Just noticed when trying to set up a wallet for my brother that nostr:npub1hcwcj72tlyk7thtyc8nq763vwrq5p2avnyeyrrlwxrzuvdl7j3usj4h9rq is no longer available in the US. What should I set him up with instead?
Discussion
Is this wallet for zaps?
How tech literate is he?
How experienced is he with bitcoin/lightning?
Does he care about kyc?
Phoenix
Muun
Zeus
Mutiny
BlueWallet
Blixt
Breez
Strike
CashApp
👆🏽 are all good options but each have a tradeoff too.
Mostly for zaps rn, he's new to nostr and Bitcoin as a whole. Purple pill time baby
🟣💊 hell yeah
For now I use strike to recieve and Phoenix to send. Phoenix is more expensive to set up tho and more fees than wos when zapping. It's smooth but wos was basically seamless. Its a shame.
TLDR not a lot of newbie friendly solutions right now for nostr zaps.
If ease of use is most important, strike is the easiest to both recieve/send and works as well as wos but it's kyc and custodial.
If he already has a VPN I've heard he can still get/use wos. He can send out from wos without VPN, I still do occassionally.
A lot of people like Zeus but I have trouble with it recieving zaps.
Alby was good and worked but it's invite only now.
I used to use Mutiny to send with NWC but it's slow and doesn't always send.
Blixt can send and recieve but it seems like it disconnects frequently. I frequently couldnt zap or be zapped.
I wouldn't use muun with zaps. Their implementation of submarine swaps makes it very expensive to zap out (onchain transactions)
Great list.. to be clear Blue wallet now only supports Lightning with your own node.
Also, the first 7 are self-custodial so def recommended over the last two.
Phoenix not good for zaps because their fee is .4% + 4sats per transaction, so prohibitive for sending small amounts.
Muun also expensive for small sends as submarine swaps are not real Lightning.
I recently loaded some sats on Mutiny so look forward to trying it, as I currently use Alby which is custodial.
Zeus always very slow to connect for me.. think they are working on that.
Breez has worked well at times but won’t connect since a few days now, haven’t tried to troubleshoot yet
Curious to hear what others are using these days
Thank you both for you guidance. Ended up going with an alby wallet that I had sitting around empty, and seems to be working great. PV!