Since spinning up my LN node, I've been pretty eager to start wetting my whistle by getting some liquidity on there.

Some of the initial advice that folks give is to open to a well-connected node (like an exchange/Loop/established-routing-node-leviathan etc.). I guess there would be some short-comings of this if I were attempting to fatten-up my own profitable routing node, i.e. the established 'big players' already have pretty huge channels that I'd be competing with for routing fees. That being said, this is not really a priority of mine, just yet anyway. I could, however, think of a specific use case that makes connecting to a well-connected liquidity-providing node make sense.

All of that aside, I'm at the critical juncture where I need to decide on peers to connect with and what kind of girth I want to allocate in my first few channels. I can't say I've gotten this quite figured out. But seeing as fees are pretty low for the time being, I figured I'd may as well start girding my loins. I don't really want to open channels uselessly, considering the potential on-chain footprint and fees, but, then again, lightning takes practice.... What the hell, I thought, I'll try an exercise.

I know @DarthCoin has some pretty stellar guides on lightning use already (and I always recommend these). However, it seems he's fairly well established in terms of his bitcoin stack. He's written that he's completely on a bitcoin standard, so I don't know if he thinks to much about trading fiat for bitcoin. In one of his guides he describes how you can become an 'uncle Jim' LN bank, and it occurred to me that a private bank should have the ability to do 'exchange' services. I guess if you run such a bank, and you have peers/clients in Canada, then you can have them convert their CAD-traszj to Bitcoin by using Bitcoin Well's ATMs and routing through your node. There probably will be other ways of doing this, but here I'll explore how to use Bitcoin Well.

Being somewhat of a meek pleb, I'm not ready to start whipping out 8-figure channels here and there. BUT, it occurred to me that I can use lightning to start acquiring more liquidity in my channels, preserving my privacy and sovereignty in the meantime. I know this would be possible on p2p exchanges, but the limitation there is that I would still have to go through my bank or a central exchange which means KYC, unless I'm using another payment method besides fiat trash (e.g. CC's). This would add a few steps though, as has been discussed her on SN as of late (#864346, #866519, and #869922).

Ok, so my solution, as a rough sketch.

Disclaimer: this is not necessarily the path of least resistance, but a privacy preserving method for trading CAD for BTC. Lightning won't show other nodes the hops a payment takes when it is sent to your node, so your cash-trail becomes obfuscated after your "cash voucher" is redeemed as lightning liquidity. Pushing this liquidity to your own or your trusted "uncle Jim's" node ensures your sovereignty and privacy is kept. Darthcoin's lightning cleaning machine is a good resource on this topic.

(Skip this step if you already run a reachable LN node or you are are connected to one) As for me, I realized I was going to need some inbound which LNBig seems pretty good at taking care of. I spent under 10k sats and got a decently sized channel to my node. I noticed that they have a disclaimer saying it can get closed and there are no guarantees. For sure if I sleep for 30 days and don't use it, they will close. So I guess I'd better make use of it. There are other liquidity providers, that may be just as good. I used LNBig this time.

I didn't need to verify all of my personal information to do this. It's simple. I just created a new email address (Proton Mail works fine) to spin up an account. Presto. Then I chose "buy Bitcoin," selected "lightning," and got my account 'portal' QR code (their instructions were pretty good, so just follow what they tell you to do.) I took a picture of this so I can scan it later at the ATM. Note that this code will work every time you make a purchase so make it a 'favourite' in your photo gallery if you like.

Unfortunately, I'm tied to a traditional bank account, so I had to find one of their ATMs to redeem my clown-tokens. If you are not, and you make the cash (preferred), then do what you do best, and earn that fiat. Some people can earn cash outright and this is just better for privacy reasons.

If you are in Canada, there are lots of these around. For me, I only had to drive about 10 minutes. I put on some sunglasses and a baseball cap and a hoodie because it is in a convenience store in a pretty ghetto part of town. But you probably don't have to take this precaution depending on where you are. When you get to the ATM, you tap the big orange circle that says "I want crypto" or something similar. I noticed they deal in shitcoins too, which is pretty disappointing honestly. DON'T CHOOSE ANY CRYPTO on this screen. The last choice says "my portal" and has the Bitcoin Well logo. This is what you want. It asked me then scan my account QR. I had gotten this in step 2. Then, it took my cash, which appeared on my account as a "cash voucher," less the transaction fee of 3%.

All I did here was created an invoice in my node wallet, according to how many sats my cash bought. I sent those bad boys over and then, boom, I got me some outbound liquidity.

This is a pretty nice option if you have some excess sats in your channels that you want to stow away in your cold storage wallet. Otherwise, Bitcoin Well has the option to receive you cash voucher payout on-chain, which you might prefer, to do if you have no need for the channel liquidity.

This guide offers you a way to purchase some no-kyc LN liquidity in a way that preserves you privacy. From your cash, to your LN node. Alternatively, their cash vouchers can be redeemed directly on-chain, if this is what you are after.

To my knowledge, the most sovereign way to purchase some corn is by trading your cash p2p with another bitcoiner, but this can be dangerous. Alternatively, Robosats and Bisq2 are both great options for trading your fiat-trash into lightning liquidity (Bisq is good for onchain), but these usually require a banking or exchange services, which some are not comfortable with. If you prefer the privacy that cash gives you (and you are in Canada), then you may consider my approach. Relying on bitcoin well requires some element of trust, but I've listened to the founder on a few pods and he definitely has bitcoin running through his veins. Finally, I noticed that Bitcoin Well puts cameras on their ATMs, and I'm not sure what this is about, so be aware. They also give you the option to KYC yourself and get more of their features, but I didn't have to do this to accomplish what I've described here. All in all, their service adds some great features to the bitcoin landscape, and paired with the sovereignty that running your own node gives you, its definitely a great tool to have in your pouch.

Lastly, this costs me about +7% spread, which is pretty much at par with the average trading fee on the p2p exchanges, even less in some cases.