Muun App Announces Support for Non-Custodial Bitcoin Lightning Network Payments

Muun, an Android application for Bitcoin and Lightning wallet use, will now let its users make non-custodial Lightning payments. According to the announcement, these payments will need zero channel configuration. This explicitly means all that is needed for users to make non-custodial Lightning payments is for them to fund their wallets with Bitcoin. Once this is done, payments can be concluded simply by scanning a Lightning invoice. This will be detected by Muun as an off-chain invoice and the app will help users through to complete the rest of the payment.

Furthermore, the process will be facilitated by a submarine swap. Developed by Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Alex Bosworth both with Lightning Labs, a submarine swap is a solution that gives users the opportunity to use their on-chain Bitcoins to pay off-chain invoices. Even though this process has to be handled by a swap provider, at no time during the whole transaction does the swap provider hold the funds?

In addition, except there are certain peculiar cases, all off-chain invoices will be completed and paid immediately. This will be made possible because there will be no need for confirmations in most of the cases even if the swap will still have an on-chain transaction. Also, Muun users will have their funds in one wallet regardless of the other specifics of the transactions and the payment will also still run the same way an on-chain payment would.

According to the Muun Team:

“At Muun we are working hard to release a full Lightning wallet: non-custodial, with great user experience, and cheap and fast transactions. Because Lightning is in its early days, it will take some time until we reach there. We are okay with sacrificing some aspects, as long as the overall experience is good and we do not compromise on our core values as non-custodianship.”