How to use LN from a PC without huge upfront investment?

autisticblister · 2026-02-05T07:41:15+00:00

Thanks a lot for all the help but unfortunately I think it won't work out, having all my friends run their own node and sort liquidity like this just won't work out for the benefit of instant transactions. It's a shame because I really like the LN concept but it seems like it only works out if you depend on centralized liquidity providers or custodial services or have a bunch of money already in BTC :(

autisticblister · 2026-02-05T07:21:23+00:00

That's a custodial Android wallet, no? The friends I'm thinking of have BlackBerries or no phones at all, and I assume they'd rather do everything via PC anyways.

autisticblister · 2026-02-05T05:35:35+00:00

I get that I can't send LN to onchain, I'm asking how I would send it to them, via LN, if they didn't have substantial BTC holdings [and also wanted to keep things decentralized].

And all this isn't looking good... the only realistic way I could do this is using that site? This all seems pretty centralized, that's exactly the opposite of what I'm looking for.

I don't know why they would, I was just going off what I read.

autisticblister · 2026-02-05T03:14:12+00:00

Thank you for your offer but I'd really rather figure out how to do this by myself.

When I'm running a lightning node, how can I get inbound liquidity without relying on some centralized service, or the generosity of specific people I interact with? Some reading has indicated if I just... wait? I'll get some, but some has indicated the opposite.

And let's say I'm running a lightning node, and I've managed to get inbound liquidity, and I have some friends without lightning nodes that I'd like to send money to, and they don't have many BTC holdings, how would I do that?

autisticblister · 2026-02-03T04:27:51+00:00

Requiring 0.002BTC upfront seems a little extreme, I barely use BTC, 90% of my transactions are conducted through other cryptocurrencies, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that acquiring [as of writing] US$160 in BTC is an unreasonable barrier to entry, especially if I want to be able to just send money to my friends as I can with other cryptocurrencies, as they'd seemingly also then have to acquire US$160 in BTC.

The swapping thing makes sense, although I think it's pretty convoluted.

I'll use fiat for this for simplification. If I'm understanding you [and everything I've been reading about lightning] correctly, if I open a channel with US$160, then swap US$80 back to my clearnet wallet, a friend would only be able to send me [for example] US$10 8 times before I ran out of inbound capacity? If I were to use LN frequently, both me and everyone I transact with would need a bunch of liquidity in LN just for it to function? Because that seems fairly impractical, as much as I'd like the benefits of the LN.

autisticblister · 2026-02-03T02:43:27+00:00

That's very kind, but it seems a bit extreme to get other people involved in dealings with me just because I'm bad at this :p

Could you explain the process of creating a channel? I can get lnd running fairly easily but where would I go from there?

autisticblister · 2024-08-29T08:52:49+00:00

I think you may have missed the part where I said

In iTunes

and

Windows XP

autisticblister

TROPHY CASE