Desired Features:Desired Features:
- Simple Wallet Creation: Can create a simple send/receive wallet for friends and family using my node
- Secure Connections: Securely allow family to connect to my node
- Link to Services: My family members can link their wallet to things like
- Stacker News [3a]
- Nostr clients [3b]
- Podcasting 2.0 podcast apps [3c]
- Static Payment Address: Family members get a static payment address (Lightning address, Bolt12 address, etc.) to receive payments
- Flexible Funding Sources: Ability to change the funding source without disruption to family members (e.g., starting with an LSP, then later switching to direct channel management)
- Channel Management: Ability to open channels from a hardware wallet so if they close, the balance goes back to cold storage
Contenders:Contenders:
- Shockwallet
- Alby Hub
- LNBits
Initial Experience with Shockwallet:Initial Experience with Shockwallet:
I tested out Shockwallet today. I wiped an old laptop, installed Ubuntu, and used the one-line deployment (https://github.com/shocknet/Lightning.Pub#readme). It was very easy. Shockwallet seems to address [1, 2, 5] already, with various pieces of [3, 4, 6] in development. Overall, Shockwallet seems very capable already with lots of features in development. Shockwallet uses Nostr to connect, achieving [2] without direct network exposure, which is a huge advantage.
Next, I plan to try out Alby Hub and LNBits to see how well they tackle these items.
My Understanding of Existing Features:My Understanding of Existing Features:
Shockwallet:
- [1, 2, 5]
Alby Hub:
- [1, 2*, 3a, 3b, 3c, 4, 5, 6**]
LNBits:
- [1, 2*, 3a, 3b, 4, 5, 6**]
* Both Alby Hub and LNBits are very capable when it comes to connecting to external services. However, securely allowing family members to connect will require more effort. This is where Shockwallet really shined.
** Zeus can be used to connect to LND and open channels from a hardware wallet. This may be possible for all three node options eventually, assuming the funding source is ultimately LND under the hood.
Connection Options:Connection Options:
- Wait for Start9 0.4.0 for more user-friendly clearnet options, run Alby Hub and/or LNBits on it
- Use a domain with Cloudflare DNS hosting and a Cloudflare tunnel, though this involves different trust tradeoffs in Cloudflare
- Set up a reverse proxy
- Research VPS providers that accept Lightning payments to run Alby Hub or LNBits on it
VPS Providers That Allegedly Accept Lightning (needs confirmation):VPS Providers That Allegedly Accept Lightning (needs confirmation):
- ahnames.com
- cryptoho.st
- deinserverhost.de
- evolution-host.com
- https://www.forexvps.net
- host4coins.net
- hostsailor.com
- https://iws.initech.global/index.php
- incognet.io
- liteserver.nl
- lunanode.com
- melbicom.net
- mynymbox.io/vps
- netnexus.io
- operavps.com
- privateweb.ch
- servers.guru
- skhron.com.ua
- techrich.hk
- thcservers.com
- thundervm.com
- vpsbg.eu
- zergrush.org
Hey, let us know if you need help with Alby Hub!
The most useful Uncle Jim setup is to create Isolated NWC Connection in your Hub (Connections -> Add New), and then to share this NWC Connection Secret with another Alby Account on getalby.com - so your family members or friends could have another lightning address, wallet interface and a separate balance, while sharing the liquidity of your node.
Thanks! I’m sure I’ll have questions as I get into it. My general plan the next day I get a few hours to play around with it (likely next week) will be working through the following (and likely generating some questions in the process):
Hi, to answer some of your questions:
Awesome, thanks for all of this great info. Maybe I'll wait for the "Friends and Family" app to be ready, and then go through the full workflow of setting up Alby hub, getting some initial liquidity, and setting a family member up with a wallet (testing out the Friends and Family App, as well as the Jim App). Really appreciate it!
1.7 has been released now with the Friends & Family app, so do try it when you get the chance! it'll be even easier as the Alby Go mobile app becomes generally available, as this is the simplest wallet interface to use as an onboarded family member or friend.
Nice post! First time hearing about Shockwallet.
Thanks for the write-up and feedback in Telegram, its very helpful in setting our priorities... we'll get this channel view writable asap... and I think our successor to NWC is going to blow minds very soon :tm:
Might take a few weeks yet on Lightning Addresses for self-hosted nodes, currently they're a problem everywhere as web servers passing them off are still custodial (you have to trust the webserver to actually issue your invoice and not theirs), we've got a solution though thanks to Nostr for handoff and signing... working on formalizing some NIP's for all this today actually
Yea, the reason I started with Shockwallet is it seems there is a lot of great innovation going on to sidestep the tradeoff between the speed/reliability of tor and the security tradeoffs of other solutions when making a node available over clearnet. On that note, have you considered applying for an OpenSats grant? The intersection of lightning, Nostr, doing things differently and formalizing NIPS, open source development, etc. It all seems to overlap with the types of things OpenSats funds. Would be well deserved and worth considering.
I applied some time ago but was denied, our application was "too thin", which I found interesting since Nostr's pre-history is conversations between Fiatjaf and I about our use of GUN and the necessity of web-relays back in the original Shockwallet / Lightning Pages from 2018-2020...
I suspect we don't fit into what seems to be an ECash agenda on that board, but i'll try again, possible they've come around seeing all that we've done...
Any support is appreciated, we stepped back quite a bit from Lightning.Video which has a lot of profitable closed-source code to make Lightning better overall and make the pie bigger because no one else seemed to be doing it. Anyone who'd like to help us keep going can do so through Github/Geyser...
For the investment minded, we do of course have a plan to make these projects sustainable in their own right, they may be AGPL projects but I have an enterprise background and won't be satisfied until most Fortune 100's are running a Pub.
Definitely apply again. PoW means a lot
I second @brian_sabc, a lot of PoW out there now with what you've been building. Just sent a little support to lightningpub@geyser.fund as well. Thanks.
Very generous ty!
Nice review guide!
Thanks! Compared to your wealth of useful guides, I’m not sure I can call this a guide, however, I figured I’d at least drop in a progress update in case anyone else was on a similar journey. I plan to put together a more complete comparison after I have tested out each of these three options.
Do you need help
Not yet. I had a couple questions and @justin_shocknet was very helpful on the Shockwallet Telegram. Alby is in here already offering help with Alby Hub and I haven’t gotten to that one yet. One nice thing about these options is they all seem to have developers very eager to help which is incredible.
What’s planned 0.4.0 for clearnet? Native tunnel support?
I should have said StartOS 0.4 and not Start9. I’ve seen in multiple places that StartOS 0.3.6 is expected to have initial clearnet support (likely via command line without much documentation) with 0.4.0 being a more complete rollout with GUI support and more documentation.
Here is one such mention: Configure Start9's Firewall.
Here is the link to the GitHub milestones for these releases: GitHub Milestones.
Maybe someone else can chime in with more details. I’ve just seen "wait for v0.4" mentioned enough times in various places to be on my radar, but I don’t have a lot of specific details.