LNBitcoinGuide

This project tells a story that will help developers and enthusiasts understand how the lightning network funcitons. It uses a python gRPC server to consume a group of LN nodes.

Requirements

• Download Polar

  • If you are having trouble opening the polar app:

    • Go to your Privacy and Security settings on (IOs) and click on Open Anyway.

  • Install Docker

    • If Polar is not recognizing your docker, try this out

  • Install Docker-Compose

    • (IOs) To have Docker Compose install a Docker Desktop version before July 2023.

  • Test that Polar UI works

Import network

• Clone the repo: git clone
• In the polar UI click on import network:
• Drag the LNBTCGuide.polar.zip file to recreate the network.
• It should look like this:
• Now you can press the start button.
• It should look like this:
• In case it didnt work, try building the network by yourself.

Change source

Go to /menu.py and modify the following variables:

• wallet
• coffee_shop
• providor

Each one of this variables will contain this fields:

• "pubkey": '020fe45e80bf106640697d8ae6c7c548f4daebd2281c8e126c81b9f1a95eeb1f98',
• "cert": '~/.polar/networks/4/volumes/lnd/alice/tls.cert',
• "admin_macaroon": '~/.polar/networks/4/volumes/lnd/alice/data/chain/bitcoin/regtest/admin.macaroon',
• "channel": '127.0.0.1:10001'

Update them by replacing each field mentioned before like the following video:

Run the code:

• pip3 install grpcio grpcio-tools googleapis-common-protos
• python3 menu.py

If you're keen to continue a similar project, here's a guide to help you get started:

1. First you need to think of a node network provider, it can be done with testing or real nodes, Polar is a testing local network.
2. Now depending on the node type you will need to find an API node manager, in this case I used LND api with proto files.
3. Here is a sample project to understand better the requirements.
4. Create the necessary endpoints to consume the node and feel free to build whatever you would like to do with Lightning Network.