I’m a new user.
Umbrel was very easy to get up and synced. Now where can I go from here? Is there a simple to follow YouTube instructional video out there in layman’s terms of how to get this thing yielding Satoshis by verifying transactions on the block chain?
I know I will not make anything substantial, but passive income - is still - passive income. I am dying to do more with this umbrel + raspberry pi setup!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Thanks for this video.
Great tutorial and very helpful.
My raspberry pi is set up and running for weeks now.
I have sent about 80,000 Sats ($39) to my umbrel Bitcoin wallet from coinbase.
I am now stuck at the connect wallet step…
I use Coinbase to buy BTC and send my sats to my Ledger Nano X every few weeks or so.
I don’t really use any other exchanges/wallet types other than Gemini…
Do I NEED to have a blue wallet / wasabi / Phoenix wallet, etc in order to run the lighting network?
Can’t I just acquire additional sats for verifying transactions and send it to try umbrel wallet address and not have to connect other wallets?
Thanks again for the help.
.
I am now stuck at the connect wallet step…
I use Coinbase to buy BTC and send my sats to my Ledger Nano X every few weeks or so.
I don’t really use any other exchanges/wallet types other than Gemini…
Careful doxing the exchanges you use. This is especially true of listing amounts moved in the same paragraph. These amounts are small right now but will be massive in a few years.
Do I NEED to have a blue wallet / wasabi / Phoenix wallet, etc in order to run the lighting network?
Can’t I just acquire additional sats for verifying transactions and send it to try umbrel wallet address and not have to connect other wallets?
You don’t NEED any other wallet. Can go back and forth from Umbrel to exchange if you choose but why not have a mobile wallet? Any of those listed are good wallets to have.
There are no payouts for verifying transactions besides the assurance that you own actual Bitcoin in your wallet. Sats are paid for routing transactions through your lightning channels. You receive these sats on the channel that has routed the payment so no need to move them anywhere.
Thanks for the prompt reply.
So in order to route transactions through lightning channels;
Would I send example: 60,000 / 80,000 sats to my lightning wallet from the Bitcoin wallet and then +open a new channel?
Here is the basics for opening a channel. The Umbrel gui is good to learn on for a little while but the lightning apps will give you much more flexibility once you feel comfortable using lighting.
-Send sats to your Umbrel Bitcoin wallet.
-Go to the lightning wallet section of umbrel
-click open channel
-enter lightning address*
-enter amount which is the max size for channel (must have enough sats in your Umbrel wallet +fee)**
-set transaction fee
-click open channel
-Now you can send sats but can’t receive them. Look to balance the channel using Thunderhub or have another pleb open a channel back to you so you can receive.
-enjoy lightning
*address is found from another pleb or by using a service like 1ml.com to find a node you want to connect to.
**I prefer 1mil to 2mil sats per channel, any smaller and you’ll have trouble with routing and or will have to re balance frequently.
Excellent. So to get this straight:
I will need to send 1.5 mil sats to my umbrel wallet (approx $750) in order to be able to cover any transactions up to around $720 + fees?
Now, when I open the lightning channel and enter the amount specifics for my channel max size, (example 1.25 mil Sats) will that amount automatically transfer from Umbrel Wallet to Lightning Wallet?
For sake of ease of setup, can I connect to your node and vice-versa? (Who better then a fellow Unbrel forum member?)
At this point once connected, will my Lightning Wallet balance start to slowly acquire Sats on top of the 1.25 million Sat initial deposit?
I can’t stress enough my thanks for taking time of our your day and helping btw! Sorry for all of the questions as it is a scary amount of $ to play with on Trial and Error.
“BTC Sessions”, the guy in the video that was linked above, has a playlist for lightning network and using different wallets that you will probably find useful.
When you open a channel with someone on LN you will see the amount debited from your BTC balance on your node. It takes 3 confirmations on the blockchain to validate the amount on the LN channel, so for a period of about 30 mins you will just see a pending balance.
I preferred to use the app ThunderHub on the umbrel because it gives a lot of info. You can also set your fee/vByte on there to make it happen either quicker or cheaper.
If you want some of the best connected nodes you can go on 1ml and look. ACINQ is consistently the largest and most well-connected node. You can also open one with tippin.me and use it to send sats to ppl (Like BTC sessions) as a tip.
You could also open a channel with Bitrefill and use sats to buy giftcards.
I will need to send 1.5 mil sats to my umbrel wallet (approx $750) in order to be able to cover any transactions up to around $720 + fees?
Yes.
Now, when I open the lightning channel and enter the amount specifics for my channel max size, (example 1.25 mil Sats) will that amount automatically transfer from Umbrel Wallet to Lightning Wallet?
Yes, the wallets are linked in that respect. Opening a channel pulls from the Umbrel wallet and closing a channel puts funds back into that same wallet. Less fees of course.
You can open a channel to my node here. I’ll open one back.
03354dac293ca70ce5867d9e4d1457713ac2da77abbd0ae3ef0f33c731a178503e@6oyf34u7pwaynknih7hysi7d7iekt5bpbu3vzhq2eicuc2no2wqdceid.onion:9735
Yes and no. you need a few channels open. Need to have them balanced or have two channels to one node with funds on ether side which basically equals one balanced channel.
You cant route a payment if there’s no path.
Example:
Node A, B, and C are connected with balanced channels. A-B-C, Node A passes payment to B for node C, route is found and if channels have enough liquidity then payment is made and B gets rewarded with sats. Now if you just connected to my node with no other channels it would look like this A-B C. A passes a payment to B for C but B has no route to C so payment fails and no sats.
