Lightning Stream · Try itTry it on your own node

1What you need

• An XBT node, Bitcoin Knots with BLAKE2b proof of work, fully synced. A first sync from nothing takes days, and Lightning Fork waits until the node is past block 961,640, the first BLAKE2b block. If you are new to XBT, start the node first.
• Lightning Fork, the XBT version of lnd, beside it.
• A small channel on the XBT Lightning network (below).

Lightning Stream never holds your money. It pays from your node, within spending rules you sign, and only after you confirm that it may pay with real money.

2Install

Umbrel

1. App Store → ⋯ → Community App Stores. Add Paul's store, github.com/paulscode/umbrel-store, and install Knots-BLAKE2b and Lightning Fork. When Lightning Fork asks which Bitcoin node to use, pick Knots-BLAKE2b, not Umbrel's standard Bitcoin Node.
2. Add our store, github.com/AwokenLazarus/lightning-stream-umbrel-store, and install Lightning Stream. It connects to your Lightning node by itself.

StartOS

1. Add Paul's registry, https://start9.paulscode.com/, and install Knots-BLAKE2b and Lightning Fork. A registry is added in StartOS; opening it in a browser shows nothing.
2. Add our registry, https://registry.lazarus-xbt.xyz, and install Lightning Stream.
3. In Lightning Fork, approve the task Grant app access for Lightning Stream. That gives the app its own narrow key: it can pay and read, nothing more, and you can revoke it there at any time.

Linux

Docker Compose beside your own Knots and Lightning Fork: follow the Linux guide.

3Get a channel

The app pays through your own node, so your node needs a funded channel with a route to the shop. Without one, the first buy fails with "no route".

• Size. 20,000 to 50,000 sat is plenty for trying things out: a ticket is about 900 sat. lnd refuses channels under 20,000 by default.
• Who to. A well-connected public node, such as lazarus-xbt, which takes channels from 20,000 sat. Over Tor, with key 033665f1accdf08dd2d2f22f62f8dd70ccd238381402b10c12c0be3e7fd493b8d5 at 6y4rkcimjbzfhj2j4oidbg4br4xgdfvpbsx7x3ifedv6jgfxg55wtiqd.onion:9735. Some nodes take only larger channels and refuse a small one before anything is paid, so a refusal costs nothing. A channel straight to our shop's node pays it only from version 0.1.17 of the app. The Linux guide's section Before you buy has the details.
• Wait until the channel is active before your first buy.

4First steps in the app

1. Make your approval key and keep its backup file. The backup file is not your passphrase: keep both.
2. Settings → Spending rules → start from the safe starter rules, review, and sign. They allow 2,000 sat a payment, 10,000 a day and 30,000 a week, and ask you above 1,000.
3. Settings → Your node → tick Pay with real money and press Start paying.
4. Services → add a seller, for example our test shop https://stream.lazarus-xbt.xyz, press Allow this seller to be paid, and sign. If you added our shop before version 0.1.16, press Check for updates on it under Services → Sellers first.
5. Play a film, ask the AI, or rent hashrate.

5Our test shop

https://stream.lazarus-xbt.xyz sells three things, to try the app with. Add it in the app; it is not a web page to open in a browser.

• Creative Commons films, at 20 sat per MiB;
• a small AI model, at 10 sat per 1,000 tokens of its answers;
• hashrate from a miner of ours, rented by the slice into your own DATUM Gateway and paid after each slice is delivered.

Shops publish signed listings on Nostr. The app reads them from four relays by default, ours first: wss://relay.lazarus-xbt.xyz.

6Sell your own

The Sell page offers the services on your box (a media server, an AI model, any web service) at a price you set. Buyers reach them at an https address of yours; the page helps you get one. To rent out miners as a hashmaker, forward TCP port 23341 on your router to the box and enter your public address on Sell → Hashrate. Your shop is listed on Nostr as soon as it has an address.

7Help and feedback

Report a bug or a confusing screen as an issue on GitHub; confusing screens are as useful to hear about as bugs. What changed in each version is in the changelog.