LN+'s Posts

Posted over 2 years ago

I feel there is a need to clarify what a Bitcoin Maximalist (or maxi for short) and a Toxic Maxi means, because it’s not used with the same meaning by all.

A common misconception is that a maxi is a blind Bitcoin believer. And a toxic one is the same taken to a whole another level. This is not the case.

Naturally, what follows is my take on the subject, but it’s strongly influenced by the ideas of important personalities in the space.

Before we get into the meat of the article, it’s interesting to note that the terms maxi and toxic were originally slurs coined (no pun intended) by altcoiners to describe bitcoiners. Just like in many other areas of culture (ex. cavalier, yankee, jew, impressionist, etc.) the name-calling fallacy backfired and the slurs were boldly reappropriated to become positive terms, and even badges of honour in some contexts where intellectual rigour and integrity are implied associated meanings.

A Bitcoin Maximalist is a person who believes Bitcoin is going to supersede all other forms of money in the end because Bitcoin was the discovery of digital scarcity. This unique event lead Bitcoin to become the strongest brand, most trusted coin, most capitalized asset, most accepted form of payment, most attractive project for developers, most secure system, and most decentralized network among other superlatives. This leading position will only stregthen further with time because of network effects.

Bitcoin being the object of maximalism is a matter of circumstance and not some fetish of a specific brand or persona. It’s just the recognition of the state of affairs and the dynamics at play.

A maxi understands that an altcoin can offer a better feature for a certain time by sacrificing other properties. For example trading decentralization and privacy for speed and low fees. But the discovery aspect and age will always favour Bitcoin, which will result in Bitcoin eventually reclaiming the leading spot in every measurable metric, and subsuming any potential ideas, thus forcing it to become the one and only that truly matters.

For example, for a while Bitcoin had high fees and blocks were full which according to casual observers was a critical issue threatening Bitcoin's dominance. Altcoins were rushing to capitalize on this perceived issue by offering various tokens of their own benefiting the creators. However, thanks to the work of many talented bitcoiners working in multiple teams the Bitcoin’s Segwit upgrade, Bitcoin’s Lightning Network and other side chains like Liquid solved this issue in due time. Now, we have multiple solutions to the transaction fee and speed issue. As a bonus, we also managed to increase decentralization levels by encouraging and incentivizing the running of significantly more full nodes with economic activity. As a secondary bonus, we also increased privacy because LN transactions are not publicly visible on chain. Subsequently, Bitcoin’s ecosystem now not only offers the best store of value feature, but also the best payment network, while simultaneously making the network more decentralized and private.

As a maxi you understand this self reinforcing and unsurpassable dynamic and thus ‘believe’ in Bitcoin. You learn about Bitcoin, you invest in it, and work in the Bitcoin ecosystem if you can. Not necessarily because you believe that all properties of Bitcoin are best at all times, but because overall Bitcoin can’t be surpassed due to realities explained above. Bitcoin constantly draws in value and talent increasing its gravitational force over time.

As a maxi you understand that working on or investing in anything else is suboptimal on the long term, and it’s only a distracting gamble at most on the short term. You see altcoins as an unfortunate waste of time, energy, and capital with little to no utility in the grand scheme of things. At best, they only serve as test cases to invalidate ideas.

Also, maxis recognized that if maximalism was ever proven wrong, meaning Bitcoin were to be overtaken by another coin it would show that any coin can be and will be toppled by other newcomers over and over without end. The victory would invalidate the victor. Such an event would disprove the idea that a decentralized network can ever last long enough to build prosperity and stability upon it. It’s either Bitcoin succeeding or the entire grand experiment failed no matter who is on the top at the moment.

Most maxis at one point studied altcoins. Maximalism isn’t a position of ignorance. In fact maxis are often more knowledgeable about alts than the altcoiners themselves because they looked at the properties of various projects critically without a positive bias.

You are not a maxi to begin with. You become one as you learn and understand more. You can’t help it, you come to the inevitable conclusion eventually if you put in the time and energy to educate yourself by reading books and code, by listening to accomplished and well informed people. By actively participating in the network by running a node, working on a project, educating on the subject, or accepting Bitcoin at your business, etc.

You become a Toxic Maximalist when you realize the widespread distraction and scamming of a significant number of victims by altcoiners. To encapsulate this destructive nature, altcoins are often called shitcoins or cleptocurrencies. I welcome shitcoiners to bravely embrace the slur word shitcoiner just like bitcoiners embraced the slurs used to label them. No takers? I guess the reappropriation technique doesn’t work when the slur describes reality.

You develop into a toxic maxi when it dawns on you that we have one shot at making this once in a lifetime discovery work, and change the world to the better. We hope the Bitcoin standard will bring equality and opportunity to billions, reduce wars, and bring about unprecedented prosperity. Bitcoin is bigger than us. We owe it to our future generations to try to make it happen. We don't want to sacrifice this opportunity by wasting resources on distractions like endless number of shitcoins, fixing failing fiat, or trying other provably futile detours.

