{"id":19910,"date":"2019-06-20T21:25:34","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T21:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe6e400c2697"},"modified":"2019-06-20T21:25:34","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T21:25:34","slug":"lightning-labs-strikes-on-ios-android-with-noncustodial-mobile-wallet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/technical\/lightning-labs-strikes-on-ios-android-with-noncustodial-mobile-wallet","title":{"rendered":"Lightning Labs Strikes on iOS, Android With Noncustodial Mobile Wallet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2019 has been an electric year for the Lightning Network, and San Francisco\u2013based Lightning Labs has delivered another striking development. The development company has already launched the alpha for its desktop Lightning wallet<\/a> in April, announced Lightning Loop<\/a>\/Hyperloop<\/a> to allow seamless channel funding and withdrawals, and released the network\u2019s first iteration of watchtowers<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s bringing its Lightning wallet to mobile with the launch of iOS and Android apps.<\/p>\n

Lightning Labs applications developer Tankred Hase dropped the news in a blog post<\/a> on June 19, 2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t be more excited to announce a major release today,\u201d he wrote. \u201cOur Lightning App is now available on Bitcoin mainnet in alpha for iOS (on Testflight)<\/a> and Android (on Google Play)<\/a>, making it the first mainnet app on all major mobile and desktop platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post emphasizes that the team developed the application with a \u201cclean user interface and a goal to hide complexity and make the app more accessible to new users.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the Hood<\/h3>\n

Simple as it seems on the surface, under the hood, the Lightning wallet application leverages the bleeding edge of the Lightning Network\u2019s sharpest tech. Like the desktop app before it, the mobile application is noncustodial. It gives users the nearly full-fledged functionality of a Lightning node using Lightning\u2019s LND implementation, though it still requires a degree of trust. <\/p>\n

Neutrino<\/a>, a lightweight client with a bent for privacy, makes this possible. Hase highlighted that it\u2019s a more efficient and privacy-preserving alternative to the Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) method that underpins most light wallets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not as secure as running your own node. But it\u2019s pretty close and a trade-off we felt was necessary for broader adoption on mobile,\u201d Hase told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>. The trade-off here is that Neutrino requires the user to trust in a third party node, either one chosen at will or at random, to send accurate blockchain data. Hase added that, to make the app completely trustless, Lightning might give advanced users the option to connect the Neutrino client to their own nodes.<\/p>\n

In addition to Neutrino, the app also features an autopilot function for connecting to nodes for reliable payment channel routing.<\/p>\n

Lightning Wallet Privacy<\/h3>\n

The private key for each user\u2019s wallet is encrypted and \u201cnever leaves the device,\u201d Hase assures his readers, and the iPhone\u2019s Touch ID \/ Face ID gives an added layer of security in the case of a theft. Admittedly, Android\u2019s OS security isn\u2019t as robust, but the team is working on supporting more secure hardware features for it in the future (they use Pixel 3\u2019s Titan M<\/a> security module as an example).<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we do in [the app] is have LND (which holds the user\u2019s private key) run in a different thread than the user interface,\u201d Hase explained. <\/p>\n

Next Steps<\/h3>\n

When asked about what\u2019s next for the application \u2014 the blog mentions integrating Lightning Loop in the not-so-far-off future \u2014 Hase said that the team is focused on providing devs with a mobile software developer kit that has \u201cbetter tooling and a well documented API.\u201d LND, Hase explained, is written in Go while Android and iOS are written in Java and Objective-C\/Swift, respectively. Binding the two is labor intensive, so an intuitive API would ease the process for teams trying to integrate Lightning\u2019s kit into other wallets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we provide a module with a well-defined Javascript API [then] these other wallets can pick [it] up and integrate easily without writing native code,\u201d Hase said, adding that they plan to provide the same APIs for Lightning Loop, as well.<\/p>\n

The Lightning Network has ended on a high note after rounding another milestone, and Hase is enthusiastic about its future \u2014 hurdles and headaches included.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just fun and exciting to be able to work in this ecosystem,\u201d he said. \u201cBitcoiners are very friendly and principled folks. It\u2019s probably going to take some time until Lightning becomes adopted as a means of payment for more than just demo purposes. But providing a usable, secure and private experience for end users is definitely an exciting first step in enabling that journey.\u201dIf you\u2019re reading this on mobile, you can install the apps by following these links: <\/em>iOS app (on Testflight)<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>Android app (on Google Play)<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lightning Labs is bringing their Lightning wallet to mobile with the launch of their iOS and Android apps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2566,"featured_media":19911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1999,1252,460,1843,3122],"class_list":["post-19910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technical","tag-android","tag-lightning-labs","tag-lightning-network","tag-lnd","tag-neutrino"],"author_data":{"id":2566,"name":"Colin Harper","nicename":"colin-harper","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/MjEwMTYzMzc3Njg5ODYzNjQ2-96x96.webp"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/lightning-wallet.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}