Ride the Lightning | Umbrel Bitcoin Lightning Network Tutorial

[@juangabrieldelcid3668]

If you want to play around with Lightning in the cloud, you can use BTCPay Server on LunaNode: launchbtcpay.lunanode.com/ You setup your account, launch BTCPay Server, wait a few days until the Bitcoin node syncs, and you're set. It comes with Ride The Lightning installed (and working).

[@RhettReisman]

That’s awesome, I’ll have to try it out - still have a lot to learn 😅 RTL responded on Twitter today saying the error is fixed, umbrel just needs to update the app

[@RhettReisman]

What app do you guys use to interface with the lightning network?

[@russelldriver6394]

This was great I learnt ALOT

[@RhettReisman]

Cheers Russell glad to help!

[@jasonthomas2393]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who has problems with Blue Wallet. lol

[@RhettReisman]

Yeah lightning is still kind of finicky lol UX definitely needs to improve

[@JustINformU]

What a fantastic channel. I use blue wallet for ltn invoice payments

[@RhettReisman]

Yeah BlueWallet is 🔥🔥🔥

[@my_channel_44]

There are no 'cards' on my display of KZbin. Can you leave a link to these videos like the video where you built your hardware setup that you mentioned in this one, as having a 'card'? Put the link in the description.

[@RhettReisman]

Yeah my bad I’ll update description. Here’s the video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aImYlIaArtqBZqs and here’s a node playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PL-p_L_HbK7jVC1uBekzFii0aisPGaFqc5

[@bertholdheisterkamp1944]

thank you very much for this clarifying video!! I just started my first node and thought, hey cool, this makes sense! Well, I just quit after this video and keep asking myself, am I really nerdy enough for this? Seems I am not, can't see the value yet. maybe in some 5-10 years I'll come back. curious what youre doing with it in future

[@RhettReisman]

Yeah it’s definitely pretty in depth and can be a lot to deal with (as you could see haha I got pretty frustrated) I think it’s possible to turn this into a legit passive income stream but it’s a lot of research and work to keep your node up to date and optimize what channels you should be opening/closing

[@robschloemer9819]

Always enjoy your videos Rhett! 2 random questions. 1 what are you using for a password manager. it looked pretty dope. Also where did you get the cool Bitcoin artwork? Talk to you soon!

[@RhettReisman]

Using 1Password it’s probably my favorite app, it has made me so much more confident in handling sensitive data/passwords. Got the bitcoin poster from displate.com 😁

[@robschloemer9819]

@@RhettReisman Thanks Rhett! Do you know if RTL ever was fixed on UMBREL. I have the same error.

[@RhettReisman]

RTL said when Umbrel posts the lastest version of RTL the error will go away. Not sure when Umbrel updates the code :/

[@dsysengchanh]

Hi Rhett, I closed a lightning channel (LC) on the main node page. It didn't give me an option for the fee. The LC status says "Closing", I see all the Sats in the LC, but my lightning wallet decreased to 0 Sats when I closed it. When I click on the LC and it just shows me the information, can't do anything else. What are my options? How long do I wait until I see Sats in my BTC wallet? Any guidance is appreciated, thanks..

[@RhettReisman]

That’s a good question, I’m not sure how fees work in lightning channel closures. Try reaching out to umbrel support or ride the lightning (they’re usually responsive on Twitter from what I’ve seen - if you were using RTL)

[@MrSrossm]

Rhett, blockfi video might be in order now. let me know your thoughts? Gemini and blockfi work in close relation, just a bummer what is happening. currently have my BTC and internet USDC on that exchange.

[@RhettReisman]

Yes. Will have a video out on Monday on BlockFi and comparing it to other CeFi you could move to. Some quick thoughts (not financial advice I could lose all my money this is just what I’m doing): I’m probably going to leave everything I have on blockfi still at blockfi for now (I only have ETH and USDC over there, I withdrew all my BTC a few months ago and don’t keep BTC on CeFi anymore).

[@MrSrossm]

@@RhettReisman jus a quick question, what platform/exchange do you recommend, keeping Btc on? Cold Storage? have btc and usdc on blockfi and ada on coinbase pro . definitely have a decent amount of all 3 . such a bummer, i like blockfi

[@RhettReisman]

I personally keep all my BTC in cold storage. I don’t trust the CeFi platforms to hold BTC. I have some USDC and all my ETH up on CeFi (not financial advice - I could definitely lose all my money trusting CeFi platforms).

[@HarlandDWhite]

After all those nice things said about RTL it didn't want to work lol. I still haven't played around with lightning on my Umbrel, seems like a lot; but I probably should. Do you use any of the other Umbrel apps?

[@RhettReisman]

Yeah 🤦🏻‍♂️ we got so close too haha can’t win ‘em all 🤷🏻‍♂️ Not really :/ Mempool and block explorer are kind of cool will probably do in depth video on mempool at some point. I tried hosting the Gemini API script using the vs code-server but I couldn’t get it to work. Would have been neat, then we wouldn’t have even needed AWS. I think it’s definitely possible but idk that I have the patience to figure it out haha They keep adding new apps, I still need to try some of them - Tallycoin seems cool.

