Bitcoin’s Lightning Network unlocks brand new monetization opportunities on the internet.
By removing intermediaries and working with a scalable, peer-to-peer trade infrastructure, people are stacking sats like never before with some unique new Lightning applications.
If you’re new to bitcoin, these processes may seem a bit confusing. But don’t worry; bitcoin is supposed to simplify our financial lives, not complicate them further. Let’s quickly break down the Lightning Network so you have a more clear vision as to how you can stack sats with it.
Understanding The Lightning Network
The Lightning Network is a second layer built on top of bitcoin that creates an off-chain channel to facilitate its own set of transactions.
These Lightning channels can remain open indefinitely until the transactors close the channel. Sats on the Lightning Network can move much more freely between each other as compared to the base chain.
And since it’s built on bitcoin, you can enjoy the Lightning Network’s capabilities entirely trustlessly – assuming you have the right tools for the job.
What Is Stacking Sats?
Stacking sats is just a catchy way to say that you’re buying bitcoin. But more specifically, you can treat “stacking sats” as an investment strategy, of course.
“Sats” is short for satoshis; the term that bitcoiners coined for each of the 100 million sats that make up a full bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC). Thus, stacking sats typically refers to smaller, consistent purchases; but of course, “small” amounts are relative to each individual.
Along with “stack sats”, bitcoiners often say “stay humble.” Together: “Stack sats, stay humble.”
Navigating markets is much more difficult than it may look at first glance, so keep this advice in mind when diving into uncharted territory – especially when you have money involved. Don’t be fooled into thinking bitcoin is a smooth sailing ride; expect to hit a lot of turbulence as you stack sats.
If you ignore the noise and stick to a consistent stacking strategy, however, you won’t feel the turbulence, and your experience may look more like the left than it would the right.
Rather than having a high time preference and falling into the pursuit of money, adopt a low-time preference mindset and focus on providing value for the long term – wealth tends to find those who aren’t thinking about it.
And thanks to Lightning, there are plenty of new opportunities to stack sats online and set yourself up for long-term success.
How Can I Stack Sats With Lightning?
Let’s first dive into a couple of the most fun, higher time-preference ways to stack sats online before taking a look at some lower time-preference methods to help you build sustainable passive satoshi-stacking streams using Lightning.
1. Listening To Podcasts
Now it may sound too good to be true, but that’s the beauty of the Lightning Network.
Fountain provides a podcast streaming platform that pays its users for engaging and listening to content. Not only can you stack sats just for listening to podcasts, but you can also tip podcast creators and support the value they provide on the platform.
A perfect way to both learn and earn; Fountain is just one of the many boundary-pushing ways that people are stacking sats online.
2. Nostr & Stacker News
Buying bitcoin directly self-custodially entirely on Lightning is pretty cool, but DCAing bitcoin with Lightning may not be as exciting as some of the other ways you can stack sats with it.
Lightning gets really interesting when applied to social media.
First and foremost is Nostr: a decentralized social protocol that leverages Lightning to enable censorship-resistant, value-driven social interaction.
Instead of vanity metrics such as Instagram or TikTok likes, Nostr integrates zaps – essentially a “like” but infused with real value, denominated in BTC. Zapping a poster’s content sends an instant micropayment of satoshis to the author, all facilitated over Lightning.
Nostr is using Lightning to let thousands of people around the world move miniscule amounts of money – fractions of a cent – instantly to one another, without relying on any intermediary, monetizing online social interaction in never-before possible ways.
The nuance here, as Nostr may sound too good to be true, is that onboarding requires a bit more knowledge that newcomers may not have, like public keys, private keys, proper self custody, and other basic Bitcoin fundamentals.
Other Lightning-based social platforms are leaning into the internet’s current centralization to streamline onboarding and get new users stacking sats with Lightning.
Stacker News stands out as one of the most popular.
Unlike Nostr, Stacker News is custodial, meaning that the sats you earn on the platform just represent an IOU until you withdraw them to your own wallet. Thankfully, withdrawing just requires a connected Lightning wallet, and it has no minimum thresholds.
Stacker News takes inspiration from Hacker News and Reddit, replacing the classic “upvote” with a Nostr-like zap function. Every time you zap a post, you’ll see lightning bolts shoot across your screen.
Go get zapping and experience the circular economies being built up in the bitcoin space!
3. Bitcoin Games
Bitcoin is becoming more and more user-friendly as the years go on. Now that full-on educational Bitcoin books for children have hit the market, younger minds are more easily able to wrap their heads around bitcoin and what money is.
Along with books, developers are creating Bitcoin games to appeal to both younger and older audiences alike, and to show off all the cool ways you can use Lightning to stack sats.
THNDR Games is a mobile game developer for iOS and Android that offers a full suite of different games revolving around sat stacking.
From Tetro Tiles to Solitaire, Bitcoin Snake and more, THNDR offers plenty of different fun mobile games for you to stack sats with.
4. Dollar Cost Averaging On Lightning
To dollar cost average (DCA) is to gradually allocate a consistent amount of money over time so that it takes the pressure off of timing the market. People who DCA embrace conventional wisdom of having time in the market as opposed to trying to time the market.
For most of bitcoin’s history, mining bitcoin, buying bitcoin directly on-chain, or buying IOUs on centralized exchanges and taking self custody have been the dominant ways of stacking sats. However, new Lightning-based exchanges let you stack sats entirely on the Lightning network as opposed to the main chain.
