Muun does a valuable service as a first step from exchange to wallet for lots of people. It was my first wallet out of exchange and served its purpose as a bridge to Trezor quite well.
Perhaps unpopular opinion, but I would take this “bloating” over people keeping there coins at coinbase and binance. An imperfect solution; to an imperfect world.
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Phoenix, Blixt, and Breez are all an actual lightning wallet that really work. That's the kind of solution we should be steering users towards.
Right now, on the Google Play Store Muun wallet describes itself as "Muun: Bitcoin Lightning Wallet".
The fact is they're not a Lightning wallet. They're an on-chain wallet that can use swaps to also receive and pay Lightning invoices. And that means they're subject to all the costs of on chain payments. Which Muun users find out the hard way every time fees are high.
I know for a fact that Muun's dishonesty is turning people away from Lightning, and Bitcoin, because I've personally had people tell me that Lightning was too expensive to be worthwhile because they used Muun and every "Lightning" transaction they did cost as much as an onchain payment. Because it was an on chain payment!
Muun are bad actors who deserve to be pushed out of the community. Stop making excuses for them.
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My experience with muun and its users is different from yours. All of the muun users I've ever talked to were satisfied with the experience. Muun is fast, reliable, and (usually) cheap, and their user interface is much simpler than competing "real" lightning wallets. It's not only a great "first wallet," I recommend muun to almost everyone, I only recommend something else to people who specifically want a more advanced wallet with more features, customization, and control.
It seems to me that about one day of every month has high fees and muun's user experience on that day, if you happen to use it on that day, is poor. But 29 out of 30 days, fees are low and muun works like a charm. I think it's a net positive for its users even in its current state, and there's no reason they can't shift to being a "real" lightning wallet over time, as the need arises. They'll probably have to because I suspect their current revenue model is not sustainable in the long term.
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Go back a few months where we had full blocks. We had many people saying lightning sucks because they were paying $5 in sats for muun fees. And muun was literally crying to core devs trying to make them change the software so they can keep doing broken things.
Muun works in the same way that random "fast" shitcoins work - no competition or use on the base chain. I wouldn't call it something to praise.
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Lol muun is not “easier” than WoS. Thats the first lightning wallet people should be introduced too. Especially normies.
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My dream is for Wallet of Satoshi and Phoenix to merge: custodial until you have enough money to make it worthwhile to open a channel.
This could be implemented as an entirely automatic process, with users able to continue to send and receive the whole time. Unfortunately Phoenix has already said they while they would like to have this model, they aren't comfortable due to the fact that they'd be a custodian, and in the EU, that has a lot of legal baggage.
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My dream is for Wallet of Satoshi and Phoenix to merge: custodial until you have enough money to make it worthwhile to open a channel.
Yes, exactly. This is the plan I have coming for Blixt.
With the 0conf channel support in lnd (and other implementations), it's possible to provide a "custodial" channel by just not ever broadcasting the channel opening transaction. This is quite neat, because there's no need to do a fully custodial solution (BlueWallet, WoS), just utilize LN normal channels, but make it trusted.
This way people can get onboarded Blixt custodially. I cannot open a channel for small amount like 1000 sats, right, and I don't think it matters if it's custodial when it's just a small amount. But eventually when the user has proven they actually use the wallet, it's reasonable to let them have a real channel.
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Awesome!
FWIW, Blixt is the main Lightning wallet I use. Though I use it for a totally different reason: I exclusively open private Lightning channels to my own Lightning node. I hope you are able to maintain this functionality. :)
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That's great to hear!
Yes, I plan to maintain all power user stuff (and keep improving it). My understanding is that it's somewhat popular for users to connect to their own bitcoin and lightning nodes.
Though the LSP features will ofc likely only work together with Blixt Node (or you'll have to self-host the LSP software (Dunder LSP, Lightning Box)).
My dream is for Wallet of Satoshi and Phoenix to merge: custodial until you have enough money to make it worthwhile to open a channel.
You described OBW with hosted channels.
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Phoenix is already a custodian. I doubt what they have is always going to fly under the radar. Create an on chain address on Phoenix and you'll see that it comes directly from their servers.
