Lightning Network convinced me to run a full node.

Ive been here since a long time and I've never really had a compelling reason to run a full node other than to verify my own transactions. But since the inception of the lightning network and all the funny / cool / silly apps that are cropping up, I decided to fire up my own to explore the programmability of layer 2. I feel like L2 has the potential to attract more web devs and js script kids like myself to this space.

Has there been a significant increase in nodes since the inception of LN?

Edit: Would also like to mention that im running on a pi3b+ i found for $30 with a 1tb external hard drive that cost me like $50. Im using the memory card to boot from an usb stick because my mmc kept getting corrupted. Syncing took pretty long like 5 weeks, dont know if that is normal, but might have to do with my setup.

Edit 2: I followed this excellent guide https://github.com/Stadicus/guides/blob/master/raspibolt/README.md

Submitted August 24, 2018 at 07:02PM by shtcoinr https://ift.tt/2PByoAm