It’s a matter of someone making that a viable and reliable possibility. From my previous posts asking the necessary question “How?”, I’ve learned the Zeus wallet has an option to integrate with Square’s PoS (point-of-sale) app. If the vendor does not integrate with Square, then a custom app development, with SN-like capabilities, would be required. The reliability of Zeus, or other solution, requires expertise and time to manage the liquidity of the Zeus node. I have yet to see someone volunteer to be the de facto expert on managing lightning node liquidity, nor have I found the answer on industry standard best practices for managing these lightning nodes. There is a skill gap in the market currently, and these lightning nodes have been around for many years. I started building one for a client 5 years ago with LND, what SN runs on. I’m not sure who wants to jump into this knowledge gap with standards and certifications for a lightning node configuration manager, and while I’ve spun up nodes and let them run for experimentation purposes, I personally don’t have the time and resources to be learning this through trial-and-error, when running a lightning node is barely practical in terms of time to manage (or automate management) vs. profitability of a node with limited liquidity.

I’m sure someone has the answers I seek, someone with many years experience doing this. The Strike company comes to mind, as they’ve been managing private nodes (likely through TOR, as a cool solution proving out decentralization in a whole new way), and I have even met one of them many years ago. Yet, I think they’re keeping hush hush about how they do what they do, where I believe they could be consulting the world on simple lightning node management standards and recommendations, so we can all benefit from the development that would come from the knowledge they could share.

I think it may be more appropriate for me to ask the questions I’ve already asked, while attaching a significant bounty post, to finally make the lightning wizards appear. Hopefully they use SN.. I’m not sure where else to connect with these people, to further spread awareness of best practices, specifically node liquidity automation.

While I know there are different use case arguments to be made, the current answer to the core “How?” question, for complete customization and development-upon, seems to be: LND with TOR, for lightweight cloud deployment ($7/month instances), in Neutrino mode, with some type of liquidity automation,, and connecting the Zeus wallet to that, either through a channel (or I believe somehow you can import the node as the Zeus wallet I think 🤔). Inbound liquidity being the most important aspect to focus on for a retailer PoS system. Plus, Nodejs or Python with a database, with macaroon-authenticated connectivity to the node (for generating invoices, etc) are viable full-stack development options. Again, reliability is key. We cannot implement a technology that only works sometimes, especially at the point where a user is attempting to pay a vendor.

If anybody has anything to add to this, how to roundup the lightning gang, please let me know. For now, I share what I know and wait for the ultimate guide from a sensei who has been managing a node sustainably for years.