guides/en/lnurlp.md

What is a lightning address?

A lightning address looks like a human readable email address, for example username@domain.com, but actually allows you to be paid in bitcoin instantaneously and cheaply, without needing an online node on your device and manually generating an invoice every time someone wants to pay you.

Pretty cool, no?

So how does it work?

It works using the LNURL pay protocol, a layer on top of the Lightning Network.

Here's a simple diagram of what is happening in the background.

In short, when a user wants to pay you using your Lightning Address, their wallet converts the Lightning Address into a LNURL payRequest. A successful LNURL payRequest is then used to obtain a BOLT11 invoice.

💡 Lightning Address > LNURLp > BOLT 11 invoice.

Sounds good, but what's the catch?

At the moment most Lightning Address implementations are custodial, because a domain is needed for Lightning Addresses to work. Because it's custodial, the custodian can rug you at any time and monitor your transactions.

You need to trust the owner of the domain not to change the record of your Lightning Address. And it doesn't work if the LNURL server is not online.

Bitcoin Txoko offers a simple Lightning Address solution backed by LNbits. This too is custodial so please only keep a small amount in your Bitcoin Txoko wallet and withdraw to your self-custodial wallet as you receive more sats!

I'm ready, what do I need to start?

All you need is a mobile phone or computer and an Internet connection!

1. Creating your wallet

If you haven't done so already, go to https://bitcointxoko.com and add a new wallet. You can name it whatever you want.

⚠️ Make sure you save the link to your wallet so you can access it later! A good way to do this is to save it in your password manager, such as Bitwarden.

2. Activate extensions

The extension LNURLp is needed for Lightning Addresses to work.

Go to Extensions in the toolbar and activate LNURLp.

3. Creating your pay link

Go to the LNURLp extension and click on New Pay Link.

Choose the wallet you have created.

For the Item Description, you can enter whatever you want.

Choose a your Lightning Address username. Your Lightning Address will look like username@bitcointxoko.com.

Uncheck Fixed Amount and change the Min value to 1 and Max value to 500000.

⚠️ You can also change the Max value to something higher, but larger payments are more likely to fail due to the limited inbound channel capacity of the Bitcoin Txoko Lightning node. So we recommend keeping it at 500000 sats.

Now open Advanced Options and change the Comment maximum characters to 799. This step is not required but allows more functionalities later on.

Check Enable nostr zaps at the bottom, so that you can use your Lightning Address to receive zaps.

The other Advanced options are optional, you can configure them if you want, or leave them blank.

In the end it should look something like this.

When you've checked everything is correct, go ahead and click on Create Pay Link.

Testing

You can test if your new Lightning Address works by going to another wallet, going to Send and typing in your Lightning Address as the destination, then send yourself a few sats.

Go back to your Bitcoin Txoko wallet and check if you've received your own payment. You might need to refresh the page.

If everything worked correctly, congratulations! 🥳

If not, let us know. We are always here to help.

Next steps

Nostr zaps

You can add your Bitcoin Txoko Lightning Address to your nostr profile and use it to receive zaps. On most clients this is done by going to Profile > Edit > Lightning Address and changing the Lightning Address.

LNDhub

You can import your LNbits wallet as a LNDhub onto your phone using an app like Zeus or BlueWallet, instead of visiting the wallet link every time you want to check your balance or make a payment. Check out our [guide] on how to do this.

QR code

You can also share or print your LNURLp QR code so people can easily scan it with their phones. Very useful if you're onboarding your favourite local merchant so that they can receive Lightning tips!

Simply share the link to your Sharable Page,

or print the QR code as a PDF by going to View Link > Print.