Voltage FAQ

Have questions? We've got all the answers. If you don't find your question on this page, please send us an email at [email protected]. We'll get you an answer as soon as we can.

Currently all of our nodes run the Lightning Labs developed Lightning Network Daemon (LND) implimentaiton. The project is very well supported and has many integrations and applications written for it.

The primary management dashboard that we offer is currently Thunderhub which is a very robust tool for node management for most use cases. With your node's macaroons and TLS certificate (which is provided on your Voltage dashboard) you are able to remotely connect and manage your node externally as well.You can connect to the LND APIs directly from your node's API Endpoint. You can see the LND API Specification here: https://api.lightning.community

Essentials Plan: This is the free plan and it comes with a single user and 50,000 API calls. This plan does not have any Lightning capabilities. This includes community support via our Discord.

Starter Plan: This is plan comes with 2 users, 250,000 API Calls, and 2 Compute Credits. This is enough to run a single Standard node. This includes ticket support during business hours.

Growth Plan: This is plan comes with 5 users, 1,000,000 API Calls, and 10 Compute Credits. This is enough to run a single Professional node or 5 Standard nodes. This includes ticket support during business hours.

Scale Plan: This is plan comes with 10 users, 5,000,000 API Calls, and 30 Compute Credits. This is enough to run a 3 Professional nodes or 15 Standard nodes. With this plan you can also received a whiteglove onboarding to help you get started. This includes ticket support and chat support via Slack during business hours.

Enterprise Plan: This plan is custom quoted based on what the customer needs. This can include unlimited API Calls, Users, and Compute Credits. This plan includes Infrastructure and Support SLAs, complete node management from our team, custom solutions, and 24/7 ticket and chat support.





A standard node uses Tor to peer with others on the Lightning Network and a Professional node is provisioned with a unique IP address and a Dedicated Server. The API endpoints for both types are clearnet. Professional node types will be more performant and reliable than standard due to not having to rely soley on tor. Professional nodes include both Tor and clearnet IP address peer connections.

Essentials: Community Support (Discord)

Starter and Growth: Ticket support (voltage.cloud/support).

Scale: Ticket and joint-slack channel support

No. If you see "Running" in your node dashboard header, then the node is completely online. You do not need to unlock if the node is running, as in this context unlocking means you are providing proof that you have access to some specific sensitive functionality of the node. The dashboard can be in a locked state and fully functional as long as it is in the "Running" status.

Your node will also restart when you change a node setting.

Compute credits are used to deploy and maintain node infrastructure.

Standard Nodes require 2 Compute Credits

Professional Nodes require 10 Compute Credits.

As for API Credits, at Voltage you pay for what you use. Every time you access the node with an API call, whether it's from the command-line, processing a datapoint with Surge analytics, or using a tool like Thunderhub, this uses an API Credit

If you use more than what your plan allows, we do not stop you from going over. An additional 50,000 API Credits is $25, and will automatically be added to your bill at end of month.

No.

We don't compact a database for you or on an ongoing basis. However, we have a setting for your node called 'Auto-Compaction'. What this does is that it enables the auto-compaction flag in LND. When this is set, every time your node starts up it will attempt to compact your database files (maximum once every 24 hours). This can be used to run a compaction on your database inside of Voltage. Please be aware that enabling this flag does add additional time to a node starting up.

No, we do not offer services for you to buy or sell Bitcoin on our site. To fund your wallet, you must purchase Bitcoin from somewhere else (like an exchange) and fund your node from there. You can use the send/receive option in your Thunderhub dashboard to send funds from an exchange.

We have had the option of Neutrino in the past but as of February 2024, we no longer offer nodes backed by Neutrino. All nodes since February 2024 are ran completely on a full Bitcoin node for on-chain data.

We do not save any of your wallet passwords, seeds, or macaroons in a format we're able to view. We do backup your macaroons and seed, however they are encrypted with your wallet's password client-side before upload. Therefore, we are never able to see the contents. Backing up macaroons can help in the event of losing a macaroon, but it also makes certain parts of our dashboard (like generating a 'lndconnect' code) much easier to use. When initializing or unlocking your node the request goes straight from your device to your node's API.

No, we do not keep a copy of your node's password and seed backups are encrypted with that password. If you lose your seed or password, we do not have the ability to recover it.

All nodes have the ability to export their files. These files include channel.backup, tls.cert, lnd.log, and full (meaning all files). You can export these files by going to your node in our dashboard and clicking the 'Export Data' button. You will be prompted to select which type of export you want to create. Select the type and click 'Start Export'. If you are requesting a 'full' export your node must be in a 'stopped' state. An export will be generated and ready to download. Please be aware that the download links for your exports are only valid for 1 hour. You must create a new export if the link expires.

We support Tor for peer-to-peer traffic. All Voltage nodes have Tor enabled from the start and you can't turn this off. API traffic is clearnet for all nodes using their own unique API endpoint.

No, it's possible you'll encounter problems. This can be things like architecture differences or running the same node in two places.

The IP addresses that you supply in your whitelist are the IPs that are allowed to talk to your node. All other traffic is denied. If you do not specify a whitelist then your node's API is open to the entire internet. This whitelist is applied to both the gRPC and REST APIs.

Node names are globally unique for the network. If Alice created a node called 'foo' on testnet then Bob could not create a node with the same name on testnet. However, Bob could create a node called 'foo' on mainnet, assuming it's not taken by someone else. Node names also must be made up of only numbers, lowercase letters, and dashes.

On your team selection page, click your avatar in the upper right corner, and then click Account. From there click the "Change" button next to email to change your account emailor password.

No, all Voltage nodes receive a valid TLS certificate that's signed by a trusted Certificate Authority. This means you don't have to supply a copy of the TLS certificate when connecting to your node (assuming your application supports it).

If your node is not synced to the chain or graph for more than 6 hours, we recommend a node restart. If this is a persistent issue please fill out a quick support ticket at voltage.cloud/support.

If you receive an email stating your node is waiting to be unlocked but you didn't update or restart the node then it's likely something went wrong in our system. Rest assured, we get alerts every time this happens and we will work to prevent it from happening again. We don't know your password, therefore we can't do an automatic unlocking for you. Thus we notify you so you can unlock your node because it's required for your node to be unlocked to function.

We monitor every piece of infrastructure that we can. We get alerted whenever there's a problem and we have 24/7 support for our infrastructure. However, because we don't have your macaroons, that means we can't actually see what's going on inside of your node. It's important for you to also monitor your node to track what's going on inside of LND.

No, we use the binary directly provided from the Lightning Terminal releases. We do not do any modiciations to the source code or binaries.