0.0 Intro:

Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) look's like being, lately, the most requested and used option to connect your node to SN! And SN to your node... In this guide, we will go through a few simple steps to leverage the nostr protocol to move sats around wallets: SN wallet and your (ideally NON-custodial) wallet. NWC.dev is the open protocol to connect lightning wallets to apps. Pretty damn powerful, considering its level of censorship resistance and privacy.
There are still not many options that have NWC integrated and working, providing the capability to generate public keys and secret keys to connect wallets and apps through nostr relays. @Alby Hub is the latest one, and THE one we gonna use in this guide. Ready?

1.0 Requirements

  • 1 public or private Lighting node
  • 1 AlbyHub app installed and running
  • 1 SN account (Last but not least important!)
  • 2 NWC connection keys
Yes, we'll need two different keys! One for sending and another different connection key for receiving.

2.0 Creating the NWC connection keys on AlbyHub

If you are still learning and or evaluating options for your Lightning node, I highly suggest you starting from @Darthcoin guides, forever available on github and substack in many languages.
At this point, I'll assume you have your LN node running and some channels already opened with some perfectly balanced liquidity (sats). It's an absolutely vital detail we cannot miss! You ca also check the health status of your node after installing AlbyHub. 👇
The cool stuff about AlbyHub is that allow, not only to check your node and channel status, but most essential for this scenario, it gives much better management capabilities of the permissions you want to assign to specific NWC keys. If you care about your privacy, and to mitigate future issues, it's important to give each key the right authorization access. If you want to learn more about AlbyHub you can open guides.getalby.com in another window to read more later ;)

2.1 Select "stacker news" from the App Store

I'll start from the AlbyHub App Store because in this way our Connection will be later featured in the AlbyHub connections page with the beautiful SN icon instead of being a just generic one.

2.2 Creating the Connection keys

Let's click on the stacker news [🔌 Connect] button, and we'll see that by default, the Connection is set to give Full Access to the app, you can keep it this way if you like.
My suggestion is to set the permission at a minimum to define exactly what access each Connection key to do just what it supposed to do with your wallet! Check the settings below respectively for sending NWC connection key and another different one for receiving:
connection key for sendingconnection key for receiving
In the Connection key for sending you also have the option to set a badget, in the example below, the connection will be allowed to take from your node until a max of 100k sats a month.
Indeed, if you are really control freak, you could set an expiration date for both connections keys independently.
Note: you'll be able to edit all the connection keys parameters after you create it.

2.3 T̲e̲m̲p̲o̲r̲a̲r̲i̲l̲y̲, save the keys somewhere

Each time you create a Connection, you'll see this screen. Note that after leaving this screen you'll be not able to retrieve the Connection keys provided, and if you close it accidentally just delete the Connection and create a new one.
  • 2.3.1 Click the [Copy pairing secret] button, it will keep the Connection keys in your clipboard.
  • 2.3.2 Paste them in a text file for a moment, don't save the file, just keep them there for a sec! You could also go back and forward between AlbyHub and SN to do one at a time, whatever is easier for you.

3.0 Connecting your node to SN via NWC

Now that we have both connection keys, for sending and for receiving, let's open our SN wallet > attach wallet > NWC also accessible directly from the url https://stacker.news/settings/wallets/nwc.
Make sure you respectively paste the right key in the right input field
We are nearly there... just make sure to set:
  • desired balance = 0,
  • max fee to a min of 1% and...
  • . ... click on the yellow [ attach ] button.

