blfs

BLFS (Bitcoin Lightning for Shopify)

• Name: BLFS (Bitcoin Lightning for Shopify)
• URL: https://docs.megalithic.me/BLFS/getting-started
• Category: Shopify merchant-payments middleware / Lightning checkout infrastructure / Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) integration layer
• Tags: bitcoin-ecosystem nostr-ecosystem
• Summary: BLFS is Shopify-to-Lightning glue. The real thing is an always-on middleware server that sits between Shopify checkout and a receive-only Nostr Wallet Connect wallet, handles invoice generation, and keeps merchant-branded payment flow alive. Useful merchant plumbing, not a payments anchor.
• What it does:
  • Connects Shopify storefront checkout flows to Bitcoin Lightning payments
  • Uses receive-only NWC credentials from wallets, vaults, or Lightning nodes so merchant funds land in the merchant-controlled service
  • Runs as a constantly available server-side application that communicates with Shopify APIs and generates customer-facing Lightning invoices
  • Supports a service-provider model where one BLFS developer or operator can run infrastructure for multiple Shopify merchants
  • Can work with different NWC-compatible backends such as Rizful, Alby Hub, LNbits, Coinos, and Wallet of Satoshi, according to the official repo examples
  • Is designed to run on modest Linux VPS infrastructure with Docker Compose, SQLite, Node.js, and Caddy rather than requiring specialized hardware
• Key claims:
  • The docs say BLFS connects NWC financial services to individual Shopify merchants and is open source under the MIT license
  • The getting-started page says BLFS is a server-side, constantly running application that talks to an NWC funding source and the Shopify API while generating “nice-looking Lightning invoices” for customers
  • The same page says anyone can run BLFS, anyone can connect it to any NWC financial service, and operators may optionally charge a percentage fee, which frames BLFS as reusable merchant infrastructure rather than a one-off integration
  • The GitHub repo says Shopify merchants can receive zero-fee Bitcoin payments over Lightning “without trusting any counterparty,” which is core to the project’s positioning
  • The merchant setup docs say the merchant provides a receive-only NWC code, a .myshopify.com domain, and a brand image URL, which shows BLFS is designed as an operational handoff layer between merchant and infrastructure operator
  • The developer setup docs explicitly describe a multi-merchant service model, recommend modest cloud VPS deployment, and stress low-latency public hosting because BLFS is responsible for live invoice generation during checkout
• Whitepaper: No canonical standalone BLFS whitepaper or litepaper surfaced in this pass. The clearest current sources of truth were the official Megalith Lightning docs and the first-party GitHub repository; see ../whitepapers/blfs-primary-sources-2026-05-02.md.
• Sources:
  • https://docs.megalithic.me/BLFS/getting-started
  • https://docs.megalithic.me/BLFS/first_steps_for_merchant
  • https://docs.megalithic.me/BLFS/first_steps_for_developer
  • https://github.com/MegalithicBTC/BLFS

Internal linkages

• Best upward reads: btcpay-server and nostr-wallet-connect.

Control surface

• Power sits in Shopify integration setup, receive-only NWC credential scope, invoice-rendering and uptime behavior, merchant-branding defaults, and whether one operator is quietly running the stack for many storefronts.

• Read BLFS as merchant middleware over stronger Bitcoin and wallet-connectivity rails, not as a new payments primitive.

• Last reviewed: 2026-06-05 UTC