Introducing Bitcoin Connect

Hello! we started Bitcoin Connect a few months back as a neutral package for enabling WebLN on any browser. It's already deployed and used in a few nostr clients but not officially released, but we think it's a wonderful addition to the Lightning ecosystem.

There's a big problem with mobile and that's app stores. Apple especially does not accept any apps that try to circumvent the 30% cut Apple wants. PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) and websites are the only way around this.

Unfortunately, its been very difficult to get the Alby extension running on mobile browsers due to a bunch of technical constraints. And even if we did get it working, extensions currently do not work in PWAs on iPhone. You need to use raw Safari.

We made a simple package that websites can include, which provides them with a single button a user can click to connect to their lightning wallet. The best thing about it is whatever wallet you connect to, a WebLN connection will be created.

This means that websites only need to interact with lightning wallets over a single, well-known protocol. And websites that already support WebLN extensions on desktop, immediately now work on all browsers and PWAs. This is awesome!

So far Bitcoin Connect already works in https://zap.stream, https://nostrudel.ninja/ and https://habla.news/ - three popular Nostr clients that support PWAs.

Where would you like to see Bitcoin Connect next?

This week we made a major upgrade to the UI - improved button visuals and simplifying the CSS styling API websites can use to make the Bitcoin Connect button fit their site.

We also opened up some issues to #hacktoberfest, and already got two PRs merged from the community - a skeleton loader for the Bitcoin Connect modal, and a way to pass the name of the website to Bitcoin Connect, which will be passed on when you connect with NWC (Nostr Wallet Connect). Now that's what I call #buildinginpublic

What's next? we really want to add some new connectors - LNC, Lnbits, Mutiny? what do you think?

Roland, Rene, Jakub