This is Lightning Fork (github.com/paulscode/lightning-fork), a fork of
lnd that follows the Bitcoin BLAKE2b chain (Bitcoin Knots v29.4.1,
mainnet activation at height 961640 on 2026-08-30). It refuses to run against
a node on the SHA256d chain it shares a genesis block with, and refuses to
connect to one. It does not refuse to pay one: an invoice carries nothing
that says which of the two chains it belongs to, and what stops the payment is
that the two graphs do not meet. Read
docs/blake2b.md for what differs from lnd: the
activation-header check, the init networks handshake, the feature bits, and
the configuration options. It builds against
paulscode/btcd-blake2b, which
parses the 164-byte header and computes the BLAKE2b block id.
The identity constants another implementation needs to agree with are in
docs/blake2b-chain-identity.md: the feature
bit that says at init whether a node has upgraded, the gossip height floor,
which signatures opt into SIGHASH_UNIFIED and under which channel type, and
the same bit again in invoices and offers. chain_hash is the genesis hash
both sides share. Section 8 of that document covers the two designs this
daemon shipped and then withdrew, a chain_hash of its own and a BOLT 11
invoice prefix of its own, and what to do if you ran either.
The node mints BOLT 12 offers and serves and pays them over onion messages, which is how a mining pool that pays to offers pays a miner. Read docs/bolt12-offers.md.
To build it from source and run it next to a Bitcoin Knots node on your own
Linux machine, follow docs/native-ubuntu.md
(scripts/native-ubuntu.sh does the steps for you). On StartOS and Umbrel,
install it from their app stores.
Everything below this section is the upstream lnd README.
The Lightning Network Daemon (lnd) - is a complete implementation of a
Lightning Network node. lnd has several pluggable back-end
chain services including btcd (a
full-node), bitcoind, and
neutrino (a new experimental light client). The project's codebase uses the
btcsuite set of Bitcoin libraries, and also
exports a large set of isolated re-usable Lightning Network related libraries
within it. In the current state lnd is capable of:
- Creating channels.
- Closing channels.
- Completely managing all channel states (including the exceptional ones!).
- Maintaining a fully authenticated+validated channel graph.
- Performing path finding within the network, passively forwarding incoming payments.
- Sending outgoing onion-encrypted payments through the network.
- Updating advertised fee schedules.
- Automatic channel management (
autopilot).
lnd fully conforms to the Lightning Network specification
(BOLTs). BOLT stands for:
Basis of Lightning Technology. The specifications are currently being drafted
by several groups of implementers based around the world including the
developers of lnd. The set of specification documents as well as our
implementation of the specification are still a work-in-progress. With that
said, the current status of lnd's BOLT compliance is:
- BOLT 1: Base Protocol
- BOLT 2: Peer Protocol for Channel Management
- BOLT 3: Bitcoin Transaction and Script Formats
- BOLT 4: Onion Routing Protocol
- BOLT 5: Recommendations for On-chain Transaction Handling
- BOLT 7: P2P Node and Channel Discovery
- BOLT 8: Encrypted and Authenticated Transport
- BOLT 9: Assigned Feature Flags
- BOLT 10: DNS Bootstrap and Assisted Node Location
- BOLT 11: Invoice Protocol for Lightning Payments
The daemon has been designed to be as developer friendly as possible in order
to facilitate application development on top of lnd. Two primary RPC
interfaces are exported: an HTTP REST API, and a gRPC
service. The exported APIs are not yet stable, so be warned: they may change
drastically in the near future.
An automatically generated set of documentation for the RPC APIs can be found at api.lightning.community. A set of developer resources including guides, articles, example applications and community resources can be found at: docs.lightning.engineering.
Finally, we also have an active
Slack where protocol developers, application developers, testers and users gather to
discuss various aspects of lnd and also Lightning in general.
First-time contributors are highly encouraged to start with code review first, before creating their own Pull Requests.
In order to build from source, please see the installation instructions.
To run lnd from Docker, please see the main Docker instructions
- irc.libera.chat
- channel #lnd
- webchat
When operating a mainnet lnd node, please refer to our operational safety
guidelines. It is important to note that lnd is still
beta software and that ignoring these operational guidelines can lead to
loss of funds.
The developers of lnd take security very seriously. The disclosure of
security vulnerabilities helps us secure the health of lnd, privacy of our
users, and also the health of the Lightning Network as a whole. If you find
any issues regarding security or privacy, please disclose the information
responsibly by sending an email to security at lightning dot engineering,
preferably encrypted using our designated PGP key
(91FE464CD75101DA6B6BAB60555C6465E5BCB3AF) which can be found
here.