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I often come up with ideas for apps using lightning network, but the current wallets API limitations prevent me from realizing them.
However, they could be possible by utilizing a supporting custodial node to temporarily manage or route funds. The obstacle I face is that setting up and managing liquidity for such a node requires resources beyond what I have for a simple experiment. And I can't require users to connect their nodes since most Lightning Network users don't have one.
So, I'm wondering if there's a Lightning-as-a-Service or a public node option available, essentially like a centralized wallet for developers that can be used as a starting point for experimenting with new ideas.
I'm aware of Blockstream Green, but my understanding is that it allows self-hosted nodes in the cloud and doesn't address liquidity management.
Is there a solution or service that fits these needs?
I’d recommend https://lightningpolar.com/ for development
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what specific liquidity requirements you have? just some inbound and outbound for initial testing?
the most reckless possible option would be to use demo lnbits server at https://legend.lnbits.com/ for prototyping but this is highly inadvisable. But it gives you very clear path to move the project to your own lnbits instance later on.
zebedee has their custodial platform for developers - https://zebedee.io/developers/dashboard that gives you an api. or river's RLS -> https://rls.dev/. locks you into their system where you will spend probably nontrivial amount of time if you later decide to migrate away due to different api's and wanting to abandon a custodial solution
you could go a bit deeper with breez_sdk where you can easily spin up a node through api and have lsp support so inbound is taken care of - self custodial via greenlight
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Yes, just some initial liquidity to see if it is a viable project. Thanks a lot for giving me several good options, i've also found https://www.blink.sv/
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dev.blink.sv and dashboard.blink.sv should get you pretty far
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blink is built on top of galoy's bitcoin bank stack https://galoy.io/, but blink takes care of the liquidity mgmt as its a custodial service running that
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Check out https://voltage.cloud -- They offer Node hosting, liquidity provisioning, analytics and BTCPay / Enterprise supported nodes. LaaS provider.
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Would recommend non-custodial provider https://voltage.cloud
Nodes, liquidity, + data and analytics tooling for troubleshooting payments, peers, etc with time series data.
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Hey! I’m the CEO of @voltage_cloud (https://voltage.cloud) and I think we could be a really good fit for you. We are a Bitcoin development platform and we do a lot with Lightning. Check us out and happy to hear any feedback. We have a lot planned for this year to make things stupid simple. Feel free to reach out with any questions: graham@voltage.cloud
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Go check bolt.fun and it will give you a directory of many LAAS platforms
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What about regtest?