Tip of the day!
Lightning Network (LN) Resources for newbies
I see many new users coming here but have no idea about LN and how it works and why LN exist.
IMPORTANT aspects:
- Bitcoin layer 1 (onchain) could not grow and go forward without LN! Forget about saying that you will always transact only onchain.
- Bitcoin L1 (onchain) will just gonna die without LN.
- Soon the L1 will be used ONLY to open and close LN channels, store large amount of BTC in cold wallets, NOT to transact each others, to buy groceries.
- Onchain is your "central bank", your store of value system.
- LN is the PAYMENT NETWORK for L1 (onchain), the spending pockets, your "commercial bank".
As I explained in this guide, use the 3 level of stashing: HODL, Cache, Spend.
Guys, before start saying nonsense and stupidities about LN, please read and learn more about LN. There is a plethora of documentation out there, free, open, guides etc. Are there to be read, not to be ignored.
Please bookmark them, it will save you a lot of time if you read them.
Here I prepared for you, a basic list:
A. General information and documentation about the Lightning Network
- An Overview of Lightning Network Implementations
- Lightning Network Resources, complete library about LN - by Jamesson Lopp
- LND Documentation - by Lightning Engineering
- CLN Documentation - by CLN team
- Lightning Node Management – by openoms, excellent guide!
- Lightning Node Management en Español – by openoms
- Beginners LN Guide – by Bitcoin Q&A
- Lightning Network Dev Curriculum – by Chaincode Labs, very good resources
B. Guides and Video tutorials about the Lightning Network and Bitcoin nodes
- What is a Bitcoin node
- The Lightning Network: The most efficient payment system in the world
- How LN channels work – by Decentralized Thought
- LN explained – by René Pickhardt
- LN Channels Management – by Alex Bosworth
- Everything you need to know about LN – Till Musshoff
- DarthCoin guides about Bitcoin and LN nodes
And many more links here
For a total noob I would recommend to take it easy with simple things. First you need learn networking, at least at basic level. Second, you didn't say for what you want to build a website. Is just a blog, is an webapp, is and information website?
- Buy a domain, it doesn't really matter from where, but at least look about to have easy setup DNS and stuff like that. Then to be cheap.
- If you do not want to self hosted at home, buy a good VPS, with a decent space for your web and traffic. Some domain sellers are also offering hosting. Analyze the offers. But I would go more for self hosting first, to learn basic stuff.
- Setup a simple machine PC with LinuxOS (it doesn't really matter the flavour) + web server. Ubuntu already come with webserver.
- Setup a Wordpress web framework. It's very easy to start for a noob. Later you will have time to learn more types of webs.
- Setup a static public IP from your ISP and open the port 80 and 443 on your router and forward the ports to your local hosting machine IP.
- Point your domain and www host to your static public IP.
- setup a free SSL certificate with letsencrypt for your wordpress site.
Done, start building your first web, install wordpress plugins as you need. Easy peasy for a total noob.
Yes, start here, with this starter pack:
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/21-reasons-why-bitcoin-will-save
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/bitcoin-commandments
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/5-stages-became-bitcoiner
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/bitcoin-myths-debunked
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/users-questions-about-bitcoin
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/bitcoin-be-your-own-bank-think-like
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/lightning-network-is-awesome
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/getting-started-ln
- https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/lightning-wallets-comparison
Monero is nonsense. Here's why:
In most real world payments that go to companies, your blockchain's privacy doesn't matter. Why's that? Because if you buy something from Amazon you have to provide your shipping address. If you pay your insurance, it's attached to your social, license, car, etc.
In p2p transactions, let's review its privacy through the lens of what's happening in the real world:
On the darkweb, most of the top marketplaces are BITCOIN ONLY.
94% of all ransomware ransoms are paid in BITCOIN
Most sanction violations are in BITCOIN
The most recent global funded protest (Canada truckers) was BITCOIN
Drug cartels are rapidly switching to BITCOIN with more hardware wallets seized by Border Patrol yoy
The idiot Andrew Tate's sex trafficking raid seized BITCOIN
Judgment:
If its good enough for the criminals who require the most privacy, why isn't it good enough for you?
We have a layered network with L1/L2 now. Very powerful for privacy, and the Taproot upgrades are still mostly missing, but coming. Many CEX's have not integrated LN because its privacy is too good for their AML rules and blockchain forensics.
Also, when a circular economy grows, where enough goods and services are priced in bitcoin, exchanges become less necessary, and it's exchanges that are the vector blockchain forensics lever.
Also, as the usage of bitcoin increases globally, the data set increases exponentially, making privacy even better.
You see, with bitcoin we're trying to separate money from state. Very ambitious. That means the money isn't just for you and I, but for governments and businesses. Money that economies hedge in. Anonymity doesn't allow this. And if we're all sitting around broadcasting transactions in the dark, it means the money failed to ever achieve the separation of money from state, and we're still hiding.
Don't allow the Monero shills to tell you their anonymity is the key to anything but a low-volume protocol with a chart telling the sad story of a coin that in the most recent bull market couldn't even eclipse its previous high. That's a very bad sign.
It's been around since 2013! LOL. Failed to establish itself in any relevant way in the real world as the defacto currency of the private conscious entrepreneur. It's utter bullshit. And since it's been dropped by almost every exchange, it literally relies on bitcoin for its liquidity via atomic swaps and DEX's.
Lastly, their block subsidy ended so they rolled out a polite sounding scheme called "emissions", where they've removed the fixed coin limit to pay the security budget for mining.
I wouldn't accept Monero as payment for anything. Do you know anybody that saves money in Monero? That accepts it as payment? That has a Monero wallet app on their iPhone? Do you know any major application like CashApp or PayPal that has it? Do you know of any publicly listed Monero miners? Any Monero miners making industrial attachments to energy grids? Any companies like Intel producing mining chips, or companies like Exxon capping gas flares with bitcoin mining rigs? Look around. DON'T OVERTHINK. What do you see?
Leave the Monero bullshit to faux freedom fighters, people who think they missed out on bitcoin, or people who think they've found the next bitcoin. It's an illiquid shitcoin that's difficult to offload. So link this reply to any Monero shill trying to drum up interest with "fungibility" arguments.
Conclusion:
You don't need it.
LDK is great if you know a great deal about lightning and are building an application that needs custom lightning behavior.
LDK Node is a good drop in solution if you're building a mobile app where users have a non-custodial wallet that runs on the device. Good if you are fine with their defaults. IMO, it's early, but it should be a better solution than dropping LND into a mobile app, which has historically been a huge pain point and some are moving off of it.
LND is good if you're just a user of lightning and you want a node, or if you're building something that runs a server and you want to communicate with your own always online lightning node from that server.