Let's Try A Mobile Wallet
The lifecycle of a payment between two people
Enough talk! Let's try this in action.
Person A: Make The Invoice
The person who is going to receive the funds starts first. The person who is going to receive the funds goes into their lightning wallet, and generates an invoice.
You can see that there is QR code. That works well if you are going to pay the invoice from another phone (or other device with a camera), but you can also copy the invoice as a simple text string, in this case:
lnbc1m1pj7uhkwpp5xpgua0xkadxuq40r303d7uxmy3wguvr6j2dt943p6nsv4xuqmd0sdqqcqzzsxqrrssrzjqvgptfurj3528snx6e3dtwepafxw5fpzdymw9pj20jj09sunnqmwpapyqqqqqqzh9cqqqqlgqqqqqqgq9qsp5karh0f8xqvc2ujlet6w50r6xfqd2na0vwudftdxrk9en75zjt5ys9qyyssqmpl8fykw68gpj0ex8zppn6u98jsjg85675y96rqf9279g0xvzhrhf7zr6ycdqdx7y9qr9jn6gxg2qzmg5jknszqxqvfy6xwkalmfwxqq66mg50
Person B: Pay The Invoice
Now the person who is going to pay the invoice goes into their Lightning wallet, and scans the QR code or pastes the invoice text.
And less than a second later....
Are we done here?
Potentially, yes. If all you want from this guide is a bit of background on the Lightning Network, and a quick demo of how it works, then you can stop here.
You now know enough, actually more than enough, to use the Lightning Network to send and receive payments.
There are multiple Lightning wallets to choose from, and you can use them on your phone.
But: If you want to get deeper into this, then let's discuss some of the trade-offs involved with running your own node...