Run a LN Bank with LNbits

How can you became a LN Bank for your family, friends and favorite merchants and help them to de-peg from the worthless slavery fiat money.

Originaly posted on Substack on May 12, 2022
Updated October 18, 2024

Yes, this is about how you could became a "banker", a good one, that help your friends, your close merchants, the funny guy that run that cool cafe-bar on the corner of your street. Start low, each one of these are important in this Bitcoin Revolution.

Help them to get into Bitcoinlandia, in easy steps and get rid slowly of shitcoin fiat. It is very important to help small merchants and keep them running their businesses and not get eaten by big motherfucker retail chains.

I wrote all these guides, for you, the bitcoiner that still HODL your sats but still don't know how to put them to flow and create that desired Bitcoin circular economy. I just want to give you simple ideas, simple steps to start and open your mind to this amazing opportunity to get rid of all those fiat bankers that only want to enslave people.

Start being the Freedom Banker with your Bitcoin Lightning Node!

What is actually a “LNbits Bank”?

Imagine LNbits as a local community bank. Your LNbits users are just "customers" of your bank. They use your "bank liquidity".

So you as a good bank would have to be in charge of that liquidity, being well connected with other banks.

If you cut that liquidity, they will remain only with an IOU from you.

LNbits is an accounting system, a bookkeeping of your customer funds, but your node liquidity, in LN channels is your duty to manage it and provide good connections to many other nodes to have better routes for your customers payments.

Use case scenario:

You have a friend that run a bar / small restaurant / grocery / boutique shop.
Your friend want to start accepting bitcoins as payment, but he have nothing and want a simple, fast, easy solution, and more important, he trust you.
You already have a LN node and liquidity.
You already have installed LNBits and also run it on clearnet (Tor is not suitable for retail shops and LN nodes).

The idea is simple:

Your friend don't want to start with a LN node, setup a domain and all that shit, just want small steps to test the ground and learn how it works.
You, with your node will be his "bank", offering him a hosted wallet on your LN node with LNBits. Explain him this aspect, to be clear. Is your friend and will understand it and trust you.
He will withdraw the sats from that LN wallet, using a swap service like Boltz and many others (you can use the dedicated Boltz extension in LNbits that can make the swap very easy) and stack them into his onchain HODL wallet.
His clients also can have a "fidelity" wallet on your same LNBits. Your friend can open one for them and setup to be used with Zeus, BitBanana or Bluewallet as lndhub wallet. With this wallet will have 0 fees because is internal, is NOT even reflected on LN transactions, nor onchain! Yes they can pay also with whatever other LN wallet, but this one can be used as "fidelity" client wallet. Later can be even implemented with a NFC card that is loaded with sats and spendable directly to your friend shop wallet.
Later, if your friend start having a lot of BTC payments, then can run his own node and manage his own liquidity. Now you are just helping him to start, by being his trusted bank.
This bank could be used also for your friends and family, a nice trusted custodial bank for their sats, with YOU, the knowledgeable bitcoiner.

Steps to do as a "LNBits banker":

Setup in your LNBits instance a dedicated account for your friend (with full rights as admin).
Inside that account your friend (or you) can create later many wallets as he wish, for its own fidelity customers.
Edit LNBits .env settings file to restrict access only to those accounts/wallets (see more details in this another guide about LNBits) so new not authorized users will not open and use LN wallets on your node. Is a simple and good protection to spammers, until LNBits devs will finish the new user management extension.
Set in your lnd.conf the line: allow-circular-route=1 This will allow all your LNBits users to transact internally between their LN wallets without fees.
Keep in mind: you are the banker! So you will need to keep liquidity flowing into your node. So keep the LN channels well connected, low fees (let's not start robbing our first LN users) and good routing. And don't "exit scam", is mainly about your friends and Bitcoin in general. If you can't run that node anymore, at least inform your friend merchant to move his funds first or help him to setup his own node.

Steps to do as a "LNBits Bank client":

Install in your mobile phone or tablet Zeus and/or Bluewallet. Are handy apps to use as LN wallets.
You can use also a direct link to LNBits wallet, from your mobile browser, save it as widget on your mobile home. Then works perfectly as an app, with access to all functionalities.
If you want to give restricted access to your employees, you will have to setup the wallet as "invoice only" in Zeus or Bluewallet. Go to lndhub extension and you will see two QR sections: "invoice only" and "admin". Scan with Zeus or Bluewallet the "invoice" one. That will give them access only to create invoices and charge the payments, not to spend the sats. As a manager you can use the "admin" QR code and you have full rights to move the sats from that wallet.
Once in a while, weekly or whenever you consider the right amount to withdraw the sats to your HODL (savings) own wallet, you can use Boltz swaps (soon will be an integrated extension in LNBits for swaps) and move your sats out.
From your admin page on LNBits, you can create several lndhub wallets for your "fidelity" clients. Give them the full access QR code to scan it with Zeus or Bluewallet and let them deposit sats into that wallet from any other source. Later in LNBits you can even setup your own BTC ATM with the Bleskomat extension, so your clients can just buy sats with their shity fiat. Or they can just give you the fiat and you deposit into their LN wallets the sats. Give them some discount later :)
They can use those lndhub wallets wherever they want, as regular LN wallets.
You could create LNURL-withdraw QR codes, print them or just show them to your fidelity clients, offering them discounts in form of sats back, directly from your main lndhub wallet.
You could also create a nice lottery, with the LNbits extension, setting up your rules for bets and the amount of sats dedicated.
You could also create events tickets, you have special occasions, parties, Christmas dinner etc and you could create ticket events with LNbits extension. Customers can pay directly with sats and get a unique QR code for admission (proof of payment and the ticket). They can give it away as a gift or re-sell it if they want. But that ticket is their entrance to the event you organize it.
You can create special LNURL QR codes for items as "pay as you go", with the LNURL-pay extension or the Offline shop extension. You setup the amount of sats to be paid, generate the QR code, print it and place it next to your item to be sold. Client pays and take the item. You have many options here. Use your imagination and the options from the amazing LNBits extensions.

Now, you, the node operator, are the real banker for these people. So be fair, maintain your node in good status, keep it online as much as you can, open good LN channels with good other nodes, maintain low fees and educate your own "bank customers" how they should use their LN wallets.

LNbits is a powerful tool for your node and many other users, if is used at its total potential. Check here many other LNBits extensions and how could be used in many different businesses / situations.

LNBits can be run on any machine, no need to be run on the same machine as the node. You can have a hosted LN node with Voltage or NODL or any other VPS and run the LNBits on a simple PC connecting to your LN node. Here is an amazing guide about how to setup a LNbits instance with a VPS server by Hakuna.

Start helping your neighbors merchants, this Bitcoin Revolution start with us, educating and setting up more solutions for small merchants. If you have bitcoins are worthless if you cannot use them to buy groceries and live your life without fiat money interaction.

Bitcoin circular economy is the way forward and this can start only with you, the Bitcoiner that knows how to use Bitcoin and teach others about it!