Why does everyone love Muun Wallet so much?
516 sats \ 37 comments \ @arrowdrive 28 Apr 2022 bitcoin freebie
Not sure why everyone seems to love and recommend Muun Wallet to people. In my experience with it, it has a pretty terrible UX for a number of reasons:
  • It’s not really a lightning wallet, all funds are on-chain and it just interacts with the LN via submarine swaps. This gets expensive and isn’t sustainable.
  • Because the submarine swaps are expensive, they extort fees from people who send funds to users running Muun wallets. Every payment to a Muun wallet routes through their node magnetron which charges insane fees of at least 1500 ppm or more. This also makes it incompatible for receiving funds from some services like RoboSats who refuse to send payments at a loss. I've also had times where they have charged large fees to send LN transactions too.
  • Occasionally an LN transaction will require a block confirmation before it goes through. Not ideal when you're trying to make a quick LN payment.
  • Since it’s not an LN wallet, it doesn’t have a node public key and as such can’t use LNURL-auth to log into websites like SN.
  • They don't support LNURL-pay or paying empty invoices, only invoices with a preset amount are accepted. They'll let you create an empty invoice though when receiving funds, which another Muun user will be unable to pay.
  • You're forced to write a note for every transaction that you make. Why!?
  • It sucks for on-chain too since it lacks even basic coin control and uses nonstandard backup methods. You also can’t connect it through your own node. Bad for privacy.
I get that having a "single unified balace" to use for either on-chain and lightning transactions is nice, but I think it’s much better to use separate wallets for LN and on-chain, and hopefully on-chain will be used less and less for mobile on the go transactions as LN grows.
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41 sats \ 4 replies \ @nullama 28 Apr 2022
It's the only non-custodial wallet in which you can receive a small amount of sats (say, 500), with an empty wallet(this is the typical first experience of many people):
I tried to do the same with other wallets but it wasn't possible.
The only one that worked was muun.
Phoenix has a 1% fee with a minimum of 3k sats for channel creation. Also the first deposit on an empty wallet must be at least 10k sats.
Breez has a 2k sats fee for channel creation
Also, it's extremely easy and cheap to receive sats with Muun and then send them to an on-chain address.
Of course it doesn't have all the advanced features of other lightning wallets, but you can have more than one wallet for different use cases.
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22 sats \ 0 replies \ @arrowdrive OP 28 Apr 2022
For noobs testing LN with amounts that small, I think it’s a much better UX to just use a custodial LN wallet like CoinOS or Wallet of Satoshi. Those 500 sats are custodial in Muun anyway since it’s too small to settle on chain.
You can also send the sats on-chain with CoinOS with no fee other than the network fee. It’s cheaper than Muun even especially for larger amounts.
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12 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
Ok then try sending those 5 sats back. Phoenix and Breez are charging that fee for a reason: LN can't work without channels. In order to have a channel you need to pay an opening fee.
The only one wallet app that really do not charge an opening fee is SBW, that is using hosted channels, and also using immortan LN implementation.
SBW > Muun (much better several times more)
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @nout 29 Apr 2022
SBW seems to have liquidity issues recently. My payments are not going through for some reason :(
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 29 Apr 2022
So you are using SBW only with hosted channels. Use it with your own channels.
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44 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
https://community.getumbrel.com/t/how-am-i-paying-55-000-sats-in-fees-on-a-tx/
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31 sats \ 0 replies \ @a 28 Apr 2022
People love Muun because it has a beautiful user experience. Specifically, the wallet abstracts away the concept of "channel" and makes it look like on-chain and lightning coins are the same coins (which they ARE!).
Other wallets separate the two kinds of coins; it is confusing to newcomers. Is BTC coin different than LN coin? No! Muun makes it intuitively clear that 1sat=1sat.
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14 sats \ 2 replies \ @Ge 28 Apr 2022
Just the ui/ux the common man will pay those fees to be able to seemlessly do that i remember moving sats on and off lightning it was like???? however looking back its simple to break down once u can see the layers simply throwing value onto a level 2. Just an easy wallet to on board people and don't have to explain layers and lightning and on chain...with that being said I am taking all u have said into account and saw u suggest blue wallet of course that is an awesome one. any thoughts on simple bitcoin wallet? other than bw....sbw has been very nice to use...also samurai,sparrow,wasabai gotta marry one kill one f**k one GO!
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23 sats \ 1 reply \ @arrowdrive OP 28 Apr 2022
I don’t have an Android device so I’m unfortunately unable to try out SBW, I’ve heard great things about it thought. Currently my favorite LN wallet that works on both Android and iOS is Blixt Wallet.
Marry Sparrow, fuck Samourai, kill Wasabi.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Ge 28 Apr 2022
I did not know SBW was only on Android interesting to know yes I really do enjoy using it though the more I get into lightning besides blue wallet SBW is the go to and it has been super reliable
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23 sats \ 7 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
Why do you want sleepy users to wake up?
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9 sats \ 5 replies \ @Ge 28 Apr 2022
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4 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
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2 sats \ 3 replies \ @Ge 28 Apr 2022
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1 sat \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
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1 sat \ 1 reply \ @Ge 28 Apr 2022
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ideasourcing 29 Apr 2022
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @kilianbuhn 28 Apr 2022
Haha, username checks out 😎
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @ideasourcing 29 Apr 2022
I was under the impression that it is self-custody, i.e. it gives you a seed phrase, and so it is good. My other wallet is ZBD, because gaming is cool and an @ email address like lightning address is cool, but it doesn't give me a seed phrase to save. But both work pretty fast, yes there is a slightly higher fee in Muun than ZBD.
