Confession... I find Lightning strangely confusing. I'm not sure if it's just me.
The workaround wallets with liquid, cashu, or custodial lightning are very handy. I figured I'd sort out proper self-custody lightning when I set up a node. When I did, I explored the tools the implementations offer. Much of what's available for BTC nodes relates to lightning, and there's a lot available.
I could enjoy getting good at managing channels and make that my next adventure, but I realized I don't have enough Bitcoin to do it well, or to be willing to risk putting so much in hot wallets. And being great at routing transactions through a public node isn't really my goal - I just wanted an actual lightning wallet with channels I can use.
A good, blunt article from nostr:nprofile1qqs0nt9skq6vfsgh06v979rrnuchau87mmnk2lqxpv2xaeusqfp30mqpzemhxue69uhky6t5vdhkjmn9wgh8xmmrd9skcqgwwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkctc95jngd helped clarify it all (Thank you!) and show me all I was really looking for was a wallet like Zeus or BlixtWallet that could run a private node on my phone, with channels in the background for my own transactions, not a public node trying to route everyone else's. I liked BitBanana, but I don't think it does this.
That simplified the search and saved me from going too much further down that path, but still, each wallet seems to be missing something I had in mind:
- private lightning node
- self-custodial
- no KYC or identity info/signup
- no dependence on Google Play
- working NWC (I imagine ones that offer the rest will soon add NWC)
- open source, on Zapstore, ideally
I'm sharing in case it saves others a little time... And in case I'm missing something obvious y'all have already figured out!
#lightning #wallets #NWC
