News

First Bitcoin Lightning Network Android App Hits Google Playstore

Wilma Woo | Apr 05, 2018 | 07:00

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The Lightning Network (LN) has gained its first user mobile app in the form of ACINQ’s Eclair wallet which debuted April 4.

More Consumers, More Products

Continuing a trend of rapid innovation for Lightning, the wallet is currently available for Android devices running version 5.0 of the operating system and later.

The release represents the first mainnet mobile wallet based on the increasingly popular protocol.

“The Eclair Wallet is a next generation, Lightning-ready Bitcoin wallet. It can be used as a regular Bitcoin wallet, and can also connect to the Lightning Network for cheap and instant payments,” ACINQ wrote in a description of its offering.

“This software is based upon eclair, and follows the Lightning Network standard.”

Eclair Wallet, our ⚡️ Lightning wallet for Android, is now available on Google Play: https://t.co/nBnW9hnHY7

Source code is on github: https://t.co/G7kMYoXO5W

— ACINQ (@acinq_co) April 4, 2018

The Changing Face Of Bitcoin Payments

Since SegWit saw mass adoption in February and March this year, LN’s pace of development has increased considerably, SegWit being a de facto prerequisite for the technology to function smoothly on the Bitcoin mainnet.

Last week saw several new products enter the market, while several weeks previously, the first LN mainnet beta implementation successfully went live to considerable acclaim.

Reacting on social media, users appeared encouraging, nonetheless lobbying ACINQ for an iOS equivalent. This, commentators responded, could be no easy task due to coding requirements.

Further criticism came from those wishing to both send and receive Lightning payments with Eclair, that functionality available by running a full node, ACINQ said.

At press time, LN mainnet incorporated 1335 public nodes and 3729 open channels. Bitcoin has already benefited in terms of user experience from SegWit, with fees as low as 1 satoshi per byte now standard.

In future, LN should allow all Bitcoin users to send transactions near-instantly with fees amounting to fractions of a US cent.

What do you think about the first Android wallet app for Lightning? Let us know in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter