I am onboarding new user to #Bitcoin.
What wallet would you recommend for a newbie? I need frictionless experience with LN.
I was thinking of WoS, but it's a custodial solution and I am really hesitating to offer it.
I don't want to move him on KYC right away, like Strike.
Any ideas?
#asknostr
Phoenix is nice.
But they also need to open LN channels themselves, right?
No, Phoenix maintains the channel for users as an LSP. Splicing in and out from that channel also allows for on-chain activity without users needing to think about what sats they have in L1 or L2. The downside is that they charge some small fees for the convenience they offer, but I think they're reasonable.
And fees lower than muun I believe. Need to explore phoenix wallet more. Thanks for sharing!
Phoenix is pretty nice. Been using it on the side for a couple years now. They also recently added a new kind of lightning address powered by bolt-12 invoices, but they warn that it might not work with all wallets to be able to send to it.
The major reasons I can't recommend it as a daily driver for newbies at present are 1. No way to connect it to Nostr apps for one-tap-zapping, 2. No way to reliably receive zaps to their new lightning address spec, 3. Even though they lanage your lightning channel for you, you have to know a thing or two about how liquidity works to avoid surprise on-chain fees when you run out of inbound.
Muun is a fake lightning wallet, Phoenix is definitely better!
Yep Phoenix. Or Zeus.
But for both they need to manage LN channels manually?
You can set up a LNbits Hub and open a wallet for him? (But you'll need to manage channels and liquidity)
If he wants a fully self-custodial solution in LN he needs to manage channels and liquidity, there's no other way.
For Phoenix, it actually manages liquidity for you, it keeps one single channel with ACINQ and charges you a fee every time you need to increase capacity/liquidity on the channel
For this reason, I can't wait to see wallets integrating https://www.spark.money/
I wish Zeus had some tiered complexity UI levels.
Frictionless kyc free self-custody isn't a thing yet, imo. But, I've found alby hub to be very, very user friendly if you spend a little time learning how to use it. I then connect it NWC to primal on browser and to Zeus Wallet on iOS, but albyGo for ios is also very very user friendly.
Forgot to mention one more feature 😅 swaps between onchain and LN + no-kyc + self-custody.
But with Zeus you have to either connect to alby, your local node or manage LN channels yourself?
AFAIK, yes, re: Zeus. AlbyHub facilitates atomic swaps through Boltz.exchange
But will be when wallets integrate https://www.spark.money/
You could try Minibits or Phoenix
What do would you think of storing 100k+ SATs in minibits?
I've had no problem holding that much. Keep in mind that it's still a work-in-progress, but it's improved a lot since I've started using it maybe 5 or 6 months ago. I used to use Lifpay, but their network connection issues became too frequent.
I would never onboard a new user to a lightning wallet
On chain only
Aqua wallet
Depends on the use-case.
Do they need to be able to use the wallet with Nostr, or at least have the option to do so without switching wallets? You'll want to point them toward something with Nostr Wallet Connect as an option.
Custodial: Coinos or Minibits
Self-Custody: Alby Hub
Honestly, though. Self-custody lightning is NOT for the beginner. It's for someone who understands the fundamentals of how lightning works, and who is willing to take responsibility for managing their liquidity, understanding that it will be costly and frustrating when they mess it up.
Well said about complexity of LN. And thanks for sharing coinos or minibits, it feels they should be a default choice over WoS
There are no easy-to-use, beginner-friendly, non-custodial LN wallets (yet).
I would suggest Cake Wallet, which is simple and has some nice privacy features like silent payments but no Lightning.
Better Wos. They are migrating to non custodial soon.
