Your first Lightning
payment.
A sat is the smallest piece of a bitcoin: one bitcoin is 100,000,000 sats. Lightning is a layer on Bitcoin for small, fast payments. Four steps, then one sat on the wall.
Wallet, sats,
invoice, scan.
- 01Install a Lightning wallet
Custodial is fastest to start. Self-custodial keeps the sats on your phone, and nobody can recover them for you.
- 02Put a few thousand sats in it
Most wallets sell a small amount inside the app. An exchange can also pay you out over Lightning.
- 03Get an invoice
A string starting with lnbc, usually a QR code. One amount, one destination, ten minutes to pay.
- 04Scan it
It settles in about a second. If it arrives, the square is painted. If it fails, the sats never leave.
Expired invoice: nothing was taken. Ask for another. Short balance: leave room for a small routing fee. No route: try again or another wallet. If it worked, it is final. No chargeback.
Not financial advice. Affiliated with no wallet. Pay only what you are willing to lose.