Lightning Network is the Wild West of the Bitcoin Mainnet

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Toffer Wayne's Comments

While LN is active on the Bitcoin mainnet I wouldn't recommend anyone but the most risk tolerant, wealthy, or computer savvy give it a shot, at least not yet ...

"Going to be blunt," one developer wrote, "if you don't know how to compile something, you probably will have a lot more struggles and a lot less coins."

If you're adventurous maybe give the testnet a try instead, In total, using the testnet takes about five or so steps to navigate:

• To start, there's a number of wallets that you can download, Zap, Lightning Labs for desktop, an Eclair wallet for android, and one option that doesn't require a download at all. If you chose to download a desktop wallet, remember that it will need to sync the bitcoin testnet, which can take several hours.

• Having sent the test bitcoin to a wallet address of your choice, you'll need to set up a channel, which is where testing gets slightly unfamiliar. Select a testnet store that you'd like to make a purchase on. There's a variety of these, including a blogging site named yalls, developed by Lightning Lab's Alex Bosworth, a Starbucks-inspired cafe run by Lightning development team ECLAIR and an ice cream parlor.

• Next, navigate to the website of your choice and seek out a payment address. Notice that two addresses are given, a payment address and a "peer address." (You need to add the store as a peer before you can send it payment.)

• Copy the peer address, navigate to your wallet and add the address as a contact. You'll need to send a small fee in order to open this channel, which on the testnet is something like 0.1 test bitcoin.

• Once you've successfully opened a channel, you can then paste the payment address in to your wallet along with the desired amount, and send your test bitcoin (instantly).