Connect Your Bleskomat ATM to lntxbot via Bleskomat Platform

The lntxbot Telegram bot is a custodial Lightning Network wallet with many experimental features for playing around with Lightning payments and related projects. The service is hosted and maintained by fiatjaf. The code that the service is running can be found in the lntxbot github repository.

Install Telegram

Since lntxbot is a Telegram bot, it is necessary to install the Telegram messaging app on your phone. It is available for Android and iOS. After the initial setup of a Telegram account, it is possible to use it from your desktop by installing the Telegram desktop app on your computer. The desktop version is not necessary, but could be convenient in case you prefer to do the steps in this guide on your computer instead of on your phone.

Once you’ve installed Telegram and have setup your account, you can continue with the rest of the guide.

Setup lntxbot wallet account

Since lntxbot is a Telegram bot, it’s quite easy to setup an account. First, let’s find the bot by searching for it by name. Type “lntxbot” in the search bar of Telegram. Open a new chat window with the bot. Note that all Telegram bots have the “bot” subtext to help you identify that you are chatting with a bot.

Send a message to the bot. Let’s try “/help”. Note the slash. This indicates that you are sending the bot a command. The bot will send you a detailed list of all possible commands you can use. Let’s try another command. Type and send “/balance” to the bot. It will respond with your current Lightning wallet balance – which will be 0 in if this is your first time using the bot.

The lntxbot service has an API that can be used to send Lightning payments on behalf of its users. It can also be used to perform other Lightning-related functions, but we don’t need most of those for the Bleskomat ATM. Type and send “/api_full”. This will request that the bot gives you a full-access API key. This is needed by the Bleskomat Platform to be able to send Lightning payments from your lntxbot wallet account.

If at a later time you would like to revoke access to the Bleskomat Platform, you can use the “/api_refresh” command to cycle the API key on lntxbot’s side.

Great! Now that you have the API key, you can move on to the next steps.

Connect your Bleskomat Platform account to lntxbot

Using the API key that you received from the previous steps, let’s now connect your Bleskomat Platform account to your lntxbot wallet.

1. Login to your Bleskomat Platform account
   • For first time login:
     • Find and click the “Redeem Link” in the email that you received after placing your order.
     • Select “Create a new account” from the list of options in the “Action” field.
     • Click the “Confirm” button.
     • Complete the Account Settings step to set an email, username, and password.

2. Lightning Configuration
   • Select “lntxbot” from the list of options for “Lightning Backend Type”
   • Copy/paste the API key from earlier into the “Admin Key” input field
   • Save and complete the initial account setup

3. Management Interface
   • Click “Devices” on the left side of the account screen
   • If you don’t find any devices yet, click the “Create new device” button.

4. Click the gear icon on the right side of one of the listed devices
   • This will open the device’s settings page

5. Note the various settings available:
   • Enabled – Whether or not the Bleskomat Platform will process payments on behalf of the ATM
   • Device Type – Various types of devices supported by the Bleskomat Platform:
     • ATM – The full-sized product version of the Bleskomat ATM
     • Do-it-yourself ATM – The DIY hardware project
     • Point-of-sale – The POS terminal device
   • Fiat Currency – The currency (bills and coins) which your ATM accepts. Changing this requires re-programming the bill and coin acceptors.
   • Buy Limit – The maximum per trade limit for the ATM
   • Exchange Rate Provider – The exchange rate API to use when fetching BTC to fiat exchange rate
   • Fee Percent (%) – The percent amount deducted from the final BTC amount when sending Lightning payments –
   • Fixed Fee – A fixed fee denominated in the fiat currency of the device
   • Custom Invoice Memo Prefix – If set, this will replace the default invoice memo prefix – e.g. Bleskomat (absurd cake). Your ATM customers will see this in the memo field of their wallet application’s invoice.

6. Press the “Save” button to save the settings, in the case that you’ve made any changes.

Configure Your Bleskomat ATM

In order for your Bleskomat ATM to create QR codes that the Bleskomat Platform will accept, you must configure it using the Hardware Configuration tool in your Platform account. This requires a USB cable and a web browser with Web Serial support – e.g. Chrome, Chromium, Brave, and Edge.

1. Connect your Bleskomat ATM to your computer via USB cable
2. Open the “Hardware Configuration” page in your Bleskomat Platform account
3. Click the “Connect” button

The tool should automatically connect to your Bleskomat ATM. Then it will check if the device has the latest firmware installed. If not, it will ask you if you would like to update it. After firmware is updated, a few automatic checks are performed before the hardware configuration options are presented.

Once the Hardware Configuration tool is finished, you can move on to the next step.

Fund your lntxbot wallet

The final step is to fund the lntxbot wallet account so that your lntxbot wallet can send Lightning payments on behalf of your Bleskomat ATM. In Telegram, open the chat with lntxbot. Send a message “/receive 5000” to create an invoice for 5000 satoshis. This is just an example, use whatever amount you are comfortable with for testing. The invoice will be shown as text and as a QR code. Pay the invoice with an

Pay the invoice by scanning the QR code with a mobile wallet app that has sufficient funds to pay it. Or copy/paste the invoice as text to your Lightning service provider account or Lightning node software.

Once your lntxbot wallet account is funded, you can move on to testing your setup.

Test the setup

Now let’s test the whole setup to make sure it’s working as expected.

1. Insert a coin or bill into the Bleskomat ATM
2. Push the button
3. Open a compatible mobile wallet app
   • Please see apps for a list of wallet apps which are compatible
4. Scan the QR code with the mobile wallet app
5. Follow the instructions in the mobile wallet app to complete the Lightning payment

You should see a notification from lntxbot about the transaction attempt and whether it was successful.