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Post 04

From Prompt to Production: How ArxMint Deploys Bitcoin Infrastructure

March 25, 2026|2 min read

Setting up a Bitcoin circular economy used to require deep expertise in multiple protocols, Docker networking, and Lightning node management. ArxMint reduces this to a natural language prompt.

The Community Generator

ArxMint's community generator takes a plain-language description and outputs a complete deployment:

Input:

"A 40-person co-working space in Longmont, CO. Privacy is important. We want ecash for daily coffee and lunch purchases, and federated custody for member savings. 5 guardians."

Output:

  • Docker Compose with Fedimint (5 guardians), CDK mint (production-grade Cashu for 40+ members), Lightning gateway, Prometheus + Grafana monitoring
  • Aperture reverse proxy for L402 API paywalls
  • Silent Payments indexer for private on-chain peg-outs
  • Governance document template scaled for 5 guardians with Byzantine fault tolerance

What Gets Generated

The community generator makes smart decisions based on your input:

Cashu Backend Selection:

  • Under 30 members or testnet → Nutshell (simple, fast to iterate)
  • Over 30 members or mainnet → CDK (Postgres-backed, Prometheus metrics, production-ready)

Privacy Stack:

  • If Ark spends enabled → adds arkd Docker service
  • If Silent Payments enabled → adds SP indexer service
  • Always includes Prometheus + Grafana for monitoring

Guardian Governance:

  • Scales quorum thresholds by guardian count (e.g., 3-of-5, 5-of-7)
  • Generates rotation policies with term limits
  • Includes incident response templates
  • Outputs a human-readable governance document (useful for grant applications)

The Deployment Flow

  1. Describe your community via the create page or API
  2. Review the generated Docker Compose and governance docs
  3. Distribute guardian configs to your guardian operators
  4. Deploy with docker compose up -d
  5. Onboard merchants with QR codes from the merchant onboarding flow
  6. Monitor via the BCE health dashboard

Steps 1-2 take about 5 minutes. Steps 3-5 depend on your community's coordination speed. Step 6 is ongoing.

What's Real vs. What's Planned

Transparency matters, especially for grant evaluators:

Working today (verified against real Nutshell/Fedimint):

  • Docker Compose generation with all services
  • Wallet panel with Fedimint + Cashu + Lightning balances
  • Send/receive ecash tokens
  • Create and pay Lightning invoices
  • Privacy dashboard with per-backend scoring
  • BCE metrics with JSON/CSV export

Deployed but needs regtest verification:

  • NUT-24 ecash paywall integration
  • L402 via Fedimint gateway bridge
  • Programmable ecash spend conditions

Roadmap (not yet implemented):

  • One-click cloud deploy (Fly.io, Railway)
  • Mobile wallet companion app
  • Automated guardian health alerts via Telegram

The Architecture

ArxMint is a Next.js 15 application using:

  • @fedimint/core + @fedimint/transport-web — WASM-based Fedimint client
  • cashu-ts v3 — Pure TypeScript Cashu wallet and mint interaction
  • lnc-web — Lightning Node Connect for browser-based Lightning
  • Zustand — State management for wallet and privacy state
  • Tailwind + custom component classes — UI (.sovereign-card, .sovereign-btn, etc.)

Everything runs client-side except the Docker generation and API routes. The Fedimint and Cashu SDKs are client libraries — they connect to existing infrastructure, they don't create it. Federation creation requires fedimintd guardian nodes, which the Docker Compose provides.

Next week: Privacy-First Payments — Silent Payments, Ecash, and the Sovereign Stack

PreviousBuilding AI Agent Commerce with L402 and Ecash PaywallsNext Privacy-First Payments: Silent Payments, Ecash, and the Sovereign Stack