<p>To expand on Pieter's answer a bit:</p>
<p>To move your funds onto the lightning network, you will need to send a bitcoin transaction to move your funds into a wallet that allows the creation of lightning network channels. The transaction to move your funds into the new wallet will pay to a bitcoin address as usual (likely a bech32 encoded address).</p>
<p>The lightning wallet will then allow you to 'open a channel' with another node on the lightning network. Under the hood, this means that your lightning wallet will create a specialized 2-of-2 multisig bitcoin address, in collaboration with the counterparty node. Funds will then be sent to this address, and along with a little bit of extra under-the-hood magic, your wallet will now contain funds which can be used to pay invoices on the lightning network.</p>
<p>As Pieter mentione, bitcoin addresses and lightning invoices are very different, so there is never any worry that you will make a mistake and lose funds by trying to pay a lightning invoice with on-chain funds, etc.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-01T21:25:39.607Z
Is it possible to directly funding the 2-of-2 multisig bitcoin address to avoid the additional transaction from a traditional wallet to a lightning capable wallet?
TJM
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-02T22:17:51.807Z
@TJM in theory I suppose it *could* be possible, but I am not aware of any software that would allow you to do this, even as a very manual process.
chytrik
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-05-17T20:32:57.120Z
2022-05-17T20:32:57.120Z
chytrik
<p>That doesn't make sense. You can't send on-chain BTC to a Lightning invoice, as the former requires an on-chain transaction to move funds, while the latter is the updating of balances in a channel. They're fundamentally incompatible operations. Funds get &quot;moved into&quot; Lightning by using on-chain funds to construct channel, and &quot;moved out&quot; of Lightning by closing the channels.</p>
<p>Bitcoin addresses and Lightning invoices are for that reason also incompatible, and there is no risk from one being misinterpreted as the other. They use entirely different encodings, with different data in them. Both also have checksum algorithms which prevent misinterpretation.</p>
<p>Entering a Lightning invoice in an on-chain-only wallet will just yield an &quot;unsupported address&quot; error or something similar.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-05-18T16:02:40.173Z
Thanks Pieter and @chytrik. So to be clear, the requirement to do TX in LN is to have a wallet that is able to create channels with other LN wallets. This at the same time requires to have transfered some BTC funds to this wallet to be able to open the channel and stablish a balance, did I get it right?
javi11br
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-05-18T20:07:35.997Z
@javi11br yes that is correct. I would recommend running a lightning node of your own, but otherwise there are many lightning wallets out there to choose from. One note: if you are not running your own node, be considerate of how the wallet you choose works under the hood. Different lightning wallets can come with different levels of custodianship/trust for your funds.
chytrik
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-05-17T17:33:47.567Z
2022-05-19T20:20:21.933Z
2022-05-19T20:20:21.933Z
Pieter Wuille
<p>I would like to know if I can send BTC from a BTC address to a Lightning Network address.</p>
<p>I have BTC on an exchange and I would like to move them from the exchange to my Muun wallet. Muun allows on-chain BTC TX and Lightning Network TX, obviously I would like to use the LN address to receive the BTC.</p>
<p>The problem is that I don't know if transfering BTC from a BTC address to a LN address is like trying to transfer BTC to BCH where I would lose my BTC.</p>

<address><lightning-network>
Can I transfer BTC from BTC (address) wallet to a Lightning (address) wallet?
javi11br
# Can I transfer BTC from BTC (address) wallet to a Lightning (address) wallet?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-05-17)

I would like to know if I can send BTC from a BTC address to a Lightning Network address.

I have BTC on an exchange and I would like to move them from the exchange to my Muun wallet. Muun allows on-chain BTC TX and Lightning Network TX, obviously I would like to use the LN address to receive the BTC.

The problem is that I don't know if transfering BTC from a BTC address to a LN address is like trying to transfer BTC to BCH where I would lose my BTC.

**Tags:** address, lightning-network


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2022-05-17. Score: 8 | Accepted answer

That doesn't make sense. You can't send on-chain BTC to a Lightning invoice, as the former requires an on-chain transaction to move funds, while the latter is the updating of balances in a channel. They're fundamentally incompatible operations. Funds get "moved into" Lightning by using on-chain funds to construct channel, and "moved out" of Lightning by closing the channels.

Bitcoin addresses and Lightning invoices are for that reason also incompatible, and there is no risk from one being misinterpreted as the other. They use entirely different encodings, with different data in them. Both also have checksum algorithms which prevent misinterpretation.

Entering a Lightning invoice in an on-chain-only wallet will just yield an "unsupported address" error or something similar.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks username_3 and @username_1. So to be clear, the requirement to do TX in LN is to have a wallet that is able to create channels with other LN wallets. This at the same time requires to have transfered some BTC funds to this wallet to be able to open the channel and stablish a balance, did I get it right?  
> **username_1**: @username_0 yes that is correct. I would recommend running a lightning node of your own, but otherwise there are many lightning wallets out there to choose from. One note: if you are not running your own node, be considerate of how the wallet you choose works under the hood. Different lightning wallets can come with different levels of custodianship/trust for your funds.  

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### Answer by username_1 on 2022-05-17. Score: 5

To expand on username_3's answer a bit:

To move your funds onto the lightning network, you will need to send a bitcoin transaction to move your funds into a wallet that allows the creation of lightning network channels. The transaction to move your funds into the new wallet will pay to a bitcoin address as usual (likely a bech32 encoded address).

The lightning wallet will then allow you to 'open a channel' with another node on the lightning network. Under the hood, this means that your lightning wallet will create a specialized 2-of-2 multisig bitcoin address, in collaboration with the counterparty node. Funds will then be sent to this address, and along with a little bit of extra under-the-hood magic, your wallet will now contain funds which can be used to pay invoices on the lightning network.

As username_3 mentione, bitcoin addresses and lightning invoices are very different, so there is never any worry that you will make a mistake and lose funds by trying to pay a lightning invoice with on-chain funds, etc.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Is it possible to directly funding the 2-of-2 multisig bitcoin address to avoid the additional transaction from a traditional wallet to a lightning capable wallet?  
> **username_1**: @username_2 in theory I suppose it *could* be possible, but I am not aware of any software that would allow you to do this, even as a very manual process.  

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