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11 sats \ 0 replies \ @arrowdrive OP 29 Apr 2022
Muun is self custody but only for on-chain. You’re trusting them for the LN part. ZBD seems like a decent custodial wallet to use for small amounts.
But for larger amounts I’d prefer a proper self-custodial LN wallet.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @jack 28 Apr 2022
Because it's what @koob told me to download :)
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 29 Apr 2022
/tip -1000
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1 sat \ 2 replies \ @nout 28 Apr 2022
The complaints are valid, I wish they would have more LNURL and other features, but also the fee issues are not happening for all payments. E.g. I didn't yet hit any fee problem. I can send 5000 sats from Breez to Muun over LN with 1 sat fee and immediately withdraw to onchain with 1 sat/vB ... And this makes it the cheapest way for me to get from LN to onchain.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
https://github.com/muun/apollo/issues/14 Not even today that issue is closed, after some other private emails too.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @arrowdrive OP 28 Apr 2022
With only 5000 sats I also find that the fees aren’t really that noticeable. Sending 50,000 to 300,000 it really gets expensive.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @0391398253 28 Apr 2022
Huge fan of breeze, because love all the stuff that they have. Podcast, wallet, bitrefill, ln-auth, etc. But give me "no route" too much. Also very heavy, or my phone too old.
But muun just work, isn't the better in UI/UX, but is fast, no route is an exception, also support taproot and online/offline. Still would love support por ln-auth.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @arrowdrive OP 28 Apr 2022
Breez is pretty good, but yeah I have noticed a few route issues with them before.
I really like Blixt Wallet. It’s a full LND node like Breez but I find it syncs to the chain much faster. I also rarely have issues finding routes with the Blixt node which is the default node it opens a channel to, but you’re also able to open channels to any other node in the network which is great for redundancy. Also if you have your own node, you can open a channel towards it and you can use keysend to easily manage the liquidity of your Blixt Wallet assuming your node has decent liquidity. Need mobile inbound? Keysend from Blixt to your node, need more outbound for spending? Keysend from your node to your Blixt wallet.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Majjin 28 Apr 2022
Muun definitely has its faults. Lacking support for a lot of LNURL stuff is a big one for me. I replaced it with SBW as my daily driver. However, I like Muun because its extremely user friendly. So user friendly I recommend it to new-coiners.
I think unified balances are the right direction when it comes to mobile wallets. My ideal lightning wallet would basically be a fusion between Muun and SBW with some extra features:
  • Non-custodial
  • Can connect to your own node
  • Unified balance
  • Hosted Channel support
  • Splice-in and Splice-out for on-chain payments (I believe that splicing is still experimental at this point)
  • LNURL and Lightning address Support
  • Unified QR code support
  • Keysend support
  • Optional stable channel support (Sorry @DarthCoin lol)
  • Private send options like trampoline payments, blinded paths, etc. on by default (once they've been implemented)
  • Extremely minimalistic and simple by default, more advanced features can be turned on in settings
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
Unified QR code support Unified balance
That is dumb.
Private send options.
No, trampoline are not so "private" as you think. Use keysend if you really want privacy. Here is your dreamed mobile wallet app: Blixt Node Wallet
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @TheBTCManual 28 Apr 2022
I think each wallet targets a different niche, Muun is defs a noob wallet, and looking to strike the balance between both base chain and LN but removing the complexity for the user so you pay for that convenience, eventually, you learn if you want to save on your BTC experience you may want to migrate to a new wallet
Everyone values UX differently
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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @arrowdrive OP 28 Apr 2022
I was a noob to LN when I started using Muun and I had such a terrible time with it. I couldn’t pay many people because it didn’t support empty invoices or LNURL-pay. Also as I used it more I noticed the fees creeping up, and waiting long times for LN payments to clear because it needed to wait for an on-chain confirmation.
I had a much better experience with Blixt Wallet. Everything was a lot more transparent while still being pretty easy to use. I learned a lot about LN using that wallet until I eventually felt comfortable enough to run a routing node.
Also honestly for noobs just looking to try LN with a few sats, it’s probably just best to stick with custodial wallets like CoinOS or Wallet of Satoshi, then move to a better non-custodial wallet once they want to really begin using LN.
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 28 Apr 2022
I also had a similar experience my first LN wallet was LN bits and Zap and establishing channels and getting inbound liquidity was such a pain and documentation online wasn't great.
I've never heard of Blixit thanks for the tip, i've added it to our list of LN wallets
I also recommend new users to WOS instead and to use a LN exchange to swap in and out to their custodial wallet, it seems to be the easiest I have found so far for new peeps.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @2bithits 28 Apr 2022
I'm making my way through different lightning wallets. First was wallet of satoshi & now muun. Next step is to run my own lightning node.
I haven't paid big fee's through muun. Haven't looked into how it works, but I like how you can directly send lightning without an on chain transaction first.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @axzwk 28 Apr 2022 freebie
You still need a wallet even if you run your own node.
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2 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
The Force is strong with this one...
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @yoshi 28 Apr 2022
Not sure why you are getting high fees.
I usually pay between $0.05-0.08 to send 2 million satoshis from my LN wallet to my Bitcoin wallet.
Is that considered high?
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 28 Apr 2022
STOP thinking in shitcoins... Sats, sats is the way to think, not $
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