Lightning Loop is a non-custodial service offered by Lightning Labs to bridge on-chain and off-chain Bitcoin using submarine swaps. This repository is home to the Loop client and depends on the Lightning Network daemon lnd. All of lnd’s supported chain backends are fully supported when using the Loop client: Neutrino, Bitcoin Core, and btcd.
In the current iteration of the Loop software, only off-chain to on-chain swaps are supported, where the Loop client sends funds off-chain in exchange for the funds back on-chain. This is called a Loop Out.
The service can be used in various situations:
- Acquiring inbound channel liquidity from arbitrary nodes on the Lightning network
- Depositing funds to a Bitcoin on-chain address without closing active channels
- Paying to on-chain fallback addresses in the case of insufficient route liquidity
Loop also allow offers an experimental testnet version of on-chain to off-chain swaps, called Loop In. This allows you to use on-chain funds to increase the local balance of a channel.
Potential uses for Loop In:
- Refilling depleted channels with funds from cold-wallets or exchange withdrawals
- Servicing off-chain Lightning withdrawals using on-chain payments, with no funds in channels required
- As a failsafe payment method that can be used when channel liquidity along a route is insufficient
The Loop client is current in an early beta state, and offers a simple command line application. Future APIs will be added to support implementation or use of the Loop service.
The GitHub issue tracker can be used to request specific improvements or register and get help with any problems. Community support is also available in the LND Slack .
LND and the loop client are using Go modules. Make sure that the GO111MODULE
env variable is set to on.
In order to execute a swap, You need to run lnd 0.6.0+, or master built with sub-servers enabled.
If you are building from source, and not using a 0.6.0 or higher release of
lnd, make sure that you are using the master branch of lnd. You can get this
by git cloning the repository
git clone https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd.git
Once the lnd repository is cloned, it will need to be built with special build tags that enable the swap. This enables the required lnd rpc services.
cd lnd
make install tags="signrpc walletrpc chainrpc invoicesrpc routerrpc"
Check to see if you have already installed lnd. If you have, you will need to
delete the .macaroon files from your lnd directory and restart lnd.
Do not delete any other files other than the .macaroon files
// Example on Linux to see macaroons in the default directory:
ls ~/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet
This should show no .macaroon files. If it does? Stop lnd, delete macaroons,
restart lnd.
lncli stop
Now delete the .macaroon files and restart lnd. (don't delete any other files)
After lnd is installed, you will need to clone the Lightning Loop repo and install the command line interface and swap client service.
git clone https://github.com/lightninglabs/loop.git
cd loop/cmd
go install ./...
After you have lnd and the Loop client installed, you can execute a Loop swap.
The Loop client needs its own short-lived daemon which will deal with the swaps in progress.
Command to start loopd::
loopd
// Or if you want to do everything in the same terminal and background loopd
loopd &
// For testnet mode, you'll need to specify the network as mainnet is the
default:
loopd --network=testnet
By default loopd attempts to connect to the lnd instance running on
localhost:10009 and reads the macaroon and tls certificate from ~/.lnd.
This can be altered using command line flags. See loopd --help.
loopd only listens on localhost and uses an unencrypted and unauthenticated
connection.
Now that loopd is running, you can initiate a simple Loop Out. This will pay out Lightning off-chain funds and you will receive Bitcoin on-chain funds in return. There will be some chain and routing fees associated with this swap.
loop out <amt_in_satoshis>
This will take some time, as it requires an on-chain confirmation. When the
swap is initiated successfully, loopd will see the process through.
To query in-flight swap statuses, run loop monitor.
When loopd is terminated (or killed) for whatever reason, it will pickup
pending swaps after a restart.
Information about pending swaps is stored persistently in the swap database.
Its location is ~/.loopd/<network>/loop.db.
It is possible to execute multiple swaps simultaneously. Just keep loopd running.