[Lightning] The future just arrived at my doorstep!

I used Lightning Network’s mainnet (via lnd) to purchase an AR300M VPN Router through TorGuard, and it’s here! This may have been the first ever physical purchase on LN.

I’m just your average BTC enthuasiast, who had a bit of extra time last weekend. I saw TorGuard’s tweet, so I decided to contact them. I enquired as to purchasing more than just a monthly subscription, their staff gave me LN peering information, I opened a channel, received an invoice, and here we are!

It was all quick, easy, painless, and most importantly: instantaneous and fee-free!
 

Proof:
https://www.smartbit.com.au/tx/faffc6bebff621f53d6c2d603e0d9c98a133597dff7bed06b2602242fae992d7
^ the funding transaction for my channel (~$2.40 fee to open).

2018-01-15 10:45:19.087 [DBG] PEER: Received UpdateFufillHTLC(chan_id=d792e9fa422260b206ed7bff7d5933a1989c0d3e602d6c3df521f6bfbec6fffb, id=1, pre_image=5610f4ca5a772b331bd8bfbad73ae3827f33f492fea9e1a6bb189feb88daf66d) from 165.227.171.75:9735
^ the preimage (receipt) for my payment.
 

Bonus: due to TorGuard having channels open with vendors and users, I have been able to use this same channel to route payments to/from others ~8-10 times, and even to tip someone satoshi! It. Is. Awesome!
 

Disclaimers:
- I have a strong computer science and network engineering background. However, I did not have to code anything to accomplish this, and am confident someone with average technical skills could’ve done the same.
- I had no prior relationship with TorGuard, and now have a VPN subscription with them and one of their products!
- Mainnet is still caveat emptor! I went down the rabbit hole fully willing to lose my BTC. I got lucky, others may not!
 

tl;dr lightning rocks, buy stuff with it (when mainnet goes live)

Edit: I used lnd, but have heard of potential 'money losing' bugs with c-lightning (which torguard uses); please be careful out there folks!

Submitted January 20, 2018 at 12:32AM by btc_throwaway1337 http://ift.tt/2mWlGQ6