Today, I was recalling some of the great tools, we once had.

Then I thought

Why there’s still little to no replacement for the Mutiny Wallet

Mutiny Wallet wasn’t just another Lightning wallet you install, play with for a day, then forget. It felt different. Like… someone actually cared how normal humans use Lightning, not just node runners and devs.

Now that Mutiny winded down, people are starting to notice something kinda painful: there’s still no real replacement for it. Not really. Not fully.

So what made Mutiny special anyway?

It wasn’t one big feature. It was the mix. The way them things came together.

Browser-first, no app store drama

Running in the browser was huge. No Play Store. No App Store. No begging Apple or Google to allow your Bitcoin wallet to exist.

If you has a browser, you were good. Phone, laptop, borrowed computer, whatever. That alone made Mutiny feel more “Bitcoin” than most wallets. Simple. Permissionless. Just works.

Self-custody, like actually

Your keys was yours. Period.

Not “self-custody but trust us bro.” Real self-custody. And if you was technical enough, you could self-host the whole thing too. That’s not normal. Most wallets doesn’t even go near that level of control.

Mutiny it did. No fear.

Lightning without all the headache

Lightning is cool, but let’s be honest, it’s also annoying. Channels, liquidity, inbound, outbound… people bounces fast when they see all that.

Mutiny did smoothed a lot of it out with built-in LSP stuff and just-in-time channels. You didn’t need to understand everything just to send sats. That mattered. A lot.

Nostr wasn’t some side feature

With Mutiny, Nostr actually felt native. Zaps, NWC, social payments — it all made sense. It felt alive.

Most wallets still treats Nostr like “yeah maybe later.” Mutiny didn’t wait. It leaned in.

Willing to try weird stuff

It integrated technologies like Fedimint and Cashu, using blinded authentication to separate wallet identity from addresses. — Mutiny wasn’t scared to experiment. Not everything had to be perfect. It was more like, “let’s try this and see.”

That mindset is rare. Especially in wallets.

Why it still feels irreplaceable

When they said hosted services were shutting down, it hit. Yeah, you can still self-host, sure. But let’s be real — most people won’t.

And that means:

The easy browser Mutiny is basically gone

Other wallets copy parts, but not the whole vibe

Nostr-first Lightning wallets are still rare

Fedimint + self-custody + web access? still no

People moved to other alternatives, even custodial stuff. They works, yeah. But every option feel like a compromised. Something is always missing.

What this says about Bitcoin right now

First thing: we’re still early. Lightning UX isn’t solved. Mutiny proved that. It pushed things forward, even if quietly.

Second thing: good tools doesn’t last forever. Even open-source, even loved ones. If it’s hard to maintain, it can disappear. That’s just reality.

So… is that it?

Probably not.

The ideas didn’t die. The code is open. Browser wallets, Nostr-native payments, federated models — these things will came back in some form. Maybe forks. Maybe new projects. Maybe something we hasn’t seen yet.

But right now? There’s a gap.

The Lightning wallet space still feels Mutiny-shaped. And until something really fills that hole, yeah — there’s still little to no replacement for the Mutiny Wallet.