.0005 to 0.001 BTC in transaction fees, which can eat up your entire $10. This problem will disappear the moment large exchanges start supporting LN directly. You can get around this by converting to for instance Doge (there goes another $0.05), transfering to for instance CoinPlaza.it (ref link in my Mobile sig), and exchanging it to Bitcoin LN (there goes another 1%, so you'll end up with just under $9.80 in LN. I didn't do KYC on CoinPlaza so I've never tested their fiat deposits. There are probably (small) exchanges out there that accept fiat deposits and offer LN withdrawals too. That solves all problems you've mentioned here.

There is huge cost inefficiency here killing the LN benefits on the spot. Entry barriers to LN are too high for small payments.

LN is most efficient if you're going to send and receive many small transactions, not just one-time. If you open your own channels instead of using a custodial wallet, you'll end up with on-chain fees for opening and for closing your channels.

Maybe i'm missing something here. But my idea is to find a way of sending small fiat amounts from point A to point B very very cheap using the LN as backbone.

LN isn't meant to send small fiat payments, it's designed to send small Bitcoin payments. It would be interesting to see if there's any demand for a small-jobs-thread on the forum: anything under a few dollars, paid in LN.

I was talking to OP about this privately and I liked his idea. The bold part of your post shows how convoluted it can be or it is at the moment. When you think about someone completely new to crypto this sounds even more convoluted and complicated .So I see that fees are not the only problem, but the amount of knowledge you need to start using the LN too. The second part is maybe more important then the first one.

Would be good to know how much it costs to open your own LN channel and how much to close it to. Can you point me in some direction where I can read more on that. Though opening LN channel for someone new is not feasible, it would be awesome if it was as easy as installing your wallet and adding funds to it with one transaction from fiat and you are good to go.

What we are aiming at is to offer a service that enables newbie to bypass all this above and go directly from fiat to LN and then transfering that wherever he wants with lower fees then he would have to face in all those processes mentioned above, without any fees as a pilot.Is that doable and how exactly, we are still trying to figure that out.


Also using this post to direct people to my post in previous topic. My Lightning Gift with 200 satoshi is still available. So follow the instructions in the post and I will send you the link to claim it.

Claim your 200 satoshis :  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5275451.msg55223241#msg55223241

[LoyceV]

Would be good to know how much it costs to open your own LN channel and how much to close it to.

It depends on Bitcoin fees. You can open a channel with basically any fee you want, but it might take too long to confirm. If that happens, the node you're connecting too can automatically close the channel, which basically means it does CPFP with a much higher fee. It has happened to me, and took a few dollars worth of Bitcoin in fees. I haven't found a way to see upfront what fees the node uses to close a channel.
If Bitcoin fees go as high as they did in December 2017, opening and closing a channel could cost $25 for each transaction. That would make transferring funds in and out of LN impossible for small amounts.

What we are aiming at is to offer a service that enables newbie to bypass all this above and go directly from fiat to LN and then transfering that wherever he wants with lower fees then he would have to face in all those processes mentioned above, without any fees as a pilot.Is that doable and how exactly, we are still trying to figure that out.

That will never be possible: you'll need to make an on-chain Bitcoin transaction to open a channel.
However, if I see how easy it is to open a channel in Phoenix Wallet, I can imagine they'll accept fiat payments at some point. That would mean all you have to do is deposit dollars and pay a fee. Then, the wallet will open a Bitcoin LN channel (this currently takes only 0.1% fee) and you'll have your LN-funds.
If you're okay with a custodial wallet, it becomes even easier. The main problem will be accepting fiat, that means KYC and regulations, so you can't just do that if you run a small company.

I also think it's too early for this: if someone has never used Bitcoin, why would he want to use LN now? It's accepted in even less places. As much as I like to promote LN, it's too early for mass adoption.

[erikoy]

I have questions with Lightning network

Do lightning network feature could be a new way of transferring bitcoin?

Is the lightning network support the different types of bitcoin address? (P2PKH, P2SH, and bech32,)

If not then is biitcoin lightning network considered as altcoins?

Thanks if you will going to answer or not.

[LoyceV]

Do lightning network feature could be a new way of transferring bitcoin?

