By EZ in Releases — Jul 11, 2023

The New Phoenix: A 3rd Generation Lightning Wallet

"Splicing changes the game. Phoenix now manages a single dynamic channel, no more 1% fee on inbound liquidity, better predictability and control, trustless swaps."

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"For such a major upgrade, we are doing a beta first and will deploy progressively."
"To apply for the beta on Android, send an email at phoenix@acinq.co."
"ETA on iOS is a few weeks."

What's new

"Leveraging a technology called splicing, the new Phoenix has the possibility to resize channels, [meaning that]:

- 1) each user has only one channel;
- 2) there is no more scattered liquidity or splitting issues;
- 3) adding or removing funds to the channel doesn't add future risk and can be priced at current cost: the 1% / 3000 sat fee is replaced by the mining fee for the underlying on-chain transaction."
"1 channel per user means 1 UTXO per user. This is the smallest on-chain footprint possible for self-custody on Bitcoin. If you keep stacking, the channel will keep growing in size. No more scattered inbound liquidity across many channels!"

"Another way to look at it is that we are moving from N UTXOs/user to 1 UTXO/user. It is simply the current optimum for self-custody on Bitcoin."

"The main change is that the 1% fee on incoming payments has been replaced by a 0.4% fee on outgoing Lightning payments."

"This does not mean that incoming payments are free, because mining fees may apply, but when the feerate is low (under 10 sat/byte) it's always cheaper than before, and practically free at 1 sat/byte."
"When the mempool is empty you can deposit funds to your wallet for a fee as low as 300 sat."

"More predictability and control: 1) channel management policy is customizable; 2) phoenix will tell you in advance if a Lightning invoice will not fit in your channel; 3) the fee for outgoing Lightning payment is now shown before making the payment."
Swaps are now trustless. "Swap-outs (paying a bitcoin address) actually spend directly from your channel. You can choose the feerate, and use fee-bumping like with a regular on-chain wallet."
"The release contains a lot of other improvements, including support for 100+ additional currencies (including free market rates for Argentina, Cuba, Lebanon.)"