Aqua Wallet @AquaBitcoin by JAN3 @JAN3com is a self-custodial #Bitcoin mobile wallet that supports on-chain, Liquid Network and Lightning Network transactions.
What features does Aqua Wallet have and why use it?
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1/21
Self-custodial Lightning is still somewhat clumsy.. and on-chain fees price out many users.
Aqua Wallet is a Liquid @Liquid_BTC wallet by default, and provides a sweet spot middle ground for transacting with Bitcoin on its various layers.
2/21
On Liquid, transaction fees are currently around 0.10 USD per tx, with a 1-minute block time and 2-minute settlement.
Liquid also supports the issuance of other assets (e.g. USDT on Liquid), and transactions on Liquid are confidential.
twitter.com/teemupleb/status/1761068870083981436
3/21
The trade-off with using Liquid is that the BTC on Liquid Network is controlled by a multisig federation and therefore the protocol is not trustless.
4/21
Aqua has a unified balance for both Liquid and Lightning, but the funds are stored on Liquid.
To send and receive Lightning payments, Aqua uses submarine swaps by Boltz @Boltzhq.
twitter.com/teemupleb/status/1709897791844352043
5/21
There is a service fee for receiving Lightning payments (to receive $10 worth of bitcoin, you pay $0.33 in fees).
6/21
However, when receiving more, the fee becomes more reasonable ($100 invoice and $0.55 fee).
7/21
To send a Lightning payment, the fee is in the same ballpark.
It makes sense to send larger amounts at a time, and use specific Lightning wallets for very small purchases.
As of now, Aqua's Lightning feature only supports invoices, not Lightning addresses or paycodes.
8/21
Aqua Wallet gives you the option to receive USDT from Ethereum and Tron, and in the background converts those to Liquid USDT (L-USDT) for the receiver.
9/21
There is also a SideSwap @side_swap integration within the wallet to swap between Liquid assets.
10/21
There is an option to buy bitcoin through a third-party service in the Marketplace tab (high fees).
Aqua is also planning to add other services through 3rd parties, such as p2p loans, bill payments, debit cards and interest-bearing financial products.
11/21
When setting up the wallet, Aqua doesn't prompt you to back up your wallet with a seed phrase.
You have to go to the settings and write it down yourself.
This is extremely important!
Otherwise you might lose your funds.
12/21
Aqua Wallet was originally launched by @Blockstream in 2020.
Former Blockstream executive Samson Mow @Excellion relaunched the wallet product with his new company JAN3.
13/21
Aqua doesn't track its users and its code is open-source.
Only the Marketplace features are proprietary.
14/21
Aqua is designed for users in Latin America and emerging markets who cannot necessarily afford the volatility of bitcoin, and who might also want to interact with stablecoins with lower fees than on Tron and with increased privacy with confidential transactions.
15/21
A new Bitcoin user will not have to deal with Lightning channel openings, or trust a single custodial Lightning wallet.
Liquid facilitates self-custody of assets and the federated model distributes counterparty risk away from a single custodian.
16/21
A good use case for a wallet like Aqua could be e.g. to withdraw from an exchange with Lightning, then storing those funds on Liquid in self-custody until the amount is large enough to peg-out to on-chain cold storage (0.01 BTC or 1,000,000 sats).
17/21
Another use case for Aqua is to hold some Liquid BTC on the wallet in preparation of unexpected high on-chain fee scenarios, and then make Lightning payments from the wallet whenever necessary, and thus minimize on-chain footprint.
18/21
Since Liquid transactions are confidential, you can also trade within the Aqua wallet between different Liquid assets without KYC.
19/21
Aqua doesn't support hardware wallets yet.
Neither can you connect it to your personal node.
It would be great if Aqua had an option to automatically convert an on-chain deposit to Liquid balance to minimize on-chain transactions.
20/21
Here's a good video tutorial of Aqua Wallet by @BTCsessions:
youtube.com/watch?v=Z--Y4udsJdE&t=4
21/21
Finally, a presentation by Ben van Hool @bvanhool, the COO of JAN3, at the @AdoptingBTCcpt conference in South Africa in January 2024:
youtube.com/watch?v=Fm8RSGg2Rmc
teemupleb
@teemupleb
I write threads about Bitcoin (#NaturalMoney) projects. ⚡️teemupleb@getalby.com #npub15vxdlmhftkh452a06vnr3mmks2dy8hqejeuxuv6sgy5rgtf0jllsccfzg7