🧭 How to Live on Bitcoin: A Practical Guide for the Sovereign Individual Imagine a life where your bank is your node, your wallet is your freedom, and your money is censorship-resistant, global, and borderless. That’s the promise of living on Bitcoin — and today, it’s not just possible, it’s practical. In this guide, I’ll show you how to ditch the dollar and live entirely on Bitcoin — using off-the-shelf tools and services that make the Bitcoin standard not just livable, but liberating. 🧱 Step 1: Build Your Bitcoin Stack Start by choosing the right wallets for savings, spending, and fast payments: Cold Storage (Savings): Secure your long-term holdings with a hardware wallet like Coldcard , Trezor , or Foundation Devices . Hot Wallet (Spending): Use mobile wallets like Phoenix or BlueWallet to handle everyday expenses. Lightning Wallets (Fast Transactions): Lightning wallets like Breez or Zeus allow instant payments with near-zero fees — ideal for coffee sho...
Monetizing a Bitcoin Lightning Node: A Technical Overview Operating a Lightning Network node can generate Bitcoin revenue through routing fees and liquidity services, but it's not inherently profitable without careful strategy and capital allocation. This post outlines the technical requirements and revenue pathways for maintaining a productive node. ⚙️ Prerequisites: Infrastructure for a Lightning Node To operate a Lightning node capable of routing payments, the following components are essential: Bitcoin Full Node (e.g., bitcoind ): Required to validate on-chain transactions and provide base-layer data to the Lightning daemon. Lightning Implementation : Choose from LND , Core Lightning (CLN) , or Eclair . Hardware Environment : Local: Raspberry Pi-based platforms (e.g., RaspiBlitz , Umbrel ). Remote: VPS/cloud instance with SSD storage, 4GB+ RAM, and consistent uptime. Channel Capitalization : You'll need BTC to fund payment channels. Starting with 5...