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There's a good argument that the time scale involved in getting a new channel isn't really a custodial arrangement. That's akin to claiming a money exchange booth is also a custodian because they physically have your money for a minute or two while they count out the foreign currency they're about to give you.
Very different circumstances to something like Wallet of Satoshi, who has had full control of the $5 I've had on my WoS wallet for the last few months.
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There are many types of "muun users":
  • clueless noobs, that are just following somebody else saying "use muun"
  • bitcoiners that know what they are doing and use Muun when they need a swap (some of these don't really know the "dark" practices of Muun)
  • researchers, testers, that use Muun as testing ground
  • fanatics followers of Muun that don't want to hear anything
Is not about "muun is working like a charm"... is about HOW is working. Is a wrong model.
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This is spot on. Muun works like "a charm" until it doesn't. Their model is putting them AND the users out of control. It won't work like this. Users and muun will have a bad awakening at some point in the future. They need to change
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I am astonished by the big number of "privacy advocates" pushing noobs to use Muun. But NONE of these are talking about how Muun is managing the xpubs of each Muun user.
NONE of Muun users are in control of those xpubs. Muun servers are. Meanwhile these "privacy advocates" are screaming all day, not your keys, not your bitcoins. Damn it, xpub ARE your public keys and if somebody else know them you are screwed, they can scan all your movements.
YOU CANNOT EXPORT OR CONTROL XPUBS IN MUUN. And Muun is linked to your Google Play account - that means they can also link it to your IMEI.
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could you elaborate on these dark practices?
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submarine swaps instead of simply LN channels. Submarine swaps are not meant to be used as payments. Are simply swaps in/out into LN channels, when is needed more liquidity
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Oh I misunderstood your previous comment! I thought you said that an user can leverage the fact that muum is using submarine swaps through some dark pratices. But what you called dark pratices are those of muum wallet itself by doing these swaps.
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Yes, many of muun users don't even know how that app works. Only few really knows that muun actually is doing submarine swaps all the time.
Submarine swaps are not meant to be used as payments
What else can you use them for?
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I disagree that the facts support Muun driving users away. My personal experience was exactly opposite. Never wanted to bother with LN until I saw the LN invoices flying on nostr and Muun made it dead easy to get started. Since, I have moved to other LN wallet, but it was a great tool to get started.
Most users will never run their own lighting node. Simple wins. Let the free market decide what belongs on the blockchain.
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Until recently, I had been a happy user for a couple of years. I've recommended Muun to many CEX bitcoiners who knew nothing about Lightning. The onboarding was very easy given the double tab bitcoin/lightning. I also liked their seed backup approach that was exposing the limits of BIP39. I've only once experienced exagerated fees. Nevertheless, I think they've stayed behind, like for example with LNURL-Pay, and my go-to recommendation now is WalletofSatoshi.
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Muun es una billetera, nadie custodia tu dinero WalletofSatoshi es un banco, la empresa controla tu dinero
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Oh yeah? Please show me you are in total control of that xpub from Muun...
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Simple advice: never have an opinion on something if you do not know what are you talking about.
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Love that last sentence my man
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awesome wallet comparison, thank you!
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It seems like this whole inscription controversy has sparked a real "let's keep the blockchain clean" movement. It reminds me of Greenpeace.
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free market (if you pay the fees you can do whatever you want)
code is law (every node agrees to the same contract)
Bitcoin maxi creeds, that somehow have been forgotten in the last few weeks
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For additional comments on this, from before the discovery that it was Muun responsible, see another post found here on SN:
Something else is burning blockspace and bloating the UTXO set 🧵 #130996 https://twitter.com/mononautical/status/1621663167582437376 [Nitter]
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Muun strikes again. It's almost like they're trying to do harm.
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One word: incompetence Bad app design
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Bad app design, yes . I don't know if i would call them incompetent, I think they might have tried a different approach that didn't quite work out so well and are now kinda stuck. Still, i think they will have to change something absolutely, for their own good and everyone else's.
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Yes, I know they are good dev guys, but their stubbornness into continuing this model is incredible. Definitely they have to change the system.
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Its important for a fee market to develop for long term bitcoin mining incentives.
Bitcoin is the ultimate environment for supply and demand constrained by consensus rules.
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100% agree. Blocks should be always full.
