Ahoy!

I am extremely excited to pivot over and work on app/service development on lightning. I am trying to crowdsource some great ideas to potentially use as test-beds to get cozy with APIs, packages, etc. I also want to be able to build something useful for those wanting to earn, have fun, and live with sats.
TIA!
You should check out Bolt🔩Fun! https://makers.bolt.fun/tournaments/1
They are running a Legends of Lightning ⚡️ Tournament through December, bunch of devs and non technical bitcoiners have signed up to start building awesome products!
I enrolled solo, I’ll not a developer but was able to fully assemble a team to work on this project #78021
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Thanks for the share! I am tracking this site and hope to connect and find some great ideas.
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Most of the stuff in this space is open-source (including Stacker News) - so just pick a project you like, run it locally, change couple things, fix some bugs, have fun :)
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I've been exploring Sphinx lately and recently came across this for developing bots on top of Sphinx. I imagine there's opportunity for some novel ideas here. Still early (IMO) but worth exploring. https://sphinx.chat/for-developers/
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Check out lnbits. They have a nice api that abstracts away differences between lightning implementations and makes it easy to programmatically generate invoices or pay them. Easy way to tie lightning into an app.
I’ve built a bunch of stuff on LND’s grpc interface. It was super easy if you’ve used grpc before. Just make an invoice, handle when it’s been paid. Boom, payments enabled.
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welcome to SN!
If you’re looking to build your own project, SN is the right place to share your progress, updates, and ideas.
If you’re looking to help out other Lightning startups, check out the jobs board.
As a thought-starter, it might be useful to go through all the apps on your phone and ask yourself how payments work on those apps right now. Can Lightning offer an improvement?
Most free apps are really just free because the user is giving up their data or some other scarce resource. Is there a way to help those users earn back their fair share?
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You are definitely on the right track by asking for input from the community. I think tools like the one you're trying to build will be in high demand in the future. Especially with everything going on in the world. I can't wait to see what you've built. This sounds epic: earn, have fun, and live with sats.
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Welcome!
Some of the suggestions on here are awesome, so I won't add too much to the pile.
I'd recommend starting where you feel most comfortable:
Frontend: WebLN: https://webln.guide (JS)
If you're comfortable with Rust (or open to trying) and are looking for longer-term upskilling, BDK and LDK are awesome.
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Thanks for sharing, especially the WebLN resource! Can this open up mobile apps such as BlueWallet (supports WebLN) for payment completion? If I can avoid needing to sync/run a full node while getting started that would be ideal haha.
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Correct! The main benefit is that you can create a web/mobile application which makes use of Lightning invoices but delegate the tx infrastructure (signing, route finding etc) off to a service provider (e.g Bluewallet).
If you're looking to push further into the mobile world, but would like full node capabilities, BDK and LDK both support Compact Filters (https://docs.rs/bdk/latest/bdk/blockchain/compact_filters/index.html) to implement BIP157. That means you don't need to download the full chain but also don't have to compromise on validity.
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A few months ago I've started building noteblitz to dip my toes into the LN driven web you can see it in action here. Due to my inexperience designing platforms i made some dumb decisions regarding UI/UX and especially the content editor at the beginning so i'll probably scrap it soon. However building it gave me some nice experience and im working on a nice ln-app starter/template with a simplified approach to auth and transactions.
If you want to start coding, and given you like using JS/TS stacks, its always good to check out the dependency graph of alex bosworths ln-service where you will find my website and of course stacker.news itself.
In short, most ln-apps, business logic wise, will revolve around three flows:
-ln-url-auth -invoices -withdrawals
As a developer you just have keep the in- and out flows to your black box consistent and what users can do within your app (e.g internal transactions, incentives, ...) is only limited by your creativity.
You have no fucking idea how much :corn: we are are going to make if we get this right, the sky is the limit!
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