On the 25th of January 2023, Calle, a programmer and physicist went on Twitter to share how he ran a Lightning tip network from his bedroom.
Here is a little story of how I built a #Bitcoin Lightning payments app used by more than 10,000 users at the time running on two Raspberry Pi's from my bedroom.
My conclusion: The banks are so fvcked ☠️ pic.twitter.com/JmqB3LRdAc
— dr. calle (@callebtc) January 25, 2023
In his post, he showed two Raspberry Pis he was using to run a Lightning payment bot used globally by more than 10k users, which he built and was running from the comfort of his bedroom.
Those who have considered running any nodes, be it Bitcoin or Lightning, would know that the process seems intimidating. But both Bitcoin and other layer 2 projects on Bitcoin are networks full of nodes, which run on different devices around the world. Thanks to the diligent efforts of multiple programmers like @Calle, there’s now a wallet in Telegram, in which users can store BTC and make payments on the Lightning network.
So how does the Lightning tip wallet work?
The wallet is integrated with Telegram as a bot that allows users to interact with it. It uses the “@wallet” username.
Due to money laundering regulations, the only KYC built into the system is the phone number used to open the Telegram account. Thus, if the phone number is anonymous, the transactions on the wallet would be anonymous too.
The initial setup for the Lightning tipping bot project was run by two Raspberry Pis that ran the Bitcoin core, LNbits, LND, and the Telegram bot, and they had a 20-minute interval to back each other up. The gateway for user traffic was run through a data center for LNURL services.
All HTTP communication was passed through a relay or a Tor channel, making it impossible to know that the whole project was run in a room at his home. During periods of power outages, he was able to move the whole setup to a friend’s home.
Though they have long moved the setup to a professional data center with adequate hardware, Calle believes that sharing his story would be a source of inspiration. In the beginning, he was constantly told that the idea was crazy and the setup was too unprofessional.
Yet, users were utilizing his system to pay for basic daily items like apples in a completely different continent, carrying out real transactions without the need for a bank, debit card, or PayPal.
For that reason, he believes that both Bitcoin, the Lightning network, and the Lightning tip project are financial anomalies that would disrupt the traditional finance sector.
