LNURL for opening channels?

LNBig offers channel opening services for a very reasonable fee. They provide an LNURL link to open the channel. Which app if any within Umbrel supports this standard?

ThunderHub has a LNURL button on the Home page, I believe you should be able to use that. However, you should keep in mind that LNBig only opens a channel temporarily, they will close it after 1 month unless there is continuous activity.

Another option that I have used for inbound liquidity is BitFinex. You can open a channel to the exchange and send satoshis to your trading account. You can then do a straight swap from Lighting BTC to BTC and withdraw that to your wallet. This way you get a lightning channel with a remote balance and the only cost is opening the channel and then the withdrawal fee from BitFinex (0.0004 BTC).

Also note that BitFinex have a minimum 4,000,000 satoshi for opening a channel directly with them, but if you need a smaller amount you can find a connecting channel which allows smaller amounts.

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ThunderHub’s LNURL seems to only work for payments, not channel openings yet. Seems like it’s still in the works. It’s a fairly new standard.

The Bitfinex idea is great! :slight_smile:

If you do want to continue with LNBig. Connecting your node to Zap app works for channel LNURL’s.

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if you’re going to open a channel with Bitfinex and already have outgoing liquidity, better to wait. Demands to deposit toward Bitfinex is high, so at least profit from it ^^

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Haha … true … although has anyone really made any serious money with lightning channels?

OK, my recipe for maximum success:

  1. Open a channel to BitFinex
  2. Send half to the exchange via lightning
  3. Swap lightning BTC -> BTC
  4. Transfer BTC to BlockFi for 5% interest
  5. Profit :sweat_smile:
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