4.0 Congratulations, stackers!

You just did your first step into bitcoin sovereignty! Your sats now should be landing directly in your Lightning node. Two NWC keys, One Connection, Zero stress... Happy stacking!
One more suggestion - open a channel to @sn.
Node > open channel > advanced options > channel peer (dropdown) select custom > in peer text box, copy paste the pubkey at the bottom of @sn and remove "@52.5.194.83:9735" > click next > follow instructions for funding the channel.
Enjoy minimum fees when sending/receiving with sn and your alby hub.
reply
When you created your channel, did you need to provide a host:port? Do we just use the @ info that we removed for the pubkey?
reply
Just the pubkey. ip:port arent necessary. The connect textbox/copy string at the bottom of @sn includes the ip address and port and those should be removed.
When you first copy/paste the string it will reveal another text box for ip:port because it cant automatically parse the string in the pubkey field, but this disappears once the pubkey field is only a recognized pubkey.
reply
I must be doing something wrong, then. Not only does my Hub (ver. 1.9.0) want me to provide that port, but it keeps spinning when I do try to open a channel. Any channel, not just w/ @sn.
Thank you, though. I'll keep digging.
EDIT: Figured it out. My Pihole was blocking mempool.space from one of the blocklists I have configured. Unblocked that and all is well with the world.
reply
The guys at alby are pretty helpful in their discord channel. Hit them up if you want their support
reply
I'll 100% hop in if I get stuck (I might be already and just don't remember tbh lol). But yeah, this time it was DNS. It's always DNS.
reply
Another great guide.
You are single handedly saving SN some major misery. Shame they aren’t rewarding you for it.
reply
Who know maybe they are... Anyway for me is a learning experience, and I'm testing all this connection so it's great! Thanks for all your support and feedback, just that is an incentive for me to write and share more.
reply
That's a positive way of looking at it. Don't mind me I am just grouchy about a few things relating to SN lately. I said last week I was just going to mind my own business and here I am a few days later breaking my own rules. For shame grayruby, for shame.
reply
🤣 that's love 🧡⚡️
reply
Haha 😅 You achieve greatness when you break the rules.
reply
I raised it the day before and got a simple innocent answer, we haven't put up the bounty yet.
reply
Ok but not putting up the bounty yet doesn’t preclude from rewarding the people doing the work.
reply
Yes, definitely. But what can we do except zapping the post with whatever we can.
reply
The bounties will be helpfull to get some directions on what to write about. I was feeling stackers were not using this amazing feature, so I thought it could be worth to write about the "attach wallet" functionality. It could also help SN to achieve its goal to be a non-custodial platform.
reply
Excellent guide!
meanwhile gov agents reading this post 😂😂😂
reply
🤣 your creative and generative meme skills are impressive!
reply
121 sats \ 1 reply \ @jddska 24 Sep
I've learned how to use it with amethyst recently, just press and hold the lightning button, then you simply paste the credentials, and the fields bellow get filled.
reply
Seem easily done with amethyst! Thanks for sharing, do you mind sharing some screenshots about the process?
reply
Great write-up! The need for different keys tripped me up initially, but you pointing out I just create two apps within Alby Hub was really an "I should have figured that out" moment.
reply
Indeed isn't that intuitive and SN Ui does not tell until one make the mistake. For those knowing the technology is probably obvious, for newbies like us not! Thanks for highlighting this detail for others.
reply
121 sats \ 1 reply \ @eroc1990 24 Sep
Yup, I 100% get that. But hey, this is all emerging tech and new ways to interact with social media, news, and more, so there are going to be growing pains.
reply
Oh don't get me wrong, pain helps to grow stronger! I like the game.
reply
Excellent! Can you please tell if Alby Hub charges any fee for zapping on SN?
reply
reply
0 sats \ 13 replies \ @ek 24 Sep
They don’t and can’t since you run your own node
reply
And what if we don't run our own node and we use their node. Or, which node we connect.
reply
10 sats \ 10 replies \ @ek 24 Sep
They don't provide a node, only LSPs but they are optional. The LSPs might charge a fee but you can open your own channels since you run your own node.
The only option without running your own node is to use a cashu mint and afaik, cashu mints don't charge you.
reply
is SN planning to implement ecash and run a SN mint?
reply
142 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 24 Sep
No, that would defeat the purpose of going non-custodial.
But we plan to implement NIP-60 which stores cashu token in nostr relays. Then you only need your nostr private keys to access your ecash.
reply
true, I did not think about that when writing.
we plan to implement NIP-60 which stores cashu token in nostr relays
Wow that will be amazing!
reply
Thanks 🙏 I asked it because I think a lot of Stackers who don't run their own node, might be irritated for every time they see minimum 1 sat deducted, even if they zap 1 0 or 20 sats to someone. Thanks about cashu, it may be a very good option with low amounts.
reply
10 sats \ 5 replies \ @ek 24 Sep
In any case, you will pay network fees unless you run your own node and open a (private) channel to SN.
reply
And we require a big amount of sats for creating a node? Do we?
reply
10 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 24 Sep
You don't pay for "creating a node", you pay to open channels since it's a bitcoin transaction. The channel can be as big or low as you want, but it will determine how much you can spend and receive. Anything between 100k-1m channel should probably be fine. You can also use that channel to pay for other things.
In this case is pretty obvious, if you're using any other custodial service you'll be paying a fee. The more convenient I've found from this perspective is Coinos with a 0.1% that is 10x less compared with the 1% market standard.
reply
121 sats \ 3 replies \ @Jetty 24 Sep
Excellent post!! I’ll set mine up shortly! 🚀💯
reply
Thank you. Share your experience following the steps or issues, in case any!
reply
0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Jetty 25 Sep
After you hit Save on SN and paste all the connection strings (x2), I had a small error regarding failing to send a test connection, but it allowed me to bypass it. When I went back inside the NWC config on SN to view some details, it only showed my sending greyed out. My receiving has been cleared out. Yours as well? Can you check? Here's mine..
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 25 Sep
This means that the receive connection failed. Did you try again? Can it create invoices? That’s what it’s trying to do during save and will fail if it can’t.
reply
Perfect timing. I am setting up my node right now and plan on using alby hub. Thank you.
reply
Greaaat! Make me feel these guides are worth writing! Thanks. Which node you chose?
reply
Right now I am in the process of downloading and syncing the main chain on my umbrel pi 4. I have a lot to learn about the later steps still.
reply
Thanks for showing process and steps
reply
Thank you, let us know how you go with the setup
reply
21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Alby 24 Sep
Thank you for that guide! Sending you deserved sats :)
Let us know if you have any questions!
reply
Thanks, and glad you jump into the discussion. The only questions I have are related to privacy and centralization here.
When creating connection keys, the relay used is the one provided by the platform offering the service, in this case AlbyHub use obviously only GetAlby nostr relay.
Do you see in the future implementing a more decentralized way to broadcast transactions? Maybe relaying on the relays the npub/nsec has already chosen and connected to instead the one provided by the provider?
reply
QQ, my LN node gets an invoice for auto withdrawal from SN... is that normal?
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jer 15 Oct
Great guide!
reply
The future is here!!!!!!!!
reply
This is an amazing guide, nice work!
reply
Could I please get a referral to Alby? The getalby website says that I need a invite code.
reply
happy to invite you if you send me your email with a DM via SN from here https://stacker.news/wallet?type=lnaddr-withdraw
reply
I think I figured it out. The bottom part didn’t show until after I filled in the top part. Please let me know if you don’t get the “DM”.
reply
Sent!
reply
Thank you! 🙏🏻
reply