LIPA, a non-custodial Lightning wallet without sending function

[internetional]

LiPa (https://lipa.swiss) stands for Lightning Payment. This is a wallet for payment, not just for transfers. The wallet exists in iOS version only. Now it is open in testflight mode.

The concept of the wallet is like one of Breez, Phoenix or Mutiny: you receive your first money and pay 5K sats for opening a channel. But then … you cannot do anything with your money except spending in a point of sales supporting LiPa. There is a “Send” button, but in my case the result of pressing it is very strange for a non-custodial wallet:


So, I may create invoices and receive payments via LN, I may pay to LiPa business users, but I am not allowed to send my money to anyone I want outside the LiPa ecosystem.

Be careful with this wallet. At least now, when it is still in testflight mode. Maybe, the devs are going to open the access to the “Send” button later, but now it’s absent, and you don’t know about this until you try to send sats.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

There is a “Send” button, but in my case the result of pressing it is very strange for a non-custodial wallet:

Being a noncustodial wallet does not mean the app won't read and record your device data, IP address, Photos etc

Be careful with this wallet. At least now, when it is still in testflight mode. Maybe, the devs are going to open the access to the “Send” button later, but now it’s absent, and you don’t know about this until you try to send sats.

Still a new service
Not open source, I don't see the source code
No terms and conditions, I don't see the privacy policy
It's on TestFlight mode

It's a no-go zone for me, not even with a few sats.

[Yamane_Keto]

We can say that they claim to be a non-custodial wallet, but without the code being open source, we cannot verify these claims and some actions such as banning service for a specific country or not possible to send except under certain conditions that contradict the principle that you have access to the private key aka custodial wallet.

This service is centralized and there are other alternatives to the Lightning Network, so there is no reason to use them.
I don't know what language the site is written in, so I couldn't understand them.

@internetional you have a funny avatar 

[DaveF]

Looks like they released it WAY to early.
Without the ability to just send and without the sourcecode it's just too much of a risk for most people to use.

I do see the issue of 'how do we test without getting it out there' and 'we have so much debugging code in the code and it changes so much releasing the source would be worse then not releasing it'

BUT they really should make that statement in BIG BOLD LETTERS out there if they truly plan on doing that.

-Dave

[internetional]

This service is centralized and there are other alternatives to the Lightning Network, so there is no reason to use them.
I don't know what language the site is written in, so I couldn't understand them.

The website is both in German and in English.

Yes, some info is missing there. E.g. their fees sre not clear. I see they pretend to get 0.98%. But from their site I cannot understand which operations are subjects to this fee: all of them, or only the exchanges from/to fiat.

[BlackHatCoiner]

E-mail registration and country limitation, super private and borderless, exactly as envisioned!  

So basically, it's a lightning custodian. But there's something stinking as they don't make it sound as custodial. From FAQ:

Bitcoin only: lipa deliberately focuses on true decentralization and a system where no one with money can take control. You are always in control of your money.

All users of the lipa app have full control over their credit at all times

Something definitely don't go well here. Users have full control over their credit? What does that mean? You're in custody of your IOU? Lol.

No terms and conditions, I don't see the privacy policy

It's here: https://lipa.swiss/en/datenschutz.html

[dkbit98]

First OBWallet, now LIPA wallet
@internetional are you trying to do some kind of weird experiments with this brand new wallets or what?
I like testing stuff myself but never with real coins/money, and I am skipping this one because it's available only on iOS devices.

[lapistano]

LiPa (https://lipa.swiss) stands for Lightning Payment. This is a wallet for payment, not just for transfers. The wallet exists in iOS version only. Now it is open in testflight mode.

The concept of the wallet is like one of Breez, Phoenix or Mutiny: you receive your first money and pay 5K sats for opening a channel. But then … you cannot do anything with your money except spending in a point of sales supporting LiPa. There is a “Send” button, but in my case the result of pressing it is very strange for a non-custodial wallet:
https://i.ibb.co/0hQRfFL/IMG-1229.jpg

So, I may create invoices and receive payments via LN, I may pay to LiPa business users, but I am not allowed to send my money to anyone I want outside the LiPa ecosystem.

Be careful with this wallet. At least now, when it is still in testflight mode. Maybe, the devs are going to open the access to the “Send” button later, but now it’s absent, and you don’t know about this until you try to send sats.

Hey @international,

have you tried the 'pay' function? Here you can scan an LN invoice or paste one from the clipboard to "send" your sats to another wallet. The "send" option was indeed misleading. This is why it is gone now. 

[internetional]

Hey @international,

have you tried the 'pay' function? Here you can scan an LN invoice or paste one from the clipboard to "send" your sats to another wallet. The "send" option was indeed misleading. This is why it is gone now. 

Thank you, you’re right.

