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What Bitcoin LN solutions you could start using as a small merchant.

Originaly posted on Substack on October 26, 2021

Updated here on Dec 03, 2024

Many times I heard this question: "How to start accepting Bitcoin, as a small merchant?"

And here I would like to present some simple, quick solutions, testing ground, small simple steps, for new users that still can't/don't want to run a full LN node machine.

Goals to achieve:

Solutions available:

Each one have its own particularities, features, level of complexity and use cases. I suggest to start using 2-3 of them and get comfortable, meanwhile studying others.

A particular simple case also could be using Lightning Address. For freelancers or occasional invoices paid in BTC, you can setup a LN Address with a federated server or service or even with your own domain, linked to your own node. Here is a guide.

1 - CoinOS #

Description / features

Use case scenario

  1. open / create an account and save the user / password, 2FA, keys, LNURL-auth
  2. In account (top right) you will see that is created an unique address for your wallet, for easy access, like https://coinos.io/user-name
  3. to start receiving payments just click on receive button. By default will be Lightning empty invoice. You will have to add an amount, some LN wallets are not yet capable to pay an empty LN invoice.
  4. You can use also the provided LNURL for receiving payments without LN invoice, so you can print that LNURL QR code on a paper and present it to the customers, without need to open the online wallet. Once the customer will show you the payment done, there's no way to be reversed the payment so no need more confirmations.
  5. there's also the option to receive to Lightning Address, many LN wallets are capable to send to username@coinos.io and you don't need to make any invoice, customer just send the amount is necessary.
  6. End of day or week, or whenever is wanted, the merchant can withdraw the funds from CoinOS wallet to any other personal wallet. The swap from LN funds to onchain address is done automatically (involve a swap fee). But also can be send to another LN wallet, with no other fee than the tx fee (extremely small).
  7. If you want to have a simple icon on phone desktop, like an app, open https://coinos.io/username in your mobile browser (I tested with Firefox on Android), go to menu and click "Install". It will create a simple icon app that you can drag it on your phone desktop widget and open it next time like an app.

2 - Walletano #

Description / features:

3 - IBEX Pay #

Description / features:

Use case scenario

I have no more explanations, here is an excellent video demo made by Ian Major explaining step by step how to use this solution.

Description / features:

5 - Opago Pay #

Description / features:

6 - Swiss Bitcoin Pay #

Description / features:

7 - LifPay #

Description / features:

8 - OpenNode #

Description / features:

9 - CoinGate #

Description / features:

10 - Sats Mobi

Description / features

Use case scenario

  1. merchant will open/create a Telegram user name
  2. automatically will have available a LNURL at https://sats.mobi/@TG-user-name that can receive straight away LN payments, without need of LN invoice, min 100 sats
  3. automatically will have available a Lightning Address as username@ln.tips where customers can pay directly with wallets that support it.
  4. merchant can create also LN invoices, in Telegram in direct chat with @SatsMobiBot with the command /invoice {amount sats} {optional description} and show QR or LN invoice code to the customer
  5. merchant can also import the SatsMobiBot wallet into Zeus / Bluewallet app and use it as a normal LN wallet and create invoices for its customers, move funds to other wallets, swap to onchain (using swap services)

11 - LN Voltz

Description / features

Use case scenario

  1. Merchant will open/create a Voltz account, for free
  2. Can connect his e-commerce shop directly to this LNbits instance, through the Woocommerce LNbits plugin
  3. First you will need to add necessary extensions: PayLinks, SatsPay Server, LNDHub, Scrub, Onchain, Boltz swap, TPOS and others if are needed.
  4. Then create a SatsPay link to be able to manage it from Woocommerce plugin charges in your e-shop.
  5. Add an onchain xpub from any of your external wallets, could be cold or hot. This will be used to withdraw the sats directly into your external self-custodial wallet.
  6. In the PayLinks extension you can create unlimited LNURL and LN addresses you like, used for direct static QR payment codes or with specific amount.
  7. The Scrub extension can be used if you want to automatically withdraw the sats charged in your e-shop out of this custodial LNbits. Optional you can use the Boltz extension to swap the sats from LN to any onchain address.
  8. With the LNdhub extension you can manage the access to your accounts (you can create multiple wallet accounts in this instance) using an external app like Zeus, Bluewallet, BitBanana.

12 - Alby Hub, Alby Go and browser extension #

Description / features

13 - Bluewallet #

Description / features

More advanced use cases of Bluewallet + LNDHUB non-custodial wallets:

14 - Phoenix, Green, Breez or Electrum #

Description / features

Use case scenario

  1. merchant/user install the app and save the seed in a safe place
  2. can start receiving payments on LN immediately, by clicking receive button and put the amount, creating the QR and LN invoice
  3. Is better to start with a big payment received to open a big channel (like 10M sats) for you and pay only once the opening fee. If you start with small amounts, each time you receive a small payment is opening a new channel and charge you a fee for that channel.
  4. Once you receive a big payment, send from that channel like 90-95% of the funds to another LN wallet or swap to another onchain wallet (or using external swap services), leaving the channel with just a small amount of sats to keep the channel open.
  5. Once the channel is almost empty you can start receiving again in the same channel with no more opening fees.

15 - Blixt LN node #

Description / features

16 - Zeus LN node #

Description / features

17 - Zaprite #

Description / features

Here is a very good video tutorial by BTC Sessions, presenting step by step how to setup your Zaprite account and use it with many different funding sources.

18 - Advanced Solutions #

Description / features

This is a complex solution that can be run on your own hardware, in a fully self-custodial way, or using hosted servers / VPS.

The idea is to run yourself the whole payment solution, but imply also a full funding management, LN channels, liquidity, swaps etc.

More documentation, guides, scenarios

As you can see there are many solutions and apps to start accepting Bitcoin, especially using Lightning Network that is the PAYMENT network for Bitcoin. Study them all and see which one is more suitablefor your business. I am sure there are many more out there and all these will be in continuous change.

As a new Bitcoin merchant don't forget also to promote your business on BTC Map ! Is very important that bitco8iners will know you start accepting Bitcoin.

Here in this guide you can find more merchants lists where you could add your shop / business to be more visible to more bitcoiners.