Quick note on why we chose Spark and Breez for the new Primal Wallet.
Let’s start with our requirements. We need a simple, reliable, zero-config spending wallet that just works out of the box. Anything less than that is a non-starter for our target audience of casual social media users.
Those who have used Primal’s custodial wallet over the past couple of years will agree that we were able to meet these requirements. The big tradeoff was that, in order to legally offer a custodial service, we had to KYC our users, impose balance limits, and deny service in certain regions where we didn’t have a license to custody funds.
Building on Spark via the Breez SDK enabled us to deliver a wallet that is a strict improvement for our users: no KYC, no limits, and available globally. It’s interoperable with other Spark-based wallets — so you can use the same seed phrase in Primal, Wallet of Satoshi, Cake Wallet, and others. This undeniably gives a lot more agency to our users.
There is ongoing debate about what constitutes “real” self-custody. Spark uses a federation of operators and provides unilateral exit. From a legal standpoint, this clears the self-custody threshold. That said, nothing matches the self-sovereignty of holding bitcoin funds on-chain. Primal is a spending wallet, not meant to hold large amounts. We always encourage our users to store their savings in self custody on-chain.
I believe the wallet we shipped with Primal 3.0 offers the best set of tradeoffs available today. The good news is that our new wallet architecture enables us to easily add support for Ark, Cashu and other protocols in the future. If you have specific suggestions for how we could do better by our users; if you think there’s a better way to legally deliver a simple, reliable, zero-config spending wallet that just works, let us know and we’ll be happy to explore it.
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Replies (18)
Thanks for taking time time to explain this choice 🤙🏼
Here is why..
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Beautiful
Yup, it's top of funnel, perfect for new users and they can move down the spectrum of custody and privacy, if they want
Great UX is how we win on nostr
I think the ship has completely sailed on privacy on Bitcoin. 2017 made it a very fragile dream, and ETF adoption completely nuked hope for it.
Someone please add L1 privacy and prove me wrong.
Love it 💜
We are going to sunset the custodial wallet service on April 30, 2026. Until then you can use that wallet or migrate to the new one anytime.
That’s awesome! 💪🏾👏🏾👏🏾⚡️🍷
I don’t understand the fuss? Like if you have a problem host your own. That’s the point isn’t it?
Oh so you half debunked 1/3 points and it's all good now?
Good luck putting a company and service provider between your Bitcoin and yourself. That was Satoshi's vision, the whitepaper famously said Bitcoin: A Peer-to-company-to-service-provider-to-Peer Electronic Cash System as we all remember.
It's amazing how willing some "Bitcoiners" are of reinventing tradfi/banking with extra steps.
Spark has also proven to be the best system for receiving lightning payments to purchase paintings on my website.
Just understand the tradeoffs and move on-chain.
Excellent choice.
Will use this on a Square terminal somewhere
All reasonable points and I want to apologize if my post about this was overly alarmist.
I would just suggest: Before using the new Primal wallet, it could be useful to be sure you're comfortable sharing your I.P. address and device user-agent with LightSpark.
Probably for most people, like 95%+ of users, it's fine.
If you care, you can read up on LightSpark here: 
David A. Marcus - Wikipedia
More projects that may be of interest on the .org domain for Cash.


Honestly it is not the best solution but it really makes the life of the developers much better. Second if an user doesnt want Spark they can properly self host a lightning wallet.
So all in all, congratulations on the smooth upgrade!


