In the light of the recent spike in Layer 1 transaction fees, I have an idea that some deep-pocketed bitcoin entrepreneur ought to put into practice.

The problem that I am addressing is that of being in self-custody and opening a channel when the network is congested. It could be particularly useful for on-boarding users; but could be a great option for more experienced users caught on the wrong foot just as the network gets spammed.

The service provider will be required to operate a lightening node or multiple ones, and would sell gift cards in the range of 100k to 10m sats which will be redeemed by scratching off the card to reveal a seed phrase.

A combination of seed phrase and separately transferred passphrase would likely be required to remove temptation from the card manufacturer.

The seed phrase/password combination will be entered in participating wallets which will have a channel already open. I mention participating wallets because they would need special sauce to restore the channel backup behind the scenes.

Finally, the gift cards could be made available as variants where the purchaser can opt on which side of the channel he/she would like to have most of the initial liquidity.

The channels would be opened during quiet times on the network. In October of 2023, inventories could have been built for selling today.

While this is not fully trust-less due to the issuer needing (initial) access, it gives you one or multiple channels with which recipients could participate in the network with 1 less speed bump in times like now.

Thanks for hearing me out. Counter-thoughts are welcome.