I misunderstood the guides on lipa.swiss . I thought the PAY button is only for paying the invoices created within the Lipa ecosystem.

[logfiles]

First OBWallet, now LIPA wallet
@internetional are you trying to do some kind of weird experiments with this brand new wallets or what?
I like testing stuff myself but never with real coins/money, and I am skipping this one because it's available only on iOS devices.

He mentioned his reason's here 

It’s not so easy to find a good wallet.

My first LN wallet was Muun. But many services do not pay its invoices because of very high routing fees.
Then I tried to use Blixt. Initially, it was awesome. But for the last months, it cannot found a route for any transfer of more than 10K sats. I don’t know why. Previously, I sent even 10M sats from it, and everything ran smoothly.
The same case with Phoenix.

So I am looking for a wallet where I could with one or two clicks have two channels opened to two different nodes, for better routing. All other wallets require quite complicated actions for such a configuration. OBWallet looks most promising. But it does not work as planned, yet.

It's a dangerous and bumpy ride, especially when dealing with crypto... Perhaps he has something so pressing he wants to do as soon as possible?

[sigismallz]

We can say that they claim to be a non-custodial wallet, but without the code being open source, we cannot verify these claims and some actions such as banning service for a specific country or not possible to send except under certain conditions that contradict the principle that you have access to the private key aka custodial wallet.

This service is centralized and there are other alternatives to the Lightning Network, so there is no reason to use them.
I don't know what language the site is written in, so I couldn't understand them.

@internetional you have a funny avatar 

In this early stage of the lipa wallet, not all parts of the App are open source. The Lightning node and which is also the core of the App is however open source: We call it lipa-lightning-lib and it is open source and available on GitHub: https://github.com/getlipa/lipa-lightning-lib
It is responsible for all Bitcoin things, including the cryptography and key management needed for a non-custodial Wallet. The lipa-lightning-lib heavily relies on the Lightning Dev Kit: https://lightningdevkit.org/
A couple of helper libraries are also open source (https://github.com/getlipa/wild and https://github.com/getlipa/perro). We've also got the open-sourcing of the mobile wrappers (UI) on our roadmap, which is the last missing piece for the App to be fully open source.  We are aware that transparency (also through disclosing our source code) is a key factor for wallet security and privacy and are working hard to build the lipa Wallet the right way, following the Bitcoin ethos.
Please note that the sending functionality is not actually banned by region. What happened here was just a unfortunate mistake regarding the wording we chose for a feature that is yet to be delievered. For that reason, the send Button has been removed entirely in the current version to prevent confusion: Instead you can use the pay button to send Sats to any other wallet of your choosing.

[internetional]

First OBWallet, now LIPA wallet
@internetional are you trying to do some kind of weird experiments with this brand new wallets or what?
I like testing stuff myself but never with real coins/money, and I am skipping this one because it's available only on iOS devices.

He mentioned his reason's here 

It’s not so easy to find a good wallet.

My first LN wallet was Muun. But many services do not pay its invoices because of very high routing fees.
Then I tried to use Blixt. Initially, it was awesome. But for the last months, it cannot found a route for any transfer of more than 10K sats. I don’t know why. Previously, I sent even 10M sats from it, and everything ran smoothly.
The same case with Phoenix.

So I am looking for a wallet where I could with one or two clicks have two channels opened to two different nodes, for better routing. All other wallets require quite complicated actions for such a configuration. OBWallet looks most promising. But it does not work as planned, yet.

It's a dangerous and bumpy ride, especially when dealing with crypto... Perhaps he has something so pressing he wants to do as soon as possible?

I am not afraid of brand new wallets. If nobody uses them, they can just die. New wallets are symbols of progress. Especially when the old ones do not work perfectly.

[Pmalek]

There are contradictory statements between the information on your website and in your FAQ section.

Regarding fees, your website states:

With Lipa there are no fees for the use of the app and for receiving transactions. We only charge 0.98% for the exchange of Bitcoin into your currency (EUR, CHF)

https://lipa.swiss/en/for-business.html

But then on the FAQ we have this:

How much will it cost me to use lipa?
There are no basic fees. Costs are incurred through the use of lipa. We charge the minimum fee of 0.98% of the invoice amount of each transaction.

https://lipa.swiss/en/faq.html

In the first example, it sounds like all wallet operations are free, and users only pay when exchanging BTC into fiat. But in the second example, you say you charge a minimum fee of 0.98% from the invoiced amount. That also means that the fees can be higher. How much higher? How exactly does your fee system work?

The business version of your app is available for Android, while the regular one still isn't. Could Android users (if they wanted) use the Business version in the meantime, and what pros/cons would there be for doing that?

If you claim certain parts of your code is open-source, I think there should be a link on your website to the GitHub page. I don't see it among the social media buttons or elsewhere. I see that you posted a link in one of your previous posts, but you should link to it on the website as well.