I don’t blame the victims of shitcoiners. I know it takes time to dig yourself out, and potentially grow into a maxi. Many maxis are exceptionally smart people. It took them little effort to grasp maximalism. But, others like me, are less gifted. We can get distracted by superfluous things. It’s harder for us to filter out the noise and takes us longer to internalize complex ideas.

Thus, I’m willing to educate shitcoin victims when they show an interest to learn. I want to help them free themselves from the grip of fiat and shitcoinery.

However, if you are one of those scammers, you will have no mercy. You should expect your ‘project’ to be scrutinized and exposed for what it is by toxic maxis, who are an essential part of Bitcoin’s organically evolving immune system, defending against corruption and misinformation.

Bitcoin maximalism is a passive state of understanding. Toxic maximalism on the other hand is activism that fends off toxic concepts in this intellectual battle of ideas.

Photo Credit: Danilo Alvesd

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Introducing the My Swaps page

Posted over 2 years ago

To give you a quick overview of your swaps, you can visit the new My Swaps page (link only works if you're logged in).

On this page you can see all your swaps with a status bar on top informing you of the latest state of the swap, and whether you need to take any action.

You can access this page by clicking the My Swaps button on the home page, or in your dashboard section on your node profile.

Let me know if you would like to see any improvements and additional information.

2 Comments

The Dark Theme is Here

Posted over 2 years ago

- Why do programmers prefer dark mode?
- Cause light attracts bugs.

Save your eyes and enjoy LN+ with a dark theme. It gets enabled automatically if your system is set to dark.

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Feature Update: Node Filtering

Posted over 2 years ago

I released a much requested feature for the LN+ Lightning Node Explorer:

You can now filter nodes by various criteria:

Node Rank (what's that?)
Total Node Capacity
Number of Active Channels

You can also combine these filters to uncover nodes that are of your interest.

Hope you will find this feature useful. Keep the feature requests coming!

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Start accepting Bitcoin Lightning Network payments as a business or as a freelancer

Posted over 2 years ago

Bitcoin LN payments became very popular recently because they are easy, instant, extremely cheap and provide a good level of privacy compared to other traditional payment methods. Whether you're selling a product or you're a freelancer accepting payments from clients, you should consider accepting payments over Bitcoin's Lightning Network.

In this post I will discuss 3 options with various levels of difficulty and set of features. In later posts I will go into greater detail on how to set up each option.

All 3 options support the following features:

For online stores: Generate invoices dynamically for products and services
For freelancers: Generate payment requests with a specific amount
Rich reporting of invoices and transactions and their status
Invoices can be paid with Bitcoin (on-chain) or Bitcoin Lightning (off-chain)
You can transfer your revenue into your own safe hardware or other trusted wallet

Custodial Services

Speed, Neutronpay, and OpenNode are excellent payment processors that provide a rich set of features for businesses, who wish to accept Bitcoin LN payments. This is your easiest option for implementation, however it comes with some limitations.

Advantages

Easiest implementation using an embed code and a template for basic payments
Easy implementation of payments using APIs
No need to manage a Bitcoin Node or Lightning Network channels
Easy and fast transfer of Bitcoin earnings to on-chain or off-chain wallets you control
No server costs of any kind
You don't have to worry about downtime
You can convert Bitcoins into dollars if you want

Disadvantages

Requires trust with a third party
Some of them require KYC
No full control over your Bitcoin Node
You may pay a small fee on transactions

Non-Custodial Cloud

Voltage is a very reliable service that provides Bitcoin LN nodes and BTCPAY servers in the cloud. With Voltage you can re-create your own OpenNode like setup. The initial setup is somewhat harder, but you gain more control over the payment system. You will need to buy two things from Voltage: A Bitcoin Full Node with Lightning and a BTCPAY Server. Once they are running you can integrate the BTCPAY server to create an easy to embed code, use the API to connect your website, or issues payment requests right from BTCPAY server.

Advantages

No need to physically setup your own hardware locally or build it in the cloud yourself
Spinning up a Bitcoin + LN node and a BTCPAY server takes literally seconds
You don't need to wait to download the Bitcoin blockchain
You can easily connect your Bitcoin LN node to your BTCPAY server
You get 100% of your revenue
You own your private keys
You can connect to your node with any Bitcoin or LN app
You don't have to worry about downtime
No KYC of any kind
Flow by Voltage makes it easy to create incoming liquidity
Voltage will give you a free 500K SAT incoming channel

Disadvantages

You still partially rely on a third party (Voltage) to run your node
You are not downloading and vefirying the blockchain yourself
You have to pay a monthly fee of $27 (Bitcoin LN node) + $7 (BTCPAY server) per month

Non-Custodial Self Hosted

There are several options to completely self host and operate a Bitcoin LN node together with a BTCPAY server or an LNBits wallet. This option is similar to the above Voltage solution, because you're running your own servers at home at your office. With this option you go one step further on being independent from any third parties. This is the best option for sovereignity and control, but it comes with responsibilities of managing your servers, which is an important consideration.

