BLW: Bitcoin and Lightning Wal

anton kumaigorodski

About this app

⚠ IMPORTANT: be sure to save a mnemonic phrase once a new wallet is created. Having a mnemonic phrase is the ONLY way to recover your balance in case of serious bugs or phone loss ⚠

This app contains a standalone Bitcoin and Lightning node in a single package. It allows to send and receive regular Bitcoin transactions as well as Lightning payments.

Wallet sources: https://github.com/btcontract/lnwallet
F-Droid source build: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.lightning.walletapp/
App page at bitcoin.org: https://bitcoin.org/en/wallets/mobile/android/blw/?step=5&platform=android

Off-chain data loss protection is present: in case of emergencies such as phone loss you will only need a mnemonic phrase to recover both on-chain Bitcoin balance and off-chain Lightning balance. Details on how this works can be found in wallet manual: http://lightning-wallet.com/

Watchtower service is present, too: if you ever use this wallet to receive Lightning payments then you won't have to worry about getting an app online periodically, more info on this here: https://medium.com/@akumaigorodski/watchtower-support-is-coming-to-bitcoin-lightning-wallet-8f969ac206b2

App permissions:
- Access to local file system (optional): to store an encrypted channel backup file.
- Access to NFC (optional): to read payment requests.
- Access to camera (optional): to scan QR codes.

Ratings and reviews

Best on boarding experience to lightning I've seen so far. The wallet runs a full lightning node on device so you need a minimal understanding of lightning to set up channels, but the wallet is really helpful in helping you through the process. The UX is very well thought out, the UI is polished and I didnt encounter any glitches.

BLW is a fantastic wallet! However, it really does need some way to set the transaction fee. There are also times that I need to receive lightning funds, but my channel is full. I've found that using a third party service like Lightning Conductor to do a ln->btc transaction useful in these scenarios.. but it would be nice to do that all in BLW. 2022 UPDATE: This wallet was great, but I think that the developers moved on to create the SBW app, so I have switched to that one.

This is the best lightning wallet I've found so far. I like the ability to receive funds offline, do private anonymous channel backups in exchange for small lightning payments, and ease of opening channels. I wish I could specify the local channel backup directory if it's possible to add that in the settings.

What's new

Fixed bugs related to lnurl-channel and backup file