Several projects to make merchant adoption easier and cheaper

Onboarding merchants to the Lightning Network often presents significant usability challenges, primarily due to complex user interfaces and technical barriers. These obstacles tend to push merchants toward large custodial providers, resulting in an undesirable centralization of payments infrastructure. A recent set of projects aims to address these pain points, streamlining merchant adoption of Lightning and enhancing the experience for both users and developers.

One solution is the Electrum CLINK plugin, which eliminates the traditional need for merchants to expose their wallet machine to the internet or manually generate invoices for every transaction. By routing payment requests through nostr relays, this plugin allows Electrum wallet users to receive unsolicited Lightning payments securely and efficiently, removing a major friction point from the onboarding process. More details can be found at Electrum CLINK plugin.

Managing inbound liquidity on the Lightning Network has long been recognized as a hurdle, with existing solutions often relying on unreliable swap providers and cumbersome manual processes. The Electrum Liquidity Manager plugin automates inbound liquidity acquisition by systematically cycling through multiple swap providers until a successful swap occurs. This approach ensures that merchants maintain necessary liquidity without the frustration and inefficiency of repeated manual attempts, thus supporting ongoing business operations with minimal intervention. Further information is available at Electrum Liquidity Manager.

Another challenge for merchants is the technical barrier posed by command-line-only tools. Electrum’s built-in swap server offers valuable functionality for earning yield through swaps but is inaccessible to many due to its CLI-based operation. The Electrum Swap GUI addresses this by providing a user-friendly graphical interface, enabling broader participation in swap services and allowing users to control Electrum’s swapserver easily. This not only simplifies the process but also opens up new avenues for small-scale yield generation. The project can be accessed at Electrum Swap GUI.

Bringing these innovations together, BareBits merchant software serves as a comprehensive alternative to more resource-intensive platforms like BTCPay Server. While BTCPay typically requires merchants to provision a VPS and bear ongoing operational costs, BareBits can be deployed on standard web hosting or even installed directly onto a Windows desktop with one click. It connects to wallets using CLINK, NWC, or LNURL protocols, directing customer payments straight into Electrum wallets. Full compatibility with BTCPay means that all plugins and integrations—such as WooCommerce and Magento—work seamlessly with BareBits, simply by updating the service URL. The software operates under a 1% fee model, but retains open-source, privacy-preserving, and self-hosted attributes. Additionally, for those seeking simplified liquidity management, integration with a cashu mint provides an automated mechanism for handling Lightning funds. Comprehensive documentation and code are provided at BareBits cashupayserver.

Collectively, these projects represent substantial progress toward making Lightning payments more accessible and practical for everyday merchants, reducing reliance on centralized custodians and lowering the cost and complexity of self-custody.