https://cdn.coincrispy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/RaspiBolt-2-2636584274-1521933192207-1068x534.jpg

I love patching and building things. I am also fascinated with digital currencies, so I recently built my own Bitcoin / Lighting Network node with a simple Raspberry Pi. Basically, now I have my own bank running, using open source software and some cheap hardware.

This project was about the learning process and the result. And I think I was successful: I learned a lot and my node works very well. This guide is my attempt to share my learning and I encourage you to build your own node.

## Why am I excited about Bitcoin and Lightning Network?

Bitcoin as a new technology is an incredibly interesting endeavor, especially because of its interdisciplinary nature. Bitcoin as healthy money is going to have a big impact on economic principles and society in general. In my opinion, a solid base layer and antifragile for this future monetary network is the main application of blockchain and will be more important than the most innovative features of the altcoins.

For the moment, Bitcoin is more than a store of value and is not really suitable for small daily transactions. Due to the limitations of the blockchain and the growth of its use, tariffs have risen and commercial models that depend on cheap transactions are leaving excluded. This is good. The truly decentralized blockchains are a scarce resource and can not be scaled to accommodate all global transactions. Current scale problems are a great motivator to build better technology to scale exponentially, rather than simply enlarge everything to the linear scale.

This is where Lightning Network comes in. As one of several new "extensions" of blockchain, its promise is to accommodate almost unlimited transactions, with instant payment confirmation, minimum rates and more privacy. It sounds almost too good to be true, but in contrast to the omnipresent ICO with its own token, this technology is well researched, committed to the open source spirit of cypherpunk and leverages the solid basics of Bitcoin.

To preserve the decentralized nature of this monetary system, I think it is important that everyone can run their own reliable Bitcoin node, preferably on cheap hardware such as the Raspberry Pi.

This is the reason why I set out to build my RaspiBolt and I believe that now I have, through numerous iterations, a pretty good configuration that I would like to share as my modest contribution to the community. I am not a systems specialist, so do not hesitate to point out improvements.