I think it was in an old Andreas video that I first heard that all the complexity involved with bitcoin/lightning will slowly get eroded away. With so many smart and intuitive people working on it, we can generally expect a simplistic streamlined experience that our grandmother can use. You receive bitcoin and magically through automation the app runs all the complexity in the background while we interface with a simple and slick display.

I've recently been trying out Albyhub and it's given me a glimpse of what a future bitcoin app might look like. It's main difference from other apps and services I find to be an integrated NWC (nostr wallet connect). Combined with the simple Albygo, I think they're onto something here and this to me is starting to feel like the beginning sketches of a super app.

If any of you have ever used wechat it's like this everything app that is all you basically need (despite being a proxy for the CCP). It has social media, banking, hotels, food, train tickets, taxi/uber and anything else you can think of. Wechat is something you'll need to have if you want to do anything in China, but what I imagine for this bitcoin super app is something open and free for everyone to use. It will be well integrated with all the complexity automated. I think some initial LLM consulting or survey is a good idea to create the pathways for how you want to experience bitcoin (as in creating a hierarchy with privacy, security, cost, speed etc). Let me try and explain a little more about what I'm thinking about.

SECURITY

First up is of course is some plausible deniability. One pin number opens your normal everyday app, and the other one takes you to a fake account with 42 sats in case you are under attack (which you gladly hand over). I'd also love a way to brick or erase the app by saying a few words. Some kind of phrase like: "apple engine about umpire" which erases all of your info, and you need to restore it from seed recovery.

ARCHITECTURE

I imagine this app as basically a bunch of automated LN channels. Your salary arrives through channels that need refilling. Your zapping or payments come out of channels that need emptying. If or when a channel is getting full, you loop out with your silent payment address into cold storage. Or as another option a watch-only xpub of your cold storage wallet with the option to coinjoin with joinmarket or joinstr inbetween. If base chain fees are too high, it gets sent into a liquid wallet until fees come down. Once fees reach the low threshold, they peg out into your cold storage wallet automatically.

For someone just getting started with bitcoin, they begin on a custodial wallet with a warning message down the bottom showing info tracking base chain fees. It might say something like: "cost of self sovereignty = N sats". The LLM analysis will also give advice on when an ideal time to open a channel is while at the same time educating about the advantages of self custody (mainly that there is a cost for it). This way they can get started with nostr and get a taste for sats without having skin in the game.

SOCIAL

Inside the app has your social connections via nostr where you zap or get zapped for quality content. There might also be entertainment like streaming sats for watching movies, bands, video games or comedy. There might be one off gigs, bounties or group discussions. Like with wechat it's possible that this is the main function of the app, and most of our time is spent here.

SHOPPING/BOOKINGS

Integrated stores that you buy food and drinks with hold invoices. The payment is made, the product is delivered, the product is satisfactory, the hold invoice is released. For more expensive products or products that take longer to deliver maybe half paid upfront and half on completion. The app will of course list of payments paid, pending and due.

SALARY

I'd love to get a streamed salary. Something like every 5 minutes or so. The incoming salary can be divided up into savings, bills, and pleasure. Even though the salary is streaming into channels that need refilling, the app keeps tabs on how much needs to be saved for upcoming bills. Once the base chain savings threshold is met (ex: 2 million sats), it automates a loop out to your cold storage wallet or is used to open another channel.

LENDING/BORROWING

The idea is that you lend out some of your sats which pay you an interest, which in turn pays for your channel openings or other expenses. It's just a way of offsetting your overall balance from paying fees. Lending and borrowing can already work with base layer multisig. It's a possibility in my mind that people are going to want to earn yield on their bitcoin. I just don't know how they'll be able to pay it back... But that's a post for another time.

BETTING

Betting might be thrown in with the social section. Imagine a betting bot called something like "bittiebets". You sh$tpost and tag an opposing pleb about who's going to win the game along with the hashtag #bittiebets. A contract reply post pops up. If you both agree you lock in your sats and wait for the results. Small bets can be fun in friendly circles!

ANALYSIS

Last but not least we have an internal LLM that has been well trained on all the nuances and trade offs that come with bitcoin. It can offer advice on better privacy, fee savings, security, as well as educate on best practices. It keeps your bills paid on time and warns you of any issues you have. It also helps automate a lot of the liquidity problems that come with lightning.

...

I think a lot of this might not be too far away. Most of this stuff already exists, it's just not seamless, integrated or effortless yet. I struggled to think of a use case for ecash mints, because I believe (perhaps naively) we can get a better lightning network free from these uninitiated forced closes and better privacy. I also didn't think of any radical improvements with covenants as I haven't played around with them yet. I'm sure these open up a lot of creativity.

Anyway, what do you imagine the ultimate futuristic bitcoin app is going to be like?