When I first started building Lightswap, the plan was simple: be the connective layer between the wallets, exchanges, and services people already use. Let users move their money, make sense of it, and act on it, all through natural language.

The vision was that Lightswap would be the connective tissue, the engine behind the scenes that makes money flow intelligently without exposing the technical rough edges.

For months, that felt right. Until one thought kept lingering: shouldn’t Lightswap have its own wallet? Some early adopters even assumed it would have a lightning wallet which pushed me to consider... should it have it's own wallet too?

At first, I ignored it. We already had enough to build: API integrations, data handling, interfaces. But every time I imagined the user experience, it felt incomplete.

We wanted users to be able to say, “Send 100k sats to Jack,” and have it just work. But when you rely on different third-party setups, you cannot guarentee a baseline experience.

It unlocks new capabilities. A built-in wallet transforms what Lightswap can do. It means users can send or receive sats directly through natural language, instantly, without juggling integrations or connecting anything first. It makes actions possible that simply weren’t before.

It guarantees a complete experience from day one. Users shouldn’t have to read setup guides or connect half a dozen accounts just to try something. With a wallet already built in, anyone can open Lightswap and immediately experience what it’s capable of. The first interaction already feels magical.

It creates one consistent way to pay. Without it, every user brings a different setup, on-chain wallets, exchange balances, hybrid mixes. That fragmentation hurts reliability and makes automation messy. A built-in Lightning wallet gives every user the same payment foundation, so everything just works the same way, every time.

Together, these make the case clear: if we want a seamless experience, we need to control it end-to-end.

It lengthens the build. Before, our focus was designing a great experience that played nicely with the ecosystem, integrating wallets and exchanges that already exist. Now, we need to roll up our sleeves and build one ourselves. That’s no small task.

It adds complexity. Lightswap has always aimed to feel simple. Adding a Lightning wallet introduces another layer to design, maintain, and secure. Complexity isn’t automatically bad, but it is an amber flag — one that deserves a hard look.

That’s a big shift. And it’s not one to take lightly. Complexity can slow you down. It can break your focus. So we spent time questioning it. Do we really need this? Are we sure it’s worth it?

Every time, the answer came back the same: yes. Because to deliver the experience we imagined - one that feels powerful and intuitive from the moment you start - we have to control that layer.

So we’re doing it. Lightswap will ship with a built-in Lightning wallet!

It’s more ambitious, but it makes the product stronger. It ensures that from day one, anyone using Lightswap can experience the power of bitcoin - instantly, naturally, and without friction.

It’s a step forward that brings us closer to the vision: making money talk.

Let’s build!

If you’re as excited about making bitcoin feel simple and powerful as I am, I’d love your thoughts. How would you want to use a built-in Lightning wallet? What should it make possible? Drop a comment below — let’s build the future of bitcoin UX together.

We’re building an app that lets you move bitcoin and fiat across your existing wallets, exchanges and bank accounts — using natural language, you just type it out! It makes moving and managing money much easier and much quicker. It already works with major exchanges, so you can buy, sell, send, query, automate DCA, and build workflows without leaving the conversation. We’re opening a 100-person beta and I’d love to get early feedback from bitcoiners here.