We often hear that onboarding new users to Bitcoin is limited, for various (sometimes silly) reasons and for that people are going to custodial solutions.
But I will ask this question for all experienced bitcoiners, running a node: what you did for Bitcoin in regards of adoption? How did you helped people next to you (family and friends) ?
For those that don't know what is an "uncle Jim" LN bank here are main characteristics and services offered:
- a Bitcoin node, with Electrum/Fulcrum server, Neutrino server, Esplora server
- a LN node, with LNbits (lndhub/NWC accounts, nostr relay), Alby Hub (lndhub/NWC accounts), LN accounts (via LiT), LightningPub (NWC accounts), BTCpay server (for small merchants or online shops).
- Liquidity services: LSP inbound/outbound channels, for public and private users
- LN proxy hub (wrapped invoices)
- swap services (LN<->onchain) through various methods
- ecash mint
See more details that I explained in this guide.
Why would you offer such services?
- easy onboarding new users (mostly family and friends) with a good level of trust (in you).
- sharing some UTXO in a LN node liquidity, for many users
- secure and trusted custody of their own funds. Even if they are such noobs losing their accounts, the sats are still recoverable by you, being their admin.
- easy transition from LN to onchain, when they reach a certain amount in their accounts you can offer swaps to onchain to their own self custody in cold wallets.
- private LN banking that nobody else have to know
- helping local small merchants that cannot run their own infrastructure or have a good liquidity.
- improve all these solutions by reporting back to devs with your feedback
I wonder how many stackers are doing this.
YES - I run a private LN bank33.3%
YES - I run a public LN bank16.7%
NO - I don't want to offer a LN bank19.4%
NO - I don't know how to do it13.9%
NO - I do not run a node13.9%
I want to connect to a LN bank2.8%
36 votes \ poll ended
Not much, but the quick Alby Hub "friends and family" without the log in for 3 family members. Recently had a similar setup for a business before they set up their own node.
not too much ... but honest work 😂😂 Well done !
I now run a node and a private telegram for local bitcoiners. I’m definitely interested in learning the above and potentially offering those services in the future.
please be a good banker 😂😂😂
I run Alby Hub (a lightning node) for a local bar I take bitcoin-care of, for some newbies I'm onboarding, and I'm open to onboard more
There is a lit of public mints / Uncle Jims https://jim-index.albylabs.com/ but only one is there
haha this is super cool to have a Jim index ! Nevertheless not all Jims would want to publish their instances, many will prefer anonymity. But is a good initiative.
https://postimg.cc/ThQmQGbg
Very nice, this is the proper user case of LNBits, and I hope more thousands of instances are run every day! Question, how do you use the Boltz extension on LNBits, because it seems very very buggy! Do you have alternatives?
There's also the Deezy extension for swaps. You can contact dni on Lnbits chat group if you have issues with the boltz extension. he's very helpful.
I tried but failed miserably. Lnbits behind Tor made it a nightmare for me to do this.
I use Alby hub now and so far it’s working quite well but I haven’t onboarded anyone to it yet
Don't worry... it will come that day. And the first steps will be with your family members. because if you start with them and you fail, will not be such a problem, they will understand and you will try again and again until you will do it correctly.
Indeed, running a LN bank over Tor is not recommended and you will always have issues. So start learning how to run it properly over clearnet or if you want a simple fast solution, check my latest quick guide about running a LNbits with NWC accounts that also could be behind Tor. The thing is that a LN node over Tor will always have issues, but if you run it with just few private channels, will be fine.
Great advice!
Do you run each of these Electrum-type servers with a single Bitcoin node, or just one or a couple? I always wondered how well multiple electrum servers work with a single node.
I run a core node + electrum + neutrino just fine. Indeed in the same LAN you can have it more compartmentalized if you want:
I can neither confirm nor deny.
the best answer hahahaha
big fan of your write-ups, Darth. I've got some tucked away sats (not much) so I'm thinking VERY carefully about how to allocate them via a LN node. Actually, I'm facing a lot of mental resistance when it comes to moving them. It's a little bit intimidating to be honest. I'm not completely clear on how secure it is to have sats in channels. Anyway, I hope you keep doing what you do. MTFBWU!
Not every bitcoiner must be a LN bank. You will find that "courage" when the time will come. The secret stays in practicing and ... reading my guides 😂😂😂 I wrote extensive guides about types of LN nodes, liquidity, security, privacy, management etc.
I'm a long way from this, my friend. But I must admit that transacting in a sovereign way, verifying on a reliable node is something magical. Hoping that in my next few steps I'll be methodical and patient - trying to be!
It's on the ever growing 2025 to do list.
Yes! I run it on pagcoin.org
oh this is cool, another lnbits instance in the wild. Do you run it mostly for your local community or you are open for anybody else?
I'd be happy to for close friends and family. I'll wait for them to come around over the next decade or so.
No, but I would like to do it, where should I start? Second, how do I create a node?
BTW, I like LIT a lot, but I am not sure how secure it is and how much I am trusting lightning labs.
I would love to do something like this in the future for my family, but for now I'm going with this guide: https://darth-coin.github.io/beginner/be-your-own-bank-es.html. I have a laptop that I haven't used for 2 years. After formatting it I'm going to try to install Linux. I hope it works because it's a bit of an old laptop.
I know you don't like being told thank you, but thank you.