Receiving Self-Sovereign ⚡️ Zaps in 15 minutes

The Problem

Lightning Addresses (a human readable form of LNURL) is the defacto standard way of accepting Lightning Network payments from a static text of human readable text. With the addition of Zaps in various Nostr clients (tips over LN), the use of Lightning Addresses have exploded in use.

Unfortunately, up until this point there hasn't been a simple, easy way for self-sovereign bitcoin node runners to setup Lightning Addresses unless they already had a Btcpayserver set up. As a result, there has been an explosion of bitcoiners heading over to Nostr and using custodial wallets that have Lightning Addresses built-in.

Let's fix that.

The Solution

To do this, you will need a couple things:

• Raspiblitz/Umbrel
• LND Lightning node up and running on that Raspiblitz or Umbrel

We are going to be installing Tallycoin Connect on our node. Tallycoin provides a unique and free service through Tallycoin Connect to route Lightning Address invoice requests to your node at home. They currently support apps on Raspiblitz and Umbrel. Today we will be focusing on how to do this on a Raspiblitz, but the steps would be very similar on an Umbrel. You'd just need to make sure you're on at least v1.8.0 of Tallycoin Connect. Note: Tallycoin only supports the LND lightning implementation. Sorry CLN/Eclair node runners, you're out of luck here.

Currently, the Tallycoin app provided in Raspiblitz under Main Menu > Services > LND Tallycoin Connect includes v1.7.1 of Tallycoin Connect. You will need to install v1.8.0 which adds support for Lightning Addresses.

Follow these simple steps to get your own Lightning Address pointed to your self-sovereign LN node at home.

1. SSH into your Raspiblitz and get to the CLI (exit out of the menu)
2. run sudo nano ~/config.scripts/bonus.tallycoin-connect.sh
3. Change the value 1.7.1 in TC_VERSION to 1.8.0
4. Ctrl + o and Enter to save the file
5. Ctrl + x to exit
6. Install Tallycoin Connect
   a. If you have not installed Tallycoin Connect before, run ~/config.scripts/./bonus.tallycoin-connect.sh on to install Tallycoin Connect
   b. If you have installed Tallycoin Connect before, first uninstall v1.7.1 with ~/config.scripts/./bonus.tallycoin-connect.sh off then after that completes run ~/config.scripts/./bonus.tallycoin-connect.sh on
7. run ~/config.scripts/./bonus.tallycoin-connect.sh menu
8. Copy the text on the second line (should look like http://192.168.XX.XX:8123) and paste it into a web browser
9. Sign in with your Password B for your Raspiblitz, and go to Setup in top right corner
10. Open a new browser tab, go to https://tallycoin.app, and create an account
11. Once you're logged into your Tallycoin account, go to Settings > My Wallet > Tallycoin Connect
12. Generate an API key and copy it
13. Head over to the other tab (Tallycoin Connect on your Raspiblitz) and paste the API key into it and choose Save API
14. Wait 30-60 seconds then go back to your other browser tab (https://tallycoin.app) and choose Test Connection
15. If it fails the first time, just keep trying until it says Connected

Once it says Connected, you're done! You now have a functioning Lightning Address in the following format:
username@tallycoin.app, where username is your Tallycoin username. All you need to do now is add this Lightning Address to your Nostr profile and you can receive zaps directly to your own node at home!

Final Thoughts

The main tradeoff with this approach is that Tallycoin knows how many sats you are receiving through the Lightning Address, as well as which node is yours. So it's not as private as a self-hosted Btcpayserver approach. That being said this is much easier and requires less infrastructure and technical know-how without sacrificing custody.

We are bitcoiners. We shouldn't compromise on self-custody. Period. Let's get away from this custodial LN wallet trend. Not your keys, not your coins still applies here!

If you appreciate this content, you can tip my newly created Lightning Address: finch@tallycoin.app from your favorite LN wallet.

You can find me on Nostr, I post often about Bitcoin and Nostr related content.

My npub: npub1u5tha063x5cv95yjgzpmvjm74htlhp00eslym764cuafynysrjnshmdu5e

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