When you set up your brand new node, you can open channels which will only allow you to send SATs, but not receive.
Here your options to generate incoming liquidity, so you can receive as well:
- You can spend from your channels to empty them out partially.
- You can send your SATs to an exchange that accepts LN payments like Bitfinex. Exchange your LN BTC to BTC and send it back to yourself on chain. This is typically going to cost you about $20 because of the withdrawal fee.
- You can “loop out” with Thunderhub. This service asks you to pay an LN invoice and sends the funds back to your on-chain wallet. The cost varies, but usually below 1%.
- You can open a channel within a swap on https://LightningNetwork.plus. This is a free service. For every channel you open you get an equivalent incoming channel. Allows you to grow your node capacity at 2x speed and results in a well balanced node.
- You can pay for an incoming channel from https://lnbig.com Price recently increased, but still reasonable at ~ 1% of the channel size.
- You can pay for an incoming channel from Bitrefill: https://www.bitrefill.com/signup?code=toqrbubs (referral code gives you $5 in SAT when you spend $50, basically 10% off). If the channel is used, they may keep it open after the first 30 days. Typically it gets closed within a few months. Costs about 20K SATs for a 1M channel, or ~2%.
- You can pay for an incoming channel from yalls.org: https://yalls.org/about/ You need to peer to their node first.
- With the BOS software you can open a dual funded channel with another node who agrees with you to do so. This is complicated for a new user.
- You can ask for an incoming channel on this forum or on Twitter. If you expect payments to your business node operators will open to you gladly to collect routing fees.
If you have any other ideas, please add them!