[@HarlandDWhite]

@@RhettReisman Ok cool, that's good you're experimenting!! I was wondering if you were going to do one on Mempool. That's the only one I look at, but haven't bothered to learn what it all means yet lol. Agreed, they've been adding a lot of different apps.

[@RhettReisman]

Yeah mempool should be a good video it’s very overwhelming to look at at first. I prob need to do a little more research on it too

[@runningrock124]

how do you get ppl to put their remote balance in a channel? ive connected with peers, opened a channel and put in 500,000sats but it still says 0 on their side so the balance score is 0. do i have to do something, or just wait?

[@RhettReisman]

Regular spend will balance the channel over time towards the party spending more. They can open an equivalent 0-500000 channel to you in the mean time if you need liquidity going the opposite direction

[@ikust007]

Thank you mate !

[@RhettReisman]

Cheers 🙏🥳

[@axnoro]

What's your opinion on Citadel?

[@RhettReisman]

Don’t have a strong opinion. I know people who work there. Seems like not a super fun job, but pays well. I don’t think they’re uniquely evil or the bad guy that the internet makes them out to be, but the memes are funny 🤷‍♂️

[@axnoro]

@@RhettReisman oh no no, I meant the foss fork of umbrel. One of the developers, which is a high schooler from Germany, started his own fork which is fully open source whereas umbrel is source available. I'm sticking with umbrel until i learn the basics and then ill see.

[@RhettReisman]

Ah got it haha. I haven’t heard of it I’ll have to check it out

[@russelldriver6394]

Hi Rhett - can you help. I am on umbrel , fully synced to the blockchain, I installed and ran the Ride the Lightning app and went to the instructions, it stated: 1. Generate a new address on the "Recieve" tab, 2. Send funds to the address. I used this generated address to send bitcoin from my bitcoin wallet. The funds have left my bitcoin wallet and had a bunch of confirmations, however the funds are not showing on my lightning wallet. What could I have done wrong ?

[@RhettReisman]

If you go to your umbrel Home Screen and go to the lightning node app (assuming you’re on version 0.5 or later) did the funds end up in the on chain Bitcoin wallet? Or are they showing in the on-chain tab in ride the lightning?

[@russelldriver6394]

@@RhettReisman I just checked and they are showing on the on-chain tab of RTL app under UTXO's - strange they seem to have taken quite a while to appear there as I did check that tab after a few confirmations and didnt notice them there. What is the difference between on-chain and my actual lightning wallet? Thanks for your help, this is all very very new to me

[@RhettReisman]

All good man - it can be very confusing. On chain is just like any other bitcoin wallet whereas your lightning wallet is locked up bitcoin that is being “staked” in channels on the lightning network. This makes it a lot faster / easier to move around. You can move funds into your lightning wallet by opening a channel with another lightning node using funds from your on-chain wallet. Let me know if that made sense or if it was more confusing haha

[@russelldriver6394]

@@RhettReisman Thanks , sort of makes sense :)

[@ikust007]

Really appreciate but personally doesn’t make any sense: just too much gizmos to do for me to use it . How do they do it today in Salvador ??

[@RhettReisman]

You can just use a regular wallet like BlueWallet/Strike in El Salvador. But running a node gives you different functionality, like collecting routing fees / owning your own keys and routing channels.

[@ikust007]

@@RhettReisman for sure I want to run my node mostly because I want to support us. But what you are doing is over my old head mate !:)

[@RhettReisman]

All right haha no worries. Once you get a node up and running maybe it will help

[@CE4JDM]

Why am I not seeing any peers when I open the peers/channels page?

[@RhettReisman]

Do you have any channels open?

[@CE4JDM]

@@RhettReisman Under connections it says channels -0- peers 8 But no channels are open. Sorry but I'm new at this. Any help appreciated much!

[@CE4JDM]

@@RhettReisman Each time I try to open a channel I get the red error messages---nearly all are different.....like this: Received funding error from 038fe1bd966b5cb0545963490c631eaa1924e2c4c0ea4e7dcb5d4582a1e7f2f1a5: chan_id=23d15d72b48cff8d7dfd86213e6b3c31e2999396100863fee2cc5d014494509f, err=you gave bad parameters: channel capacity with funding 250000sat, reserves 2500sat/2500sat, max_htlc_value_in_flight_msat is 247500000msat, channel capacity is 241989sat, which is below 750000sat

[@w1ldthin9]

whats your mic setup?

[@RhettReisman]

I'm using a comica lav mic (not great) for shots where my back is to the computer and a blue yeti for the demos (better audio). Would love some suggestions if you have any :)

[@w1ldthin9]

@@RhettReisman good to know, im doing research myself. seems like blue yeti is the favorite for close audio but im trying to find a good one for my dslr. sennheiser looked pretty promising or a really expensive rode.

[@RhettReisman]

Yeah the really high quality equipment starts to get super expensive. And if you end up recording external audio it’s another whole thing to worry about 🤕

[@jimhewitt2209]

Just a quick heads up. With the Umbrel 0.5 update the directory structure has changed. Apparently command should work: sudo nano umbrel/app-data/lightning/data/lnd/lnd.conf

[@RhettReisman]

Thank you 🙏

[@endthefed5304]

great video, but completely lacking the basics of how to find nodes to connect with.

[@RhettReisman]

Thanks. That wasn’t really the scope of the video, I can make one on how to find nodes to connect with if you want.