This text guide will help beginners to take
advantage of the newly added Bitcoin Lightning Network (or LN for short)
deposit option on CryptoGames. The Lightning Network offers both very fast
deposit times, with deposits being credited within a few seconds, and low fees,
currently a deposit via the Lightning Network will only be subject to a 1% fee
charged by our payment provider and a few Satoshis (0.0000000X BTC) of LN
routing fees. This is especially interesting for those users that make a lot of
deposits on CryptoGames. While it takes a little while to get a
Lightning-enabled wallet properly set-up, once you’ve done the steps, you can
benefit from the advantages with every single deposit you make afterwards. Depositing
via LN is cheaper and faster than on-chain BTC deposits, but how do you use it?
In three sections we will cover how to install a Lightning Network enabled
wallet, how to set up your first channel, if you don‘t know what that is yet,
don’t fear as it will be covered too, and finally how to use your wallet and
the channel you just set up to make „lightning fast“ deposits at CryptoGames.
While this guide is targeted at beginners, LN as a layer-2 solution is a bit
more complex than a simple on-chain Bitcoin transactions, so a basic level of
understanding about Bitcoin is recommended, albeit not required.

Section 1: Choosing and installing a Lightning-enabled
Wallet
The first step towards using the Lightning Network is
installing a wallet that is capable of interacting with LN. Most current common
Bitcoin wallets do not have this feature, so you most likely will have to
install additional software. Check first if your current wallet is
Lightning-enabled. If it is not, there’s a number of different wallets you can
choose from. Please keep in mind that most lightning wallets are beta software.
We cannot guarantee that the wallet you choose will always work as intended.
Also we cannot guarantee fort he continued support of any software named here,
so, and this is important, do your own research and make sure you’ve covered
all aspects, before installing any software. CryptoGames will not be
responsible for possible losses you make when using any of the wallets named
here.
Our video example is using the zap
wallet, which is available on MacOS, iOS, Android and Windows (the Windows
version being the one used in the video). Other popular lightning wallets are Eclair
Mobile on Android, Breez on iOS and
Android, or Joule which integrates
with your own node as a browser extension.
Section 2: Opening your first channel
In order to open a channel, which is a connection between
your wallet and another party in the Lightning Network and allows you to send
and receive funds, you need some BTC in the on-chain section of your lightning-enabled wallet. Navigate to the
section where you can find the address (it is either a 3-prefix P2SH address or
a bc1-prefix bech32 address) of your wallet and send some funds to it. How much
you send will limit how much you can spend via the Lightning Network, but don‘t worry, you can open additional
channels later and spend more coins that way.
Once your transaction has been confirmed and you have the
funds in your lightning enabled wallet, switch over to the lightning enabled
section of the wallet. The next step is to open a channel. Most wallets allow
you to open a channel with a few predetermined hub-nodes, which is advisable as
those are well connected. Eclair Mobile eg allows you to open a channel with
one of ACINQ’s hubs. If your wallet does not have such a list of hub nodes, one
of the bigger hubs is the node of Y'alls
you can try connecting to. Once you have selected the amount you want to commit
to the wallet, remember this is the
amount of funds you will be able to spend via LN (minus fees), the next step is to send the channel-opening transaction. Shortly
afterwards your channel should become available, which means now you’re ready
to go and start using the Lightning Network.
Section 3: Making Lighting Network deposits on
CryptoGames
Now to the final step. After you have set up your wallet and
opened a channel, you are done with the setup phase of using the Lightning
Network, from now on, you are able to send and receive funds via LN. To do so,
you will need a lightning network invoice, a message that tells your wallet (or the wallet of
the person sending funds to you) where the funds are going and how much it is
supposed to send. Open your CryptoGames account and select the game you want to
play, with Bitcoin as the currency to play with. Now click „Your Account“ and
select the „Deposit“ option. In the top you will find the section „Lightning
Network“. Now you can select the amount you want to deposit. As said earlier,
the amount is determined by the invoice, not selected in your wallet, so only
select an amount you are willing to send, as you can‘t change it once the
invoice is created. Click „Create Payment Request“ and you will be redirected
to a page with the invoice for your deposit. If you are using a mobile wallet
and browse CryptoGames on your PC, you can simply scan the QR code in your
wallet. If that‘s not
possible, copy and paste the invoice text starting with lnbc. Confirm the
details of the invoice in your wallet and wait for the payment to be routed to
our node. After a few seconds, the amount will be credited to your account.
Congratulations, you’ve just made your first lightning-enabled Bitcoin deposit
at CryptoGames. From now on, you can make all your Bitcoin deposits via LN and
take advantage of the channel you just set up. Of course you can also use the
channel to send Bitcoin payments to other services and merchants that have
already integrated LN. Some examples (we don not endorse any of these services
or guarantee they are safe to use, do your own research and use them at your
own risk) are BitRefill, Spendl, Bitcart
and more.
Bonus (Section 4: Technical details)
This guide only focused on how the Lightning Network works from a user perspective, teaching you how to get started using the Lightning Network yourself, it did not explore how the technology behind it works. If you are curious about the lightning network but want to know more about the technology behind it before using it, we’d recommend reading this
technical Beginner’s Guide by Binance Academy.