Now, this may not seem as exciting, but new projects are building Lightning-based exchanges to make dollar cost averaging (DCA) bitcoin easier than ever.
10101.finance (Ten-Ten-One) is a bitcoin project that’s spearheading this innovation. It’s a fully self-custodial mobile wallet that works both on and off-chain, meaning it functions with both the base layer and the Lightning Network.
But why might you want to dollar cost average on Lightning-based exchange rather than traditional on-chain or centralized options?
It’s simple, really: Lightning makes trading easier and faster than ever before.
You’ll spend virtually nothing on fees, and enjoy the seamless integration with the rest of the Bitcoin protocol, making it extremely easy to move off into cold storage or elsewhere.
5. Run A Lightning Node
Full Bitcoin nodes aren’t the only way you can support Bitcoin transaction validation. Payments on Lightning are growing increasingly quick – and they need nodes to run through.
By running a Lightning node of your own, you can collect channel fees directly from transactions being routed through your node.
Beyond routing transactions, you can also stack sats with Lightning nodes by providing channel liquidity – essentially receiving payments for opening Lightning channels with other parties.
Running a Lightning node is a perfect way to support the network and stack sats on the side, and while the payout may not be large for individual Lightning node providers, it’s just one more piece of the puzzle to truly optimize your sat stacking potential with Lightning.
If setting up your own node sounds like a bit of a headache, consider using Lightning node hosting services such as Voltage, which also help out with the next sat-stacking method: integrating Lightning with your own small business!
6. Integrate Lightning With Your Business
Do you own a small business that sells products online or in-person? As a merchant, the Lightning Network is your best friend to help you stack sats more easily.
With an open Lightning channel running on your node, you can take just a few more tiny steps to fully integrate Lightning with your small business. And with hosting services, you can set up Lightning payments without any additional hardware to begin with.
Offer the option to pay with bitcoin, both on-chain or with Lightning, and even consider including a small discount to incentivize more payments with bitcoin.
Many people simply treat bitcoin as an investment, but the real magic of bitcoin starts to click when you begin earning it as money. It lets you reach more potential customers and you gain a better understanding of how bitcoin can work both as a medium of exchange and as a savings technology.
If you don’t think it’s possible, look at what others are doing!
#Bitcoin empowers the world 🌍 🇵🇪
Watch till the end, please 🧡 pic.twitter.com/8b8uR5wPhM
— Joe Nakamoto ⚡️ (@JoeNakamoto) September 23, 2023
7. Accept Lightning Donations
Now that you have a proper Lightning wallet set up to receive business payments, consider using it for donations too!
There are countless ways to share your Lightning address, but one of the most clear and simple ways to present it for customers is with a QR code.
You can generate a Lightning invoice that’s embedded into a QR code so that anyone can easily scan and send sats to it. It’s as easy as taking a picture, and requires no personal information.
If you’d like to see just how easy it is to donate using Lightning, consider trying it yourself and donating to support this website!
Final Thoughts
With the implementation of Lightning, everyday transactions are set to become easier and cheaper than ever before.
Bitcoin is removing the friction in getting money from the sender to the receiver. Just as all technology does, the Bitcoin and Lightning networks made breakthroughs in discovering new ways to cut costs and inefficiencies that weren’t available prior to it.
By taking advantage of the latest ways to stack sats with Lightning, you’ll be more familiarized with the underlying technology and feel more comfortable interacting in the evolving financial system.
In many ways, the Lightning Network is in its own “Bitcoin faucet” era. There are tons of great options available to earn small amounts of bitcoin online for not much relative effort. Now that you have a better idea of what bitcoin and the Lightning Network can offer, take advantage of it before the faucet dries up.
You used to be able to just click and button and receive bitcoin “from the faucet”, but in today’s world, bitcoin requires a lot more proof of work. While easier options like Fountain are a no-brainer method to stack sats with Lightning, passively, while also learning about bitcoin, the relative payout isn’t nearly as rewarding as putting in the work to integrate Lightning into your regular income streams.
If you offer value to people, give them the chance to offer you valuable money in return.
Bitcoin isn’t just an investment. If bitcoiners want mainstream adoption, it will take more than just draining exchanges of it to usher in full hyperbitcoinization. Merchants and customers need to be incentivized, and Lightning innovations like the ones shared here go to show just how rewarding bitcoin can be for both parties in every transaction.
FAQs About Stacking Sats With Lightning
Q: How many sats are in one bitcoin?
A: 1 BTC contains 100,000,000 satoshis, however, that limit is able to be extended in case there’s future need for further denomination.
Q: What are the best ways to stack sats with Lightning?
A: For more novel ways to stack sats with Lightning, you can stack sats by listening to podcasts with Fountain, participating on Lightning-based social media platforms, or playing Bitcoin games. Harder, but potentially more sustainable ways to stack sats with Lightning include dollar cost averaging with Lightning-based exchanges, running a Lightning node, and earning sats through a Lightning integration with your small business.
Q: What do I need to stack sats with Lightning?
A: Depending on how you want to stack sats, simple mobile/computer applications may be all that’s necessary to start stacking sats. However, for more involved methods like incorporating Lightning into your business, additional hardware may be necessary, such as LND software, compatible point-of-sale (POS) systems, and more.
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