New Peach Wallet Features: “Extended” and “Standard” Mode and Simplified Mobile Setup
By: Lightning Peach
Tags: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Lightning Network, Bitfury

Today we have rolled out three important updates to our Peach wallet that we think will greatly improve the experience for both new and experienced Lightning Network users. We focused on improving the standard usability of the wallet and enabling users to experiment with our unique features. We have also open-sourced our wallet for all mobile and desktop platforms. It’s an exciting time for the Lightning Network community, and we are delighted to be building in this rapidly growing movement.

Update 1: Extended and Standard Mode

Our desktop and mobile wallet both now offer an “extended” and “standard” mode, which you will see when you open your wallet application for the first time.

First, our entire wallet application is non-custodial — meaning our wallet never takes ownership of your bitcoin or your financial information. Instead, our wallet simply offers you a better interface to use and manage your own Lightning node. If you use the wallet in “Standard” mode, all actions performed in the application are seen only by you and the Lightning node you have set up. We cannot view any of this information. In this mode, you have access to standard Lightning Network capabilities (such as paying an invoice with a Lightning payment).

But we wanted to expand our wallet to offer features beyond what is available on the market today. In the “Extended” mode of our wallet, we’ve included three features that are not yet standard in the Lightning Network protocol: Payments without a user-generated Lightning invoice, streaming/recurring payments, and contact lists. Right now, these features can only be used between Peach users, but we hope to make them standard across the community. But until they are, these actions must be routed through our Peach server to connect directly to other users. To process these requests, we must use your wallet’s IP address and public key. Other information, like payment amount or payment messages, is end-to-end encrypted for your privacy and security — no third party, including us, can ever access it.

Update 2: Simplified Mobile Setup

Our desktop wallet application has a built-in lightning node (lnd) that is launched in initial setup. This lowers the technical barrier to entry for new Lightning Network users. They do not need to set up their own node separately to begin sending Lightning Network payments. However, users who wanted to use the mobile application were required to set up their own node separately. This was because it is not yet feasible to run a full node on mobile-only, so we could not build it into the application. We received feedback that this requirement was a bit complicated for the new user, so we’ve updated this process. Now you can use a QR code to link your Peach mobile wallet directly to your Peach desktop wallet/node.

Update 3: Opt-In for Product Improvements

Many consumer software applications, including the Peach wallet, rely on anonymized statistics (collected through services like Google Analytics or Firebase) to understand and adapt to user behavior. Barring interviews with thousands of individual users, this is the most effective way to understand how best to improve the user experience. When you run the Peach wallet for the first time, you will see an optional checkbox that, if selected, allows us to collect anonymized statistics about your use of the application to help us improve the wallet. This option is disabled by default for user security and privacy. If you do select the checkbox, you are only enabling us to collect anonymous app analytics. We do not collect or process any personal data about your activities in the application.

We hope these features make the Peach wallet experience even better for all users. If you have any feedback, or questions about how to use these new features, please contact us at hello@lightningpeach.com.

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