Although the Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN) is only in early stages of it's life & has many challenges to overcome, I'm personally experiencing a lot of utility already!

Before I get into my top 10, I highly recommend getting yourself a node - CasaHodl & MyNodeBTC both produce good products that are super easy to use. Basically by having a node, you become the bank & have complete control of your money - Self-sovereignty. As the Lightning Network grows, so will the fees collected by your node. While Bitcoin on-chain fees are cheap, I definitely recommend opening at least a dozen channels (inbound & outbound liquidity). If you send a msg to this post, I may provide a few people with some inbound liquidity. If you wish to connect to mine, search bitcoin2009/bitcoin2009-2 on 1ml.com (both are available 24/7 with long-term channels).

So here are my Top 10:

1. Buy digital gift cards with www.bitrefill.com  - These guys have solved a massive issue; Spending your Bitcoin & completely leap-frogging your fiat currency. Using Lightning, you are able are to carryout transactions much more privately & a lot faster with far less fees. You can buy Lightning Bitcoin directly on exchanges like www.fixedfloat.com, however I definitely recommend buying a node as stated previously.

2. Become your own ad network using  banners.etleneum.com - Here you are able to log in using a LNAUTH enabled wallet (Recommend BLW wallet), copy their HTML code and paste it in your website. You can then receive Bitcoin on Lightning from people who want to promote their site or service using a small area of your site.

3. Using paywall.link create a faucet on you site to drive more traffic - In the past creating a faucet required a lot of knowledge and much more financial risk. Thanks to the Lightning Network & mirco-payments, this is now a breeze - you'll see how easy it is to create a customized faucet then copy the HTML code. I have a daily 1000 sat faucet on my page, if you want to try claim it -  bitcoin2009.com .

4. Freelance micro-tasks with microlancer.io - Create tasks or complete tasks to earn sats. I've been using this site the last couple of months and I can tell you it's one of the best. They have a built-in escrow service to protect both parties and you can withdraw instantly on Lightning.

5. Promote an ad or get a general message out using the Telegram lntxbot - I receive and send on this service and highly recommend it. You can start earning small amounts of sats just by receiving ads.

To start receiving type the following 2 commands: /start   then    /sats4ads_on_15

To start transmitting a message; first deposit funds into your wallet using the command /invoice and the amount you wish to deposit. Check your /balance then type whatever you want to say and send it. Then select the message you just sent and reply to with the following command: /sats4ads_broadcast_1000  (or whatever amount of sats you want to spend). If you spend too much don't stress, the broadcast will just stop and the remaining sats with be available in your balance.

6. Read/Publish articles on yalls.org - Get paid through your node. The creator of this site Alex Bosworth, is a major Lightning developer, he created this site as a way for people to test lightning. I personally believe it will eventually grow much larger and will see a lot more traffic one day.

7.  sats4likes is a platform disrupting promoted tweets, paid in sats & much cheaper - If you want more likes/retweets/views this is the place to do it. It is extremely cost effective & it currently has over 10 thousand users. You will pay 100x more using Twitter to promote, and you will achieve the same outcome.

8. tippin.me - Tip anyone with this link in their Twitter profile - Anyone can signup using their Twitter account. It is a custodial service so you don't control the funds, however it is definitely one of the most trusted in the space. It is extremely useful, as it does all the work for you and it's tied to your Twitter account.

9.  light-tube.eu upload your videos, then upvote for more visibility (funded in sats) - This is just another example of things to come for the Lightning Network. YouTube is one of the most adopted video streaming services currently, but I'm almost convinced the future will look completely different. People are sick of their content being censored due to political reasons etc. Check it out, not a bad little platform.

10. app.paid.co - is similar to microlancer.io, just with less users - Download the app from the Play Store, deposit and withdraw in Lightning. Earn sats & create tasks. 

There you have it, my top 10. Lightning innovation is absolutely exploding behind the scenes, it's definitely in your best interest to keep up-to-date with what's going on. The innovation being built is extremely disruptive in my opinion. To add to this, Lightning is built on top on Bitcoin, taking advantage of the most robust & hardest money system on the planet. I'm just an average guy with average skills, there's no reason why you can't utilize anything on this list for yourself too. Enjoy the Lightning Network, I doubt you'll regret spending the time to play with it.

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