Wallet Setup

Quick comparison

Recommended: Node Launcher

The fastest way to get a receiving wallet. Deploy your own LND node on a VPS you control, directly from the bolthub dashboard.

What you get:

• Your own LND node running on your choice of VPS provider
• Fully non-custodial: you control the seed phrase and private keys
• Sub-200ms invoice creation
• Automatic connection to your bolthub project
• Channel and liquidity management tools in the dashboard

Supported VPS providers (cheapest first):

• LunaNode: Bitcoin-friendly Canadian provider that accepts BTC payments. From ~$3.50/month.
• Hetzner Cloud: from ~$5.49/month. European data centers (also US East and Singapore).
• Scaleway: European data centers (Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw). From ~$6.42/month.
• Vultr: 32 global data centers, accepts crypto. From ~$10/month.
• DigitalOcean: global coverage with data centers worldwide. From ~$12/month.

Setup steps:

1. In the bolthub dashboard, go to Nodes (or click "Deploy Node" during endpoint creation)
2. Pick your VPS provider and add your API key
3. Pick a region and server size (the cheapest option works well)
4. Click Deploy My Node and wait 3-5 minutes
5. When prompted, open the Lightning Terminal UI to create your wallet
6. Write down your 24-word seed phrase and store it safely
7. Click "I've backed up my seed" to finalize setup
8. Your node is automatically connected as your receiving wallet

Security: Your seed phrase is generated on your VPS and never touches bolthub servers. bolthub stores only the connection credentials (encrypted), not your keys.

Alternative: NWC (Nostr Wallet Connect)

Easiest setup, but slower invoice creation — and it must be an always-on wallet service. bolthub mints an invoice through this connection every time a buyer hits your paywall, at any hour. Phone wallets (Zeus, Alby Go, Primal) run their wallet service on the phone, so invoices fail whenever the app isn't running: fine for paying as a buyer, wrong for receiving as a seller.

Good payout choices: Alby Hub (hosted or self-hosted, one-click connect from the dashboard) or CoinOS.

Setup steps:

1. In the bolthub dashboard wallet page, select NWC and use the one-click connect, or:
2. Create an NWC connection in your wallet service with permissions: make_invoice, lookup_invoice, get_balance
3. Copy the NWC URI (nostr+walletconnect://...) and paste it in
4. Click Test connection

Trade-off: Invoice creation takes ~5-7s (relay dependent), vs ~200ms with LND.

Alternative: Existing LND Node

If you already run an LND node (Umbrel, Start9, self-hosted):

1. Expose the REST API over HTTPS (a Cloudflare Tunnel works well for home nodes — the dashboard's LND setup guide has the recipe)
2. Bake an invoice-only macaroon — bolthub only mints and looks up invoices, so don't hand it admin.macaroon: lncli bakemacaroon info:read invoices:read invoices:write
3. In bolthub dashboard, select LND, enter the host URL and the baked macaroon (hex)
4. Click Test connection

Alternative: LNbits

Open-source accounts system on top of any Lightning funding source:

1. Deploy LNbits with an LND backend (self-hosted or via a provider)
2. Get your LNbits URL and Admin Key
3. In bolthub dashboard, select LNbits, enter the URL and key
4. Click Test connection

Security checklist

• Never expose wallet credentials in frontend code
• Use HTTPS for all remote wallet connections
• Restrict access by IP/firewall where possible
• Rotate credentials if accidentally shared
• Keep wallet credentials only in server environment variables
• Back up your seed phrase and store it offline

Receiver-ready verification

Before going live, verify your wallet can:

1. Create invoices via API (test in bolthub settings)
2. Receive payment from an external wallet (not the same wallet)
3. Report settlement correctly via lookupInvoice
4. Handle burst traffic (20+ invoices in 60 seconds)