Today, Boltz announced the launch of the Boltz BTCPay Plugin, the first feature of its kind, in open beta. The plugin lets merchants who use BTCPay Server easily accept bitcoin over Lightning before having it automatically swapped and stored non-custodially on the Liquid Network.

The “Nodeless” mode for the Boltz BTCPay Plugin utilizes Liquid Swaps to make the automatic swap from Lightning to Liquid the instant a Lightning invoice is paid. Using Liquid Swaps, Boltz BTCPay Plugin users can also swap bitcoin back to the mainchain if they prefer. The plugin comes with an integrated wallet system, which enables users to create or import both Liquid and mainchain wallets.

“Merchants can receive or accept bitcoin by swapping incoming Lightning payments into their Liquid wallets and, like this, they don’t have to operate a node,” Kilian, CEO of Boltz, told Bitcoin Magazine.

“What they are holding in the end is LBTC — Liquid BTC,” he added.

“We also want to give them an option to automatically swap back to the mainchain if they so choose. They can say, ‘Okay, if my Liquid Bitcoin balance reaches 0.1 bitcoin, 0.5 bitcoin, swap it back to the mainchain.’”

Merchants remain in control of their funds at all times while using the service.

Boltz designed the plugin to help alleviate the anxiety that comes with running and managing a Lightning node.

“Running and managing a Lightning node is no easy feat,” said Boltz CTO Michael in a press release. “Channel management is complex and inbound liquidity can be such an alien concept”.

Kilian echoed Michael’s sentiment, as he shared that “running your own Lightning node is neither a realistic nor recommended goal for many individuals, and even for professionals like merchants, as of today.”

Previous solutions for accepting Lightning payments without running a node were custodial, introduced counterparty risk or were only available in certain jurisdictions.

Given that this plugin is both brand new and the first of its kind, the team at Boltz noted that while the software is ready to be used, users should do so with caution because it could still have bugs. Kilian shared that the plugin indeed handled thousands of transactions and that Strainly, an online marijuana vendor, is now completely running on it.

“After one month testing the Boltz plugin in front of thousands of users, I can tell this truly is a game-changer,” said Alan, CEO of Strainly, who previously had mixed success using custodial Lightning solutions like LNBank and other Lightning Service Providers (LSPs) “Processing LN payments straight to and from a non-custodial Liquid wallet, plus automatically consolidating the Liquid balance to my non-custodial BTC wallet according to my own preset threshold: hands down the most impactful plugin ever released on BTCPay!”

Maelstrom, the family office of former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, has awarded Jon Atack a one-year Bitcoin developer grant. He is the second recipient of Maelstrom’s grant program supporting open-source Bitcoin developers.

Jon is an experienced contributor to Bitcoin Core, having started in 2019. He was also recently made a maintainer of Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs).

In a statement, Arthur Hayes said, “We hope this financial support allows Jon to focus on his work on Bitcoin without worrying about income.” He emphasized the grant’s no-strings-attached nature, giving Atack freedom to work independently.

Bitcoin’s open-source codebase depends on voluntary developers, so grants help enable more contributors to work full-time. Proponents believe having more funded developers benefits Bitcoin’s ecosystem.

Jon said, “I’m concerned about human freedom, decentralization of power, individual empowerment, privacy and self-sovereignty. Bitcoin and open source software play a key part in striving for these causes.”

He plans to spend the year reviewing proposals and changes to improve Bitcoin Core and BIPs. Jon stated, “Bitcoin isn’t perfect. It needs further decentralization, continued vigilance, review, bug-fixing, updates, maintenance, and improved robustness, performance, privacy, scaling, documentation and user experience.”

Maelstrom aims to strengthen Bitcoin through no-strings grants to developers like Atack. Simultaneously, he is also receiving funding from another organization, OpenSats.

Today, Alby announced the release of Alby Go, a mobile application available for iOS and Android that allows users to make self-custodial payments via their Lightning node.

Users can connect the app to Lightning nodes and wallets including Alby Hub, Umbrel, Start9, LifPay and CoinOS to enable self-custodial Lightning payments. The app most easily integrates with Alby Hub, an open-source wallet that Alby recently released that makes Lightning nodes easy to access and use from multiple devices. Alby Go also provides a straightforward wallet interface to Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC)-enabled Lightning wallets.

“Alby Go is our next step in making bitcoin accessible everywhere, now bringing it to users’ pockets,” said Alby co-founder Alby Michael Bumann in a press release. “By utilizing the NWC messaging protocol, we facilitate seamless use of multiple nodes and wallets in a lightweight app.”

Other features of Alby Go include a contact list, which lets users store Lightning addresses of frequent contacts for quick and convenient transactions; currency conversion and dark/light theme settings.

Alby Go is currently in version 1.5 and Alby encourages users to contact the Alby team with suggestions on how to improve the app. The app’s code is open-source and ready for reviews and contributions.

For more information on Alby, see our Founders piece on Alby co-founder Michael Bumann.