Some notes from the bark and Arké mainnet launches last week, along with first feedback on the app. It's been exciting. https://gbks.substack.com/p/toot
Christoph Ono
gbks@nosta.me
npub1kuc7...0eyw
Designer & developer. Helping improve bitcoin design with many others at https://bitcoin.design. Workong on Arké (https://arke.cash/). Updates at https://gbks.substack.com . ✌️
Would be nice if bitcoin conferences did not put pseudoscience and conspiracy peddlers on the big stages. How about a dedicated BS stage?
Bark and Arké are now on mainnet. I consider Arké still in public beta. Focus now is on stability, reliability and interoperability. If you try it out, let me know what you think. 
Second
Introducing Noah and Arké: Two new Bark-based wallets | Second Blog
Meet Noah and Arké, the two most polished wallets built on the Bark SDK so far. One comes from the Blixt team, the other from bitcoin designer Chr...
Completely gratuitous and no one will notice it, but QR codes in Arké now have a very small legend that indicates what addresses are in said QR codes. If you know, you know. If you don't know, doesn't bother you. Another experiment, let's feel it out.
In tougher times it’s better to rally together than to argue. Onward and upward.
How do wallets handle payment and payer proofs? Any good UX patterns out there? 
GitHub
Payment Proofs and Payer Proofs · Issue #1235 · BitcoinDesign/Guide
We had some conversations at a conference this week about how to prove payments, related to BOLT12. In the real world, we get a receipt and use tha...
“AI is best at the things you’re bad at, because you can’t recognize its mistakes.”
Just pushed a new version of Arké to TestFlight. This one is about refinement:
- More precise fee calculation, which is especially useful when trying to send the full savings (onchain) balance
- Different intro video segments for signet and mainnet
- A new cover video that is less 80's glam
- Improved wallet creation performance and error handling
- Unilateral exit progress display tweaks
- Wallet import with file improvements
Still ~150 to-dos on my list, but it is coming together.
Arké
Pay with bitcoin. In stylé.
Second has a new page about apps that implement Bark, their Ark implementation. Super nice to see Arké in there. 
And to keep going on and on about unilateral exits, Noah and bark-web support them also. As it should be.
Second Docs
Built with Bark - Second Docs
Real apps shipping bitcoin payments on Ark, Lightning, and on-chain. Built by teams using the Bark SDK and Barkd.
Been seeing several conversations that it is not important for L2 wallets to implement unilateral exits. Good people, who else is going to do it? And who can actually do the unilateral exit for you when only your wallet has the data needed for it? The primary task of a wallet is to ensure your bitcoin are safe. Swapping to the 1000th stablecoin is way lower on the priority list.
OK, it appears that no Spark or Arkade Labs Ark wallet actually implements unilateral exits. Protocol-level capability or separate CLI tool is not usable for most and does not count. Pretty disappointing. So if the server goes away, your funds are gone. The feature to claim them is not implemented.
And by the way Arké has a great unilateral exit flow. The Second crew provides a really good toolbox there.
Let's maybe hold off with the stablecoins and yield and all that and make sure the basics are solid.
Has anyone tried a unilateral exit on Spark? How is it?
Bitcoin is "...a monetary technology. This is the accounting industry." https://stacker.news/items/1483355
I like it.
Looks like there are 294 different Stablecoins based on the US Dollar. The biggest one, Tether, exists on 126 different blockchain networks, 17 of which have 100M or more circulating USDT, and 60 have 1M or more. The second biggest, USDC, exists on 141 different blockchain networks, 18 of which have 100M or more circulating USDC, and 76 have 1M or more. When you want to pay with USDC in the Stripe Crypto Checkout Demo, you have to choose one of 400 different wallets. Decentralization at its finest.
Just kidding, but how is this not super messy and a world of pain in regards to interoperability and payment UX?
https://defillama.com/stablecoins?pegtype=PEGGEDUSD
Stablecoin payments
Stablecoin payments let you accept stablecoins from customers around the world. Customers can pay with their preferred crypto wallet, token, and pa...
Got a Zombie score of 39%. What a great site. Something that's only possible on Nostr. 
Plebs vs. Zombies
Plebs vs. Zombies | Nostr Follow Manager
Clean up your Nostr follow list by identifying and removing dormant zombie accounts. Hunt zombies, manage follows, and keep your network alive!
Quick demo, making 100 bitcoin (signet) transactions to see how Arké responds. Getting quite smooth overall.
Bit of a restyling of the Arké payments detail screen, along with some information architecture changes of the refresh indicator.
Can every one please stop implementing Spark? The privacy problems are real and annoying.
Cool to see the results of the Runway ad contest. AI video has made such huge leaps, and the participants really know how to get creative with it. https://runwayml.com/big-ad-contest