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Progressive Web Apps, Mutiny Wallet, & How They Break The App Store Duopoly

Breaking The App Store Duopoly With Mutiny Wallet

As the US crackdown on Bitcoin privacy and self custody continues, the latest to fall in the fight is Phoenix Wallet, one of many bitcoiners’ favorite self-custodial Lightning wallets on the market.

Due to regulatory concerns stemming from the Samourai shutdown earlier this week, Phoenix is removing the application from app stores in the US. Due to the centralized control that Apple and Google have over their dominant app store marketplaces, Bitcoin platform providers who operate in the US may not feel comfortable subjecting themselves to the same incrimination that Samourai developers are experiencing right now.

As it turns out, there’s a mobile, self-custodial Lightning wallet that was designed for this exact scenario.

Let’s wrap our heads around Mutiny Wallet, progressive web apps (PWAs), why they’re a solution to the problem Phoenix is experiencing right now, and how you can easily migrate your bitcoin from Phoenix (or any Lightning wallet) to Mutiny in just a few minutes.

Buy Bitcoin Around The World

Progressive Web Apps? What Are Those?

Progressive web apps are web-based applications optimized for an app-like experience that you can install to your desktop, laptop, phone, or any mobile device with an internet connection. They take advantage of the standard web technologies and protocols that we use today, like HTTPS, JavaScript, CSS, etc.

PWAs are bridging the gap between traditional web pages and native applications. By relying on web infrastructure to host your platform, while also developing capabilities only previously available to dedicated software applications, you free yourself from the app store duopoly and allow people to have access to PWAs no matter where they are.

Thanks to their unique traits, PWAs offer unparalleled accessibility and functionality for the world. Naturally, in the realm of monetary sovereignty, PWAs can be quite useful.

Why PWAs Solve Phoenix’s Problem

Phoenix is a Lightning wallet that you could download from the US app stores until May 3rd, 2024, from which point on it will no longer be available in the United States.

Phoenix works throughout many countries, but since the US is trying to enforce harsh regulations on Bitcoin users, it’s driving many of the Bitcoin developers we love out of the country to jurisdictions that will be more friendly to their work.

If the US does continue down its path against freedom money, more and more Bitcoin Lightning wallets like Phoenix may be shutting down their operations in the US.

Some are using this event to claim yet again that “bitcoin is dead”, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Bitcoin is censorship-resistant money, meaning that no one can stop you from spending it. Examples like Phoenix may seem to dampen that truth, but Mutiny Wallet’s innovative use of progressive web apps is the proof of this fact. The more entrances to self custody that the state may try to close, the more they inadvertently open thanks to bitcoiners’ collective drive to maintain a healthy network.

Getting Started With Mutiny Wallet

Mutiny Wallet is a Bitcoin Lightning wallet packaged as a progressive web app, one of the first of its kind.

It works just the same as any other Lightning wallet, but actually goes a step further to save you on channel fees by integrating Federations. It’s easy to join and skips the initial on-chain transaction fees you’re required to pay when sending bitcoin to a new Lightning wallet.

Self-custodial. Free from on-chain fees. Unstoppable PWA architecture. That’s what makes Mutiny great.

Getting started with Mutiny wallet couldn’t be easier. For this tutorial, I’ll be using an iPhone mobile device, but the process is very similar no matter which device you’re operating from.

Downloading Mutiny As A Progressive Web App

After going to mutinywallet.com, follow these steps:

  1. Click “Use in Browser”
  2. Click Share.
  3. Add to your home screen.

How to download the Mutiny Wallet PWA

You should now see what looks to be a Mutiny app on your home screen. Now open the PWA up to continue on.

Creating Your Mutiny Wallet

To create your Mutiny wallet, simply:

  1. Click “New wallet”.
  2. Enter or import any social profile information you may desire, or just skip for now to get started quickly.
  3. Pick a federation to join, enabling you to receive Lightning payments without incurring the initial on-chain transaction fee to open the Lightning channel.

How to create your Mutiny Wallet

It’s that simple, but there’s one more critical step to keep the wallet safe:

Store your seed phrase safely.

As a new user, you should see this button on the home screen of Mutiny:

Secure your funds on Mutiny

Click this button and write down your seed phrase somewhere safe. Don’t copy and paste it onto a device or store it in your Google Drive. It needs to be physically secured somewhere that can’t be found unless you want the bitcoin stolen.

Funding Your Mutiny Wallet

Now it’s time to fund your wallet.

All you need to do is:

  1. Click “Receive your first sats”.
  2. Enter your preferred sat amount.
  3. Copy the Bitcoin address.

Note that Mutiny sets the address by default to “Unified”, meaning that the sender determines whether the payment is on-chain or Lightning, depending on the wallet it’s coming from. You can adjust the default settings by clicking “Choose format” at the bottom of your screen, so that you can have addresses always show up as on-chain or Lightning if you prefer. It’s not necessary though.

How to fund your Mutiny Wallet

Ah the beauty of facilitating 32 cent transactions at near-zero fees.

From here, you simply have to paste that address into any other Bitcoin wallet of your choosing.

And that’s it!

Once you pay the invoice to receive funds, this is what your Mutiny home screen should look like:

Received funds in Mutiny

Competing With The App Store Duopoly

Programs that you interact with on your mobile devices have forever been trapped within the gated walls of the Apple and Google app stores. Any app that you wanted to download had to go through the reviewal process of these corporations before reaching the public.

But when the same corporations are all bought out by political interests, how can you break free from the inevitable censorship that arises within those gated walls?

Mutiny Wallet and progressive web apps represent one of the many emerging technologies helping us break free from the app store duopoly and censorship at large.

F. A. Hayek once said:

“I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.”

If you want to support the fight for freedom money, privacy, and individualism in the digital age, ask yourself routinely if you’re adopting technologies like Mutiny, that help push society towards the free world.

Take A Stand

Government overreach on Bitcoin privacy tools demonstrate how the battle against this trend towards freedom is heating up.

Thankfully, despite the takedowns in the US we’ve seen from Samourai, and now Phoenix, it’s empowering other Lightning developers to speak up. Zeus is one of the only self-custodial Lightning wallets that also supports running a Lightning node natively. Its founder, Evan Kaloudis, released a statement to make clear what the precedents being set entail, and what is at stake for bitcoin in the US.

The US is boxing itself out from technological innovation in a last ditch effort to keep controls over the mainstream financial system. Little do they understand, however, that these actions only backfire by growing Bitcoin and making the network stronger.

Their actions push custodial users of bitcoin into self custody out of fear of losing their keys to another gold seizure event like 1933’s Executive Order 6102.

They drive more people to educate themselves on freedom, bitcoin, and the separation of money and state.

They incentivize developers like Mutiny’s to create alternatives for people to maintain their self custody and protect themselves from government overreach.

Ultimately, the fight only strengthens bitcoin. But it requires the voices and efforts of everyone in the network to make a stand.

Bitcoin is speech. Privacy should be the standard.

Make sure that you’re adopting the tools necessary to set this standard for yourself and lead by example. The more people who buy non-KYC bitcoin, take bitcoin off of KYC exchanges, out of ETF products, out of yield scams, and into their own custody, the sooner we can set the same standard for the world to operate on.

Thank You For Reading

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