LND Lightning node software from Lightning Labs

Swiss angle

LND is a global project with no Swiss base. The Lightning Labs home page, read on 5 October 2026, says the company develops software that powers the Lightning Network, and it prints no seat or country. The LND repository publishes the code under the MIT licence. You run LND on your own machine and keep your own keys, so it is not a financial service.

Neither page names a Swiss office or a franc setting. You may already run LND without knowing it: the Umbrel Lightning Node app page says the app is powered by LND, so an Umbrel box with Lightning runs it.

Coins in your Lightning channels are still your coins. You declare them at the ESTV year-end value in the wealth tax section of your return, like coins in any other wallet; the Swiss Bitcoin tax guide explains how.

Who it is for

Node runners who want Lightning payments from their own node. The LND README lists what it does: open and close channels, find paths through the network, forward payments and send onion-encrypted payments. The Lightning chapter explains what those words mean.

Hands-on users who set it up by hand. The README names bitcoind, btcd and neutrino as chain backends, so you can pair LND with Bitcoin Core on the same machine. The home Lightning setup guide walks through such a setup. If you would rather click than type, the Umbrel app above installs it for you, and RaspiBlitz is another node box to compare.

Shops that run their own payment stack. The BTCPay Server deployment docs say a self-hosted install can use the Lightning Network, so a shop running BTCPay Server has a reason to run a Lightning node too.

Developers. The README says LND exports an HTTP REST API and a gRPC service, and warns that the APIs are not yet stable and may change.

The GitHub releases page shows v0.21.4-beta, published on 1 October 2026, as the latest release.

Who it is not for

Anyone not ready to follow the safety rules. The LND README says that LND is still beta software and that ignoring its operational safety guidelines can lead to loss of funds. Read those guidelines before you put money in a channel.

People who just want to pay over Lightning from a phone. Phoenix gives you a self-custody Lightning wallet without a node of your own.

Developers who want Lightning inside their own app rather than a separate daemon. LDK is a toolkit built for that.

Savers. A Lightning node is online all the time, which makes it a hot wallet; the self-custody guide explains where long-term savings belong.