Today we are revealing Node Heartbeats — a new way to privately, quickly and securely check that your Casa Node is working properly from anywhere in the world.



We are also launching Heartbeat SatsBack Reward, a weekly 10,000 SatsBack reward for any Casa Node customer that runs at least 5 Node Heartbeat checks in a week. That is one Heartbeat per day for at least 5 of 6 days in the week (then every Saturday is #StackinSats day!).



With Node Heartbeats and the Heartbeat SatsBack Reward you can:

Keep your Casa Node healthy. It’s now easy to avoid the worst way to find out your Node is offline—in the moments when you’re trying to use your node to send sats! Support the network. By keeping your Casa Node online, you are actively supporting the Bitcoin and Lightning networks. With each healthy node, the entire network gets stronger! Earn more Bitcoin. Not only are you supporting the Bitcoin and Lightning networks, but now with every Heartbeat sent, you work towards earning more Bitcoin with a weekly reward of 10,000 SatsBack!

Heartbeats Keep your Node Healthy

Unless you are sending payments daily, it's hard to keep track of your node's uptime and security.

If we're going to make Bitcoin nodes a foundation for everyday computing, we have to make sure there are better ways of keeping personal nodes up-to-date and online.

Node Heartbeats now make security checks easy – providing a clear way to do a daily check-up of your device. The checks are 100% private (using Tor!), very quick, and they can be sent from anywhere in the world.

We also include short "Did You Know" tips in each Heartbeat check, helping Casa Node owners learn even more about Bitcoin while they keep the network healthy!

If a Heartbeat ever fails, you'll know that you need to check your node device. The failure could be caused by your internet connectivity, a router or firewall issue, or even a node device failure. The sooner you know there's a problem, the sooner you can get it fixed, which means more healthy nodes and a much healthier Bitcoin network!

How the Node Heartbeat works

To check that your node is online, we make a very brief connection from our server to your Casa Node. For this to be possible, your node must be online, synced, and with Tor activated. And with Tor, that means the Node Heartbeat preserves your privacy.

How do we preserve privacy? The Node Heartbeat only uses your node's connection code – the same code that is already publicly available on explorers and that you provide to others who want to open a channel with you. Sats App sends the code automatically for you when you send a Heartbeat, so you don't have to worry about looking it up.



To make this extra clear – we NEVER collect IP address, network details, router details, transaction details, or any other data on your node or network. We simply use the publicly available connection code to make an attempted connection, then log that a connection succeeded or failed (along with the time that this happened).

Earn Bitcoin with Node Heartbeats

The concept is simple – prove your Casa Node is online and supporting the network on 5 days in the week, and Casa will give you a weekly reward every Saturday!

It’s easy for anyone to do with just a single tap in Sats App once per day.

With a large 10,000 SatsBack reward every week, we hope to incentivize even more people to run nodes and support the Bitcoin network.

We plan to continue these Heartbeat SatsBack rewards for a long-time to come, incentivizing faster node network growth. Over time we may increase or decrease the total weekly SatsBack reward for sending Heartbeat checks to your Casa Node. If the price of Bitcoin spikes, it will take a lot lower reward amount to have an impact!

The Heartbeat SatsBack Reward is a fun and easy way for people to prove they are supporting Bitcoin, keep their Casa Node healthy, and learn even more about Bitcoin. But it's only one way to earn Bitcoin with Casa.

Bringing BTC to Millions of People

SatsBack rewards can help people learn about, use and support Bitcoin.

In order for Bitcoin to become widely viewed as more than a risky investment, people need ways to get it and use it. Mining is out of reach for most people, so the best way forward is to find alternative ways for millions to actually earn it - not just buy it.

One day, people will be able to receive their salary in Bitcoin and they’ll buy and sell goods using Bitcoin and Lightning. Until then, we're building SatsBack rewards to broaden access and availability of Bitcoin today.

We’ll be announcing more ways to earn Bitcoin in the future with our SatsBack rewards program. In the meantime, get your Casa Node connected to Sats App and start earning Heartbeat SatsBack rewards!

Need a Casa Node?

Buy a Casa Node now!

Don't have Sats App?

Apply for Sats App access now (available to everyone soon!).

Read on for more details on SatsBack and Node Heartbeats. And if you have questions or feedback, send it our way on Twitter at @SatsApp!

SatsBack Questions

What are the ways to earn SatsBack?

When you take specific actions in the Sats App, you earn SatsBack rewards, which you can withdraw to Bitcoin on your Mobile Key in Keymaster app.

For connecting a Casa Node to Sats App, you’ll earn 20,000 SatsBack rewards.

For sending at least 5 heartbeats in a week, you’ll earn 10,000 SatsBack rewards.

Check out our SatsBack rewards page for more information.

I already connected my node before this release. Did I miss out on the Node Connection SatsBack reward?

Nope! All you need to do is reconnect your Casa Node to claim the reward.

Disconnect your node by logging out of Sats App. Log in and reconnect your node. You'll receive SatsBack once completed.

How do I withdraw the SatsBack I’ve earned?

To withdraw your SatsBack rewards into Bitcoin, you’ll need to pass a threshold of 50,000 SatsBack points. We’ll process each day’s withdrawal requests once a day.

When you withdraw your Satsback rewards, they will be sent to the Mobile Key in your Keymaster app. If you do not have your Mobile Key created in your Keymaster app, please make sure to create it before requesting a withdrawal. Soon, we will make it even easier to manage the Mobile Key directly in Sats App, and all withdrawals will be sent here.

How does Casa pay for SatsBack rewards?

In short – word of mouth marketing from our customers is the most valuable organic growth we can invest in.



We regularly set aside a portion of revenue for marketing / sales expenses, and are always looking for creative ways to spend that will spread the word on Bitcoin and Casa. We decided to take a portion of this budget and re-invest directly in our customers with SatsBack rewards!



This creates a clear set of incentives for new and old customers to follow best practices, lowers the overall cost of running a node, and spreads more Bitcoin.

Heartbeat Questions

What happens if I don’t get 5 Heartbeats in a week?

You won’t receive the reward for that week. You can start over the next week on Sunday. This is designed to be a great incentive to make sure your Node is healthy and supporting the Bitcoin network every day of the week!

When will I receive my SatsBack for a successful week of heartbeats?

The SatsBack rewards will be distributed each week at 9 am EST on Saturday (on #StackinSats Saturday, oh yeah!).

What are the privacy implications of sending heartbeats?

For us to check that your node is online, we need to know its Lightning connection code. Since your node is running over Tor, this code can’t be used to identify you or your location. We store the connection code to make heartbeats run smoothly, but this doesn’t allow us to see any detail about your node beyond what anyone could see in existing public Lightning Explorers (we also don’t go looking at that stuff anyway).

Why not automate the Heartbeat checks?

We have automated most of the Heartbeat check process, while also carefully protected client privacy and client control of the device. As we tested Heartbeats, it became clear that it is important for security checks to be initiated by Node owner both for sovereignty of our clients and for the education of Node owners. We will always work to make this process easier and more useful. Stay tuned for more updates to Heartbeat checks in the future!