Bitcoin lightning hub
We do our best to identify and fix problems, and implement missing feature. Any help testing the implementation, reporting bugs, or helping with outstanding issues is very welcome. Don't hesitate to reach out to us on IRC at lightning-dev freenode. Please refer to the installation documentation for detailed instructions. For the impatient here's the gist of it for Ubuntu and Debian:. In order to start lightningd you will need to have a local bitcoind node running in either testnet or regtest mode:.
Wait until bitcoind has synchronized with the testnet network. In case you use regtest, make sure you generate at least blocks to activate SegWit. Eventually lightningd will include its own wallet making this transfer easier, but for now this is how it gets its funds. If you don't have any testcoins you can get a few from a faucet such as TPs' testnet faucet or Kiwi's testnet faucet.
Once lightningd has funds, we can connect to a node and open a channel. This opens a connection and, on top of that connection, then opens a channel. The funding transaction needs 6 confirmations in order for the channel to be usable. Payments in Lightning are invoice based. This returns a random value called rhash that is part of the invoice. They route transactions and collect fees.
Anyone can participate in the network and run a hub. A Lightning hub has no ability to seize assets. In this video also linked below , there are two arguments:. A hub is not a centralized node that has full power over all of their open channels. A Lightning hub does not even hold anyone's bitcoin, they simply supply capital to allow transfers. There is no fractional reserve banking, no lending, and no ability to seize assets.
A hub runs a node with enough capital, and collects small fees for people using it. This is a baseless claim. Anyone can run a hub.