The most popular option is Umbrel. With Umbrel you have to build your own Raspi Pi server or use a Linux computer. With an Embassy node, the hardware is prebuilt for you and you're still running it at home.

Advantages

You have 100% control over your setup
You own your private keys
You can connect any Bitcoin or LN app to your setup
You get 100% of your revenue
No KYC of any kind
You download and verify the blockchain yourself
No monthly or transactions costs of any kind

Disadvantages

You need buy the hardware which can be several hundreds of dollars depending on your preferences
Takes time to build the hardware in case of Umbrel
Takes a bit of time to learn how to install the Bitcoin LN and BTCPAY server nodes
Takes time to download the Bitcoin blockchain
You have to worry about downtime in case your power is cut
You need to take care of backing up your private keys and LN node
You have to create incoming capacity for your LN node

Conclusion

So, which option should you go for? It depends on your situation.

You have no time or inclination to learn how to setup your own servers: go with OpenNode or Voltage.
You're technically savvy and not afraid to learn new things, go for Voltage or Self Hosted.
You're going to accept a lot of payments and need very robust setup: go with OpenNode or Voltage.
You're going to accept a lot of payments and you don't want to manage incoming capacity: go with OpenNode.
You want to keep 100% of the revenue: go with Voltage or Self Hosted.
You want to have 100% self sovereignty: go with Self Hosted.
You don't have good electricity or internet: go with OpenNode or Voltage.
You need dollars not Bitcoin: go with OpenNode.

If you need help with any of these setups, feel free to contact us and we will help you with advice.

Note: Remember not to trust anyone with your private keys or setting up wallets for you, because that will compromise your security and will result in loss of funds. Double check every advice from multiple sources, and do everything yourself as much as possible, or use well trusted parties.

Photo credit: David Dvoracek

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What is LN Node Ranking?

Posted over 2 years ago

LN+ has introduced the concept of Node Ranking to help quickly assess the connectedness and utility level of a node within the Lightning Network. In general, the higher the rank of a node, the more useful it is for another node to connect to it. Node levels can be compared to Google's PageRank, which is also a ranking between 0 and 10. The Node Ranking is also similar to the sophisticated LN BOS (Terminal Score).

Node Rank is calculated predominantly based on the capacity of nodes a given node is connected to. To a smaller degree, the formula also includes other public parameters available on the gossip network, and proprietary parameters available through LN+. Based on feedback, I intend to refine the Node Rank over time to be more precise and cover for special situations (ex. duplicate channels).

Node Rankings are also named after metals:

Aluminium
Iron
Copper
Mercury
Titanium
Tungsten
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Iridium

If you're a routing node you should aim for a Titanium (5) rank or higher. If you're a regular LN user, aim for a Mercury (4) rank. If you're using LN only ocasionally for small transactions (ex. tipping, chatting, podcasts, paying for content, etc.) you should be good with a Copper (3) node.

The easiest way to increase your Node Rank is to open channels as large as you can afford to nodes that are Titanium (5) or higher. However, opening multiple relatively large 2-3 M channels to several nodes will increase your Rank more than opening a single 10 M channel.

Connecting to a higher level node is not always the best strategy. Your choice depends on your goals. For example, if you're expecting to be a profitable routing node, you may need to look for a niche that other nodes haven't already filled. If you're a frequent user of the network, you will benefit from directly connecting to nodes you send and receive from regardless of the level of those nodes. Also, remember that connecting to lower Rank nodes is beneficial for the network overall as it decentralizes it and makes it more resilient against attacks or single node failures.

Node Rank is not meant to be a precise evaluation of LN nodes, mostly just a quick indicator that is hopefully useful for the community. Let me know what you think of it, and if you think it's worth keeping it around.

Photo Credit: Sergey Pesterev

26 Comments

10,000 channels opened through LN+!

