Forget Raspberry Pis and expensive setups. I’m running my Bitcoin + Lightning node entirely on my Android phone with Termux… and it works.

Why bother? Because I wanted to prove you don’t need fancy hardware or a home lab to be sovereign. You just need curiosity, patience, and maybe a cheap microSD card.

The setup wasn’t plug-and-play. Installing bitcoind and lnd on Termux meant fighting with storage limits, pruning strategies, and Android’s habit of killing background tasks. I had to script auto-start routines and push some data to external storage. But once it clicked… game changer.

Now I can open channels, send zaps, and receive payments from a node that fits in my pocket. I even tested routing sats over Tor on mobile data. No issues.

The best part? This little setup costs almost nothing, travels anywhere, and gives me complete control. No more trusting third-party Lightning wallets that disappear overnight.

Next on the list: automate Stacker News posts and zaps directly from my phone-node. Because why should sovereignty stop at payments?