Agreed. Take small steps and become comfortable with each. If you find your over your head just ask some questions and have at it another day. It’s not difficult but trying to look at it all at once will be overwhelming. Make sure to back up your seed and save your channel backups occasionally.
Thanks again for providing such clarity!
Everything made sense to me. The last paragraph left me with some more questions…
Sorry, I tend to critically examine every word and become my own worst enemy over-evaluating things…This is Hopefully the final batch of Q’s.
1.)
“You need a few channels open or two channels to one node with funds on either side (one balanced channel)”
I only have one Node, so I’m presuming I have to go with option 2. Does this mean I set up the first channel (as we’ve discussed) using the 1.5 mil Sats, and the second channel I would set up empty without any liquidity?
2.)
Is having one large Lightning channel better than having multiple channels?
Example: would it be better to have one 10 million Sat lightning channel, or split it up into five 2 million Sat channels? Does more liquidity mean bigger yields overall?
Thanks.
I tried to create the first channel.
I pasted your lightning channel code into the field where specified.
I entered 1,300,000 Sats.
Now I see the Error message: “Lower amount or increase confirmation target”
What would I have to do to clear this?
What I mean here: Lets say you open a 1mil channel to me. That channel would have 1mil sats on your local side, meaning you can only send 1mil sats. If you balance the channel (by sending sats or by using Loop) then you would have say 500k on the local side and 500k on the remote side. This gives you the ability to ether send up to 500k or receive up to 500k.
The other way to do this would be you open a 1mil channel to me and then I open a 1 mil channel to you. We both can then send or receive up to 1mil sats even though the channels are not balanced.
It depends. If their node is well connected and their channels have enough liquidity you could send larger payments. If they only have smaller channels then you’d have routing issues as larger payments would unbalance their channels. You’d also be reliant on that one large channel. If that node goes down then your lightning wallet ceases to work. Having 5, 2mil sat channels allows you to have more routing options at the expense of not being able to send or receive huge payments.
Looks like your fee would have been set to confirm in 60 min. This looks like the channel amount and the fee exceeded your wallet balance. Where it has the switch for transaction fee, flip that to custom and drop it to 1sat/vB. That should put you under your wallet balance and allow the channel open to take place. Might take a few hours to confirm but it will go as the mempool isn’t stuffed.
Note: That custom option is greyed out, to fix that only add a small number to channel size, then adjust the fees, then finish inputting your channel size number. Once that is set you can open the channel without error.
Thank you so much for the step by step assistance! I think I am all ready to hit OPEN CHANNEL.
Before I do…
Just to re confirm, before blast off - I definitely want to be at 1Sat/vB correct?
Does the setting of the smallest amount mean the channel will have the possibility of seeing more frequent use?
This is the on chain fee rate. Setting it low has no bearing on how the channel will be used. It’s just how fast it confirms and how many sats are used.Using the lowest amount of sats is best cause they are becoming much more valuable. Currently a 1sat/vB will confirm in 6 or more blocks (60 min). Once you get 3 confirmations the channel becomes active. You can look at the mempool app for this data. Now if the network is stuffed you may want to up that rate to something that won’t be dropped from the network in the two week period. It’s not the end of the world if that happens but It is annoying trying to clear a channel that won’t open. Funds just remain in your on chain wallet.
Edit:
When/if you close a channel use Thunderhub which allows you to set fee. If you close with the Umbrel UI it closes using a very high fee and it’s not adjustable yet.
Awesome! Upon eagerly awaiting your reply, I hit OPEN CHANNEL. I increased the amount to 2mil Sats for good measure.
I linked my channel directly to your lightning address.
Here is mine: 0335f124fefbe54a0a62fc41582949ed808c3d8f35a75a8003e6586444c346b2ec@choe6gii3zwj76zlze2ouon7oopvgqu5aoe2xxwpqeubu6slg4gphmyd.onion:9735
Are there any additional steps I need to take from here on out to finalize once you open a channel to me?
Currently waiting on a transaction to confirm and then I’ll open a channel to you.
As for your channel, I see it listed as opening. Just have to wait for a 3 confirmations and then it will switch from opening to opened. Once that happens head into the lightning tab and click those 3 dots next to channel open. Use that drop down to save your channel backup file. Save that file somewhere just in case your SSD fails. Once you’ve saved that file you can begin shopping lightning stores or sending funds to other lightning wallets. Say you send 200k sats, you’d then be able to send the remaining 1.8m or receive 200k. Since I’m opening another back to you there is no need to balance or send anything as well effectively have one large balanced channel.
If your interested in routing you’ll want to open channels to other nodes so you can pass those payments though your node.
Update: Looks like you’ll get your first confirmation in 20 min and it only cost you $0.11
Yes, I am interested. Now to open channels to other nodes, do I need to repeat the process and send funds again, then open new channels entirely each time I want to connect to someone new?
Or does my 1st opened channel have the option to connect to multiple channels?
Same process for each new channel. New funds each channel as the ones used are locked in a multisig address until the channel is closed. Now, when opening with new nodes that won’t be opening back to you you’ll want to balance your channel. For this use Loop out found in Lightning Terminal app. This sends funds from the channel you select out to Lightning Labs who then sends them back on chain to your Umbrel wallet. Do this enough times and you’ll have a balanced channel that’s good for routing.
