Finally, we’re announcing that Lightning trades are available at hodlhodl.com.

From now on, everyone is able to buy bitcoins and receive them directly into their Lightning wallet & sell bitcoins directly from their Lightning wallet.

In this blog post we want to give instructions and explain how everything works.

Let’s get everything in order.

Overview

We have recently announced public testing of Lightning powered trades at testnet.hodlhodl.com, and testing itself passed successfully, thanks to those participated in it!

A few days ago our CEO gave a speech dedicated to the implementation of contracts on the Lightning Network at Hodl Hodl at the Bitcoin Lightning network Hack Day.

And now, we’re ready to launch Lighting Network contracts at Hodl Hodl.

How does it work?

For those familiar with Hodl Hodl, on the surface, the workflow remains almost the same:

A contract is created between buyer and seller; Seller deposits bitcoins from his Lightning wallet; Buyer pays the seller according to the agreed upon payment method; Seller releases bitcoins directly to the buyers Lightning wallet.

The only difference is that for the contract lifetime we hold funds in our Lightning wallet which protects both buyer and seller from scams, and the contracts become cheaper, faster & simpler.

Lightning Network contracts will not affect regular Bitcoin on-chain multisig contracts on Hodl Hodl: those will still be fully non-custodial and we won’t have access to your funds.

Step by step instruction

In this section, we describe a step by step process of buying & selling bitcoins in a peer-to-peer manner on the Lightning Network.

Go to hodlhodl.com & sign in; Change the exchange mode to Lightning;

We have separated the exchange modes for our customer’s convenience: On-chain & Lightning. If you want to trade:

On the base network, do nothing, the mode is called “On-chain” and is set by default.

When On-chain mode is selected, the site has a blue theme, with our standard logo

On the Lightning Network, press the Lightning button, in the header of site.

When Lightning mode is set, the site is purple & with a lightning icon on top of our logo.

After choosing one of the exchange modes, you are able to create new offers and contracts, see the offer list, and see where the trade will occur: either on-chain or on the Lightning network.

3. Create an offer or accept an existing one;

The offer creation process has changed only slightly, as there is only one minor difference between the two exchange modes.

4. Start of contract;

If you don’t want to wait until someone accepts your offer, you can accept one that already exists.

When someone accepts your offer, or you are accepting an existing one, a contract between you and your counterparty is created.

Next, the statuses of Lightning contracts on our exchange are explained in detail:

Contract status “Pending”;

This is the very beginning of the contract workflow. At this step, seller asks Hodl Hodl to generate the invoice & buyer is waiting.

Contract status “Depositing”;

We have generated the invoice for the seller & are waiting for him to pay it, by sending bitcoins to our wallet.

Only when seller deposits the funds, buyer can safely proceed with the payment.

Contract status “In progress”;

Seller has paid the invoice and sent bitcoins to our wallet. Buyer is informed about this and instructed to pay the seller.

Contract status “Paid”;

Buyer has made the payment to the seller and was instructed to submit the invoice for receiving funds.

When seller has received the payment, the invoice from the buyer is needed in order for seller to make a release from our Lightning wallet to the buyer’s Lightning wallet.

Contract status “Releasing”;

Buyer has entered the invoice for receiving funds & seller has been instructed to make a release when he has received the payment.

Contract status “Completed”;

Seller has received the payment from the buyer & released the bitcoins from our Lightning wallet to the buyer’s.

Contract is now completed!

Reporting issues

This is our first release on MAINNET and we admit there is a possibility of minor bugs occurring (not critical though), but the basic functionality is ready.

We’re already working on an improvement of the current implementation, and in the next few weeks we’ll release an update, the fixes will be mostly related to the user interface.

Feel free to report bugs, send us proposals, or any questions you have relating to Lightning contracts:

E-mail: support@hodlhodl.com

support@hodlhodl.com Telegram: @hodlhodl

Our nodes

We would appreciate it if you would connect to both our testnet and mainnet nodes & create public channels with them, in order to increase our inbound capacity.

Testnet node pubkey: 0316314db4eb542d17b9a7ac6f6651fcb319fd3da279197d4f09a890fc303ecf2d@178.63.16.7:9737

Mainnet node pubkey: 030bde3ee226b7cf456703811976e4241a929d11e5fc0549e9a1c6d10a8e23a738@178.63.16.7:9735

Reach us

Hodl Hodl exchange: hodlhodl.com

TESTNET Hodl Hodl exchange: testnet.hodlhodl.com

Predictions by Hodl Hodl: predictions-testnet.hodlhodl.com

TESTNET Predictions by Hodl Hodl: predictions.cc

E-mail: support@hodlhodl.com

Blog: https://medium.com/@hodlhodl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/hodlhodl

Telegram: https://t.me/HodlHodl

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/hodlhodl

Slack: https://goo.gl/zaMnCn

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hodlexchange

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgujEoZqX_FfDTLb3Uuhsdg

Hodl!