More or less.

Is the lightning network support the different types of bitcoin address? (P2PKH, P2SH, and bech32,)

No. LN doesn't use addresses.

If not then is biitcoin lightning network considered as altcoins?

No. It's Bitcoins locked in a LN channel.

I recommend you read up a bit about the LN network, then quote this and post a 200 sat payment request here. It can be from a custodial wallet (BlueWallet is easiest) or even from a website (this casino accepts deposits and withdrawals as low as 1 satoshi).

[bpovtmg]

New Service Launched!!

SERVICE #4: TAKE A DEEPER DIVE
Status: Active
Description: move your first $10 btc from onchain into LN and have the transfer fee compensated (up to $1)
How to Get: Post your transaction ID and the screenshot of your LN wallet transaction showing $10 coming into the wallet. Your transfer fees from onchain btc to LN btc will be compensated (up to $1).

[Stalker22]

New Service Launched!!

SERVICE #4: TAKE A DEEPER DIVE
Status: Active
Description: move your first $10 btc from onchain into LN and have the transfer fee compensated (up to $1)
How to Get: Post your transaction ID and the screenshot of your LN wallet transaction showing $10 coming into the wallet. Your transfer fees from onchain btc to LN btc will be compensated (up to $1).

I like this service very much. Now everyone has the opportunity to test LN payments without any associated costs and risks.

That is a great idea and initiative, @bpovtmg!

[bpovtmg]

A New Service is planned!

SERVICE #5: PLAY WITH YOUR OWN LN NODE

Please drop me your suggestions how a LN newbie could implement her/his one node to play with the LN. Any ideas are welcome as soon as the solution is easy to implement.

[bpovtmg]

New Service Launched in the test mode:

SERVICE #7: BTC LIGHTNING 100SAT EXCHANGE
Status: Test
Description: Buy/Sell Lightning BTC with just 100 satoshi commission
How To Get: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5279265

[bpovtmg]

up

[bpovtmg]

In the times of horrendous network fees and long confirmation times, check out the Bitcoin Lightning!

It solves those issues and makes Bitcoin a means of quick and cheap exchange again.

[LoyceV]

In the times of horrendous network fees and long confirmation times, check out the Bitcoin Lightning!

In times of horrendous network fees, you're too late funding a channel
But there's a way around it if you use a custodial wallet (for small amounts only) and fund it using altcoin through one of the many LN-exchanges.

[bpovtmg]

In the times of horrendous network fees and long confirmation times, check out the Bitcoin Lightning!

In times of horrendous network fees, you're too late funding a channel
But there's a way around it if you use a custodial wallet (for small amounts only) and fund it using altcoin through one of the many LN-exchanges.

Thanks for the advice! Which altcoin would you recommend for this trick?

[LoyceV]

Which altcoin would you recommend for this trick?

Whatever you have lying around My favourite small exchange is CoinPlaza.it (referral link in LoyceMobile's signature). My favourite small altcoin is Dogecoin, but any of the accepted altcoins will work. I think Ether would charge high fees, so that won't help.
If you have a small amount of anything on an exchange that doesn't support LN, you can get Doge there, and convert that into LN again. You'll pay a percentage in exchange fees, and transaction fees for Doge.
The high spread between buying and selling (1 satoshi is over 5% now) may not make Doge the best choice though.

[Timelord2067]

I have some test-net bitcoins that LoyceV gifted to me (can't recall, let's say it was 0.1 until I'm reminded what it was) - I can send them to you if you would like to distribute them to the needy instead of actual bitcoins?


Side question to @LoyceV - the Roulette Game you posted a link for, does it retain the details, or, do you recommend withdrawing all funds at the end of a session?

[LoyceV]

the Roulette Game you posted a link for, does it retain the details

LN Roulette? I think is uses browser cookies, but I wouldn't rely on it.

do you recommend withdrawing all funds at the end of a session?

Yes, always

[bpovtmg]

A really interesting article with good insights into BTC and LN including its comparison to FedWire and 2-nd level services like Paypal  and others:

https://maxbit.cc/bitcoin-lightning-used-as-a-retail-payment-system/