That's how it's gonna be anyway. If one can fill it up with bloat and can pay for it, no problem there for me. Doesn't mean it's something that should be strived towards, or that it's benevolent. People that need to make cheep onchain transactions will get pushed out by 1st world plebs that want to put their jpg onchain and don't care about the fees.
Free market is fair, maybe the fairest, but it has its flaws too.
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Muun bids competitive feerates for blockspace. If their practice is inefficient, the blockspace is simply too cheap for them to be forced to use blockspace better. Go ahead and find a more valuable use of the blockspace and price them out. ;)
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Yes! I completely agree.
they will be forced out though, trust me. everytime the fees spike the muun guys pee in their pants a little. But at the end of the day it will be the muun user that has to bear the cost. Lightning is supposed to be used to scale Bitcoin transaction frequency, muuns model is doing the opposite.
Right now their model might kinda work but at some point it just won't anymore.
I like muun's focus on UX and the apps UX they built is great, but they have to change their model if they wanna stay relevant, or at least don't advertise themselves as a lightning wallet
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I never understand the complaint about bloating the blockchain. If someone can actually bloat the chain with garbage, that is a fatal flaw in the protocol. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
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Yes. The blocks are supposed to be full. What is bloat and what is not can harldy be defined. One mans bloat might be another mans treasure.
I hate on the player a little bit, because at the end of the day, a legal move is not necessarily not a dick move.
Not complaining tho, just pointing it out. Everyone is free to use Bitcoin as they please
Free Market/code is law
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eh, they're actual btc transfers, infinitely better than jpegs.
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don't you work for Blixt or something? You're biased af
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No. I don't work for anybody. Blixt is open source. I only contribute with app documentation. Like I did for many others.
I work only for Bitcoin. I am just an old bitcoiner writing bitcoun guides for noobs.
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Not this again. Muun is awesome. Stop it with this FUD nonsense.
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Muun is awesome either if you absolutely do know what you're doing and you use it for a very specific purpose,
or muun is awesome if you're absolutely clueless what you're doing. In which case you will probably have a surprise waiting for you at some point
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This is not FUD. This is pointing out the bad design of a Bitcoin app. Just because you like it, it doesn't mean is good as app.
You need to learn more about how Bitcoin and Lightning Network works BEFORE having an "opinion" in this matter.
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I think everyone kinda knew this from the beginning but it's now finally blowing up in people's faces.
I hope it wakes up some shills.
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Who cares what Muun does to the chain if they wanna pay for it. Dont all you BTC maxis scream about wanting a free market and no central control? This is exactly what happens when that occurs, and now you same idiots are mad about it?! Can't have your cake and eat it too, clowns.
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The point is, muun users will get fucked on this because they don't know how their app is working and they think it's a lightning wallet.
I don't care what muun puts on the chain, but the ones paying for it are their users, because they don't know what they are doing.
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I use muun to go from lightning to on chain when I have to use layer one because it's free to do so and you don't have to "swap" with a fee involved... But I would never store anything on Muun ever, but that service they provide is something you can't find elsewhere.
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Then you're in the 0.1% who actually understand what's happening and that's fair enough, we're talking about the other 99.9% here tho
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STFU shitcoiner. You are total clueless about the matter.
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Yep, you have no argument contrary to my point so you just hurl insults. Real mature, middle schooler. Can't wait til Bitcoin crashes hard and youre fucking broke.
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you came in here hurling insults first tho, calling people stupid and clowns. I think you're argument is OK, but the delivery is not great
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Don't understand why muun is building on bitcoin instead of eth.
  1. eth doesent care how or what you use it for they are just happy you use it
  2. it has as many users if not more than bitcoin
  3. there is a need for a wallet team like muun now that metamask has been bought by JPMorgan
  4. it faces more interesting challenges than bitcoin and gets regular upgrades which keeps things interesting for developers
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  1. Bitcoin also doesn't care
  2. ETH is a shitcoin and the guys at muun know it. Regardless of how many users it has.
  3. Muuns goal is offering self custody of a hard asset, not competing with a shitcoin wallet.
  4. Bitcoin faces the most interesting challenge maybe in recent human history. Comparing that with what's happening over at Ethirium is peak clown world
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Convinced! Just sold all my ETH
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You are not convincing anyone
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not trying to
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