Phoenix/Breez?
I'm using Zeus with a self hosted node and the only complain I have is the slow tor connection time. But you do have to get your hands dirty. I just like having Zeus not hiding anything, but it's definitely not beginner friendly.
Discussion
Phoenix, while being a great wallet/service, market dominance is not healthy.
For instance, they know balances (and when they pay/get paid) of all their user's nodeIds - and once you share an invoice or BOLT12 publicly they can now tie it to your social.
We should not put so much trust into one entity (even though they have been a good actor so far)
Also even if the opted out from the US market, they're based in the EU, which is even worst from a finance regulation pov.
Phoenix is really good and I recommend it to people, however:
- extreme form of "non-custodial centealizarion"
- very very bad privacy
- actually super expensive
I think it's smarter to use Zeus with your own Lightning node on a server at this point.
(I know that's not an alternative to most users of Phoenix, but as a tech savvy person, you don't have to put up with these kinda strong compromises)
Indeed.
NWC + own node and/or a self-hosted AlbyHub are also great alternatives
Anyone who can live with the fact that I can rug you, feel free to use https://bb.mountainlake.io/ or use a cashu wallet with my mint at https://mint.mountainlake.io. I don't charge any fees on top of the lightning network itself. And keep in mind that I will be sailing til mid September and therefore can't offer the same support as in the winter months.
Based
Phoenix's 0.4% outbound payment fee means during low fee environments sending $100 on chain is actually cheaper than sending $100 using phoenix. The UI/UX is really good though.
Yeah, I've spliced out of my channel more than once because it was cheaper to do than to send via Lightning. Feels weird.
nostr:npub1jugar2agq6369p0l86razavs9shj2p6pscxecevs8j94ap37hkqsjlfc28 is a breeze. Or you try the new nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm hub.
>- extreme form of "non-custodial centealizarion"
I feel like this is an inevitable tradeoff for large scale retail solutions.
You need a service provider to shoulder the channel management load and provide the necessary UX abstractions.
I'm also somewhat hopeful ARK can significantly mitigate the costs of self-custodial LN.
I use Zeus+Tailscale on my own node and it's pretty fast
So you trust Tailscale?
Haven't had any issues so far and it just works. Check out Zeus documentation for more info:
Look into setting up Wireguard between your node and the wallet. This might shed more light: https://v2.minibolt.info/bonus-guides/system/wireguard-vpn