Run a Bitcoin Node

The roots. A Bitcoin full node validates the chain independently, so your Lightning node trusts your own copy of the ledger rather than someone else’s. Running your own node is what makes the rest of the stack genuinely sovereign.

What this step covers

• Bitcoin Core (bitcoind): the reference full node. You install it, let it perform its initial block download, and keep it online.
• An RPC connection your Lightning node can reach, so Lightning can watch the chain and broadcast transactions.

Plan for the initial sync to take time and disk: a full node needs almost 1 TB of disk and can take a day or more to validate from genesis.

Pruned vs. full

LND runs fine against a pruned bitcoind, fetching any blocks it lacks from your node’s peers. But some of Orchard’s Bitcoin features work best with a full node, so that is what this guide sets up.

Follow MiniBolt’s Bitcoin guide

We do not reproduce these steps. MiniBolt’s Bitcoin section is the guide we recommend (see the guides we build on for why). Only the first page is required for an Orchard mint; the rest are optional add-ons. The install is the same whether you are on a home server or a VPS — the tips below just cover which pages matter and which you can skip.

Open MiniBolt: Bitcoin Install Bitcoin Core and let it sync, then come back here for Lightning.

General guide tips

• 2.1 Bitcoin client: Bitcoin Core (follow): Install and configure bitcoind. The RPC connection you set up here is what your Lightning node connects to in the next step.
• 2.3 Blockchain explorer: BTC RPC Explorer (optional, nice to have): Orchard does not have rich block exploration yet, so a local explorer like this or mempool.space are useful add-ons in the meantime.
• 2.2 Electrum server and 2.4 Desktop signing app: Sparrow (optional): Set these up only if you plan to also use this Bitcoin node as the backend for your own signing wallets. Fulcrum or Electrs are the Electrum server, Sparrow the desktop wallet that connects to it. The mint and Lightning node do not need either, so skip both otherwise.