I was making a lightning payment this past weekend and saw a lot of confusion from the payee about the 'receive' screen on Wallet of Satoshi. This person was a merchant with an interest in Bitcoin, but they lacked the technical expertise to fully understand the mechanics of lightning. The concept of nodes, channels, and UTXOs were abstract to them and they just saw the technology as a way to make faster Bitcoin transactions.
The first thing I noticed was the vendor's confusion about the various tabs on the 'receive' screen and what they needed to do with the 'email address'. I explained that the 'email address' was unneeded here, and that they didn't need to do anything beyond showing me the QR code.
For those that don't know, the tabs at the bottom were for changing the QR code to either represent an lnurl, a Bitcoin address, a lightning invoice, or to change the screen to a camera I'm guessing is used for withdrawals. And the 'email' in the default receive page is what's known as a 'lightning address'.
My big gripe is that there was no 'point your camera here' near the QR code, or explanations for things like the 'copy' and 'share' buttons. There's also the problem of tapping 'customize' under the lightning address introducing more complexity. When tapped it says to 'Complete the 3 steps below to unlock your Custom Address!' even though the lightning address is already usable, as it should be, without completing any of them.
There was also the problem of specifying an amount. The vendor was previously told they needed to do this but was probably educated by someone who only uses invoices. A consequence of the non-standard interfaces and poor default interoperability between apps.
My biggest takeaway is there are a lot of low-hanging fruit for lightning wallet devs to improve the UX, and that goes doubly so for custodial wallets to at least justify the tradeoff of users not holding their funds. Simple explanations, better-hidden advanced options, and feature-parity with fiat payment apps is what will help drive adoption and is something the industry still sorely needs.
Nah I don't think so, maybe greenlight, cashu or LSPs can help hide the complexity for the normie if it can be baked into a smooth UX that the wallet hides most of the drama and you just toggle a few settings based on your preferences, but even then it's still a long way off and people still need to figure out LN exists, loads of poeple who own Bitcoin don't know jack about LN
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In Africa, the answer could be yes. Considering the fact that there is a much greater population of unbanked communities than that of the banked. I think, since Lightning Network offers a much more affordable and faster way of transacting independently from central authorities, there's a great room for adoption. I may not know everything, but I'm also looking forward to the mass adoption of Bitcoin, especially in Africa.
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To answer tldr style, no
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Not for non custodial wallets no. Phoenix is probably the best choice although the fees are higher.
Custodial LN like Wallet of Satoshi & Alby work well for fast, instant & reliable payments. "Mainstream adoption" will likely happen with custodial LN IMO.
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Had a bit of learning curve when I encountered wallet of Satoshi. Eventually I got a hang of it and at the same discovered all I had to do was copy the lightning address I was sending to and just go to the wallet options and to paste and everything becomes seamless sending to that address. Same happens with receiving if it is done on the same phone (from another wallet to wallet of Satoshi.) All in all, I just love the seamless transfers between lightning wallets. Makes Bitcoin look like old-school, but Bitcoin still remains it source. So, it is going nowhere.
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I think some of them are already ready for a wider-audience. Mainstream perhaps not 100% yet.
Are all of them ready for my grandma? No.
Are some of them ready for my colleagues with lower tech skills? Yes
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Muun wallet has simple interface with two buttons, 'send' and 'recieve'. Even my grandmother can get used to it.
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Yes but then grandmother will ask “why did it cost me 17k satoshis to send you 100k for your birthday grandson? Why?”
And you’ll have to explain how you failed to tell her that you aren’t using Lightning payments.
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So there's no warning or notification that the person is about to use onchain? I also thought people are able to control the fee before sending with this wallet.
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Muun is an atomic swap wallet, not a Lightning wallet. Was recommending it to a non-interested friend of mine, when I found out about that fact through user here.
That's why it's the wallet with the highest fees.
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Some low-hanging fruit for sure, but getting there. If Phoenix supported LN addresses and was custodial for small amounts, it would be perfect.
IMO the main hurdle is simply demand. BTC is still establishing itself as a SoV / MoE, and normies don't care about transacting in BTC. They'd sooner use ETH + L2s + Tron to settle value in USD stablecoins. Kinda silly, but hey I don't make the rules.
Stablecoins will eventually fall off, as the USD is on a timer. That's when Lightning reaches mainstream adoption.
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I have used a couple of lightning wallets like Strike, Wallet of Satoshi, ZBD...and noticed the same issue with the UI/UX design. In addition, Wallet of Satoshi gives a random address that can only be customized after making transfers on chain and through lightning network. I think Strike is my preferred for now since you can choose your unique address and allows for recurring purchases of sats from your cash.
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For the time being, not really. Heck, it can be tricky for me to work with them sometimes. It's our job to work out this problem and make things smooth enough for the average person.
I do think that we have time though. Bitcoin nreds to start winning over the populace as a saving technology before people start mass adoption in transactions. At least in more developed nations that is
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Please check the LifPay wallet, it fix the problem you mentioned.
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