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Lightning is kicking it!! I just read this article about worldwide nodes distribution https://cryptonomist.ch/en/2019/03/02/top-10-countries-bitcoin-nodes/

So, my questions are basically:

1)) what are the current the most relevant entry-barriers / entry-requirements (technical/financial) to be able to participate with own lightning node?

2)) What are currently very easy and non-complex (for the layman) ways to have an own lightning node+wallet? If you could maybe give one suggestion for Desktop PC based software, and one where your mobile phone could act as a node (wallet+node in one?)?

Thank you so much!

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As for the first part: Technically you currently still need a full bitcoin node in order to have your own lightning node. Also you should have your lightning node online most of the time. As in terms of financials no special hardware is needed. People are able to run a lightning node on hardware next to their router with little costs of hardware and little cost of electricity. For example with the DIY RaspiBlitz.

Concerning the second part: You can try https://github.com/lightning-power-users/node-launcher/releases or https://zap.jackmallers.com/ if you want to use your own hardware. Also there is a commercial counterpart to the before mentioned open source RaspiBlitz which is called the casa hodl node. As for mobile wallets there are currently no fully functioning mobile wallets available. The closest that you can get is Eclair for testnet. They announced that the mainnet release is supposed to come soon. A mainnet release which does not have the ability to receive funds is already available.

It seems like there is a trend for mobile custodial solutions like bluewallet or wallet of satoshi. I should also mention the bitcoin lightning wallet. There is also a clear trend for so called remote controls. These are apps that give you a nice interface for your lightning full node which stands at home or in a server center. For c-lightning there exists spark wallet and for lnd there seems to be bluewallet also available as a remote control. Also I should mention that electrum is working on a lightning wallet which was supposed to be released in the beginning of this year.

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  • - thanks! But why do i need a btc full node ?? I read on another thread peter wuille wrote "A Lightning node is not a Bitcoin full node as it is not a Bitcoin node"" - So , this means I can have a lightning node without a btc node at the same time right? And this means that it would be possible to have a lightning node wallet on the mobilephone since no storage space for a full btc node necessary. Don't you know of a mobile wallet which is not just for "paymens" but also acts as a lightning node? or are all lightning wallets also lightning nodes? @renepickhardt
    – johnsmiththelird
    Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 21:55
  • I have many lightning nodes running but they all need to at least communicate with a bitcoin full node at this time. Most of them share the same bitcoin full node. So yes you could have a lightning node running on your phone that talks to a bitcoin fullnode somewhere else. The game changes when neutrino is fully working (I think it is still not integrated to bitcoin core)
    – Rene Pickhardt
    Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 22:03
  • sounds interesting. and what exactly is "neutrino" that will come into effect soon (when?)? And what effects would it have on the "game" or on the way lightning works? thank u very much @renepickhardt
    – johnsmiththelird
    Commented Mar 5, 2019 at 16:38
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Private, simple, and cheap:

Core lightning with a private (unannounced channel) connected to your pruned to 550MB Bitcoin Core that is run over TOR. bitcoin.conf:

daemon=1

onlynet=onion
proxy=127.0.0.1:9050

prune=550

No need for port forwarding. .lightning/bitcoin/log:

log-level=info
log-file=log
daemon
proxy=127.0.0.1:9050

P.S. You may want to do initial sync of Bitcoin Core without TOR.

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