In case some of you freaks missed it, last night we here at the Ƀent and the overarching TFTC network launched a website. Some of you may actually be reading this issue on that site right now. (Thanks for the page views.) This was an incredibly fun learning experience for Uncle Marty as we are trying to make the commerce aspect of the site as Bitcoin native as possible. This involved integrating BTCPayServer throughout the site, which involved running BTC/LN nodes that need to be managed. Up to this point, at least in my experience, handling the management of Lightning Network node channels has been a bit of a struggle.

As you all know by now, ya boi isn't the most technically savvy person in the world, so the less work I need to do in the command line, the better. Fortunately for me, Jack Mallers and the incredible team behind Zap recently launched an iOS app that iPhone users can download to remotely control their nodes from their phones. I have to be honest here... it was magical. I haven't been this impressed by an app, let alone a Bitcoin-specific app, in quite a while. The intuitiveness with which one is able to fund a LN node and open channels within the app is unparalleled IMO. As you can see from the screenshot above, it's very easy to see where my sending and receiving capacities stand within each channel that I have set up. This has severely reduced a mental cost that previously dissuaded me from using the LN too much, worrying about where my capacity on either of the channel stood at any given point in time.

The "History" tab allows me to see users creating and paying (or ignoring) invoices in real-time so I can follow how people are interacting with the commerce aspects of our site on the go, from anywhere. This is an extremely comforting feeling, as I do not need to be at my desk to track my business with ease. And the wallet tab is as simple as it gets, allowing users to send or receive BTC onchain or via LN while displaying your balance denominated in satoshis and dollars (or whatever native currency you choose).

The vision is coming together, freaks. And it's coming together beautifully. Slowly but surely, wiley entrepreneurs continue to prove the haters wrong by building Bitcoin products that even an idiot like me can use with extreme ease.

Final thought...

Biopsies, there needs to be a better way.