Posted over 2 years ago

We reached a huge milestone: 10K channels opened through LN+! You gals and guys are erecting an impressively decentralized network for a free and open world. I'm proud to be part of this historic transformation.
See more stats

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Time to review and improve your security

Posted over 2 years ago

As we're preparing for the next Bitcoin bull run, what should we do besides stacking SATs? Review and improve our security. This is the cost of self sovereignty. You should take time and make an effort to do it. Here are 16 advices to follow:

Before taking any steps that are related to security, ensure you’re in the right frame of mind: well rested, calm, rational, and you have plenty of free time to research, think, check and double check everything. 🧘
Avoid paper wallets unless you can check the code generating it. Get a hardware wallet instead: Ledger, Coldcard, Trezor (affilate link). ⛑
Review your backups and if you can recover your funds in case of a cold storage hardware failure. Do you have your mnemonic words in a safe place? 💥
Create a safe backup of your backups to protect against black swan events. Off site backup perhaps? 🏴
Consider multi-sig accounts for large holdings for redundancy and added security. 👍👍👍
Move your funds from your mobile wallets, exchanges and any wallet connected to the internet into your cold storage. ❄️
Somber thought: Consider what happens to your funds in case of your death or if you become incapacitated. 🪦
Review the security of your email accounts, exchanges, password managers. Remove access from devices you don’t use frequently. ⛔️
Add second factor authentication to all critical systems, but remove phone based 2FA to remove the risk of SIM swap attacks. 📵
Ensure your devices have security updates, and protection against attacks. 🦠
Consider implementing hardware based firewalls at home and office. 🚒
Develop an adversarial mindset. How would you attack yourself? 😈
Harden yourself as a person against social attacks. There is a lot of scamming going on and you don’t want to fall for some too good to be opportunity to lose your funds. ❤️‍🔥
Be super sceptical and overly cautious. Never take the shortcut to click a link in an email for example. Don’t use a free hotspot. Don’t plug-in an untrusted device. Unplug listening devices when not in use. Don’t overshare on social. 🤐
Sign up to security related newsletters that are related to the systems and devices you’re using, so you can be informed about any events that may influence your setup or decisions. 🚨
Setup an alert for yourself to periodically review your setup and procedures and make changes if necessary. Review the history of your accounts for any unexpected activity. 📆

BONUS: Careful when taking out your boat. ⚓️

3 Comments

Total public Bitcoin Lightning capacity reached 3000 BTC

Posted over 2 years ago

It has taken us years to reach 2K, but only few months to reach 3K. We have more than 76K channels created between more than 16K LN nodes. And this is only the public network. Several organizations (even large ones like Strike) and individuals run private nodes or channels for various purposes. We can only speculate how many transactions LN facilitates each day. According to various estimates calculated from routings going through nodes, and transactions processed by merchants, the number is matching on-chain transactions already.

The growth of the lightning network is clearly accelerating, and is exponential for now.

LN a year or two ago wasn't perfectly reliable. Transactions failed ocassionally because we didn't have enough nodes with sufficient capacity. We also didn't have the tools to build nodes, manage channels, (or organize swaps) efficiently.

Since then much has improved and fast in terms of infrastructure. The positive developments accelerated the growth of the network, which in turn made LN much more reliable and capable as a payment system. Nowadays, transactions rarely fail even with relatively large amounts.

And, the future looks bright. As the value of Bitcoin increases, all the existing channels will grow with it, thus LN becomes increasingly more capable and robust attracting even more usage and consequently node operators. This is a self reinforcing feedback loop which will eventually allow the Lightning Network to be able to serve billions of people for their everyday payment needs.

Here is to you brave user who downloaded an LN wallet, and "reckless" private node operator and organization who put their funds on their nodes to help the network. We salute you developers who build the code and secure our funds. Good work everyone so far! And we're only just getting started.

Photo Credit: Max Bender

1 Comment

Private Swaps are Here

Posted over 2 years ago

The new highly requested Private 🤫 option is now available when you create a new Swap. Such private swaps are not visible on the swap index pages or on node profiles. Application to these swaps is protected by a 10 digit alphanumeric pin code.

The idea behind private swaps is to enable groups of friends to organize swaps among themselves. The creator of the swap should send the URL of the swap and the pin code provided by the LN+ interface to join the private swap to their friends over private communication channels.

Please be aware that the swap page itself is publicly visible on the web, and the opened public channels will naturally also be public on the LN gossip network. If you want the channels to be fully private and inaccessible to the public Lightning Network, you will need to open private channels and organize the swap outside of LN+. If there is a need I can implement support for fully private channel openings, but my goal is to keep LN as open as possible, while serving the needs of LN node operators.

If you spot any bugs, or have any comments, please reply here or send me an email.

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Open channels to key nodes helping El Salvador's efforts

Posted over 2 years ago

IBEX Mercado, a major payment processor in El Salvador wrote on Twitter:

We are happy to announce that we have onboarded dozens of merchants with hundreds of store locations in El Salvador to be ready to accept LN/BTC payments. We would greatly appreciate some inbound liquidity to help us with the #hyperbitcoinization of the region.

Here are their nodes if you want to open to them (minimum 2M SAT):

OpenNode is a global payment processor that helps companies like McDonald's process their payments. Their nodes:

Official Chivo wallet's node: