By EZ in Releases — Jul 4, 2024

Phoenix Wallet v2.3.1 & Phoenixd v0.2.0: BOLT12 Offers

Phoenix is a mobile Bitcoin wallet using Lightning to send and receive payments. Available on Android and iOS. Phoenixd is just like Phoenix for mobile, except it runs on a server.

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Phoenix wallet and server (phoenixd) now support BOLT12, including:
- reusable, non-expiring payment requests;
- contact list (Android for now, iOS soon);
- attach messages to payments.

"This marks a new step forward in Lightning UX. No need to generate a new QR code for every payment. No need for payer/receiver to interact. Phoenix Android (soon iOS) also supports contacts. Send money with a click, and associate payments to your known contacts," said the project.

BOLT 12 is a proposed upgrade to the Lightning Network. For users, it offers benefits such as reusable payment requests, enhanced privacy for receivers, and improved resistance to censorship. Learn more about BOLT12 at bolt12.org.

What's new (wallet)

Support for BOLT12 offers. "Offers are the Lightning equivalent to a Bitcoin address: it's a reusable, static payment request that can be used for donation use cases, or to easily pay/get paid by your friends. Since BOLT12 is not yet well supported, Phoenix will keep displaying a BOLT11 invoice by default."
- Custom messages. "When paying an offer, the user can attach a custom message (max 64 chars) that will be delivered to the offer's recipient along with the funds."
- Background processing limitation. "Since offers are typically paid without the recipient being active on his device, a few warnings have been added so that users are made aware of limitations."
  - "For example, Phoenix relies on Google FCM to deliver wake-up notifications to the recipient. If FCM is disabled or unavailable on the device (for example, on a GrapheneOS fresh installation), then the user will not be able to receive payments in the background. Same for Tor."
- Contacts UI (Android only for now). "A new UI has been added to create, list and manage contacts, which are a way for Phoenix to attach an offer to a name."
  - "These contacts are isolated from the device's system contacts. If there's demand for it, a later update could let Phoenix link offers to the device's contacts, provided the user grants permissions."