The Vision for Kollider Wallet

The Vision for Kollider Wallet

Intro

Towards the end of last year, we officially announced the creation of Kollider Wallet, a new browser wallet we built to enable seamless payments over the Lightning Network.

Since then, we’ve built the wallet, added a ton of features, and opened up a closed beta program to get more users testing the wallet’s functionality and security. As we wrap up the closed testing program, we’re preparing to officially launch the wallet and open it up to all users.

Today, we’d like to formally introduce Kollider Wallet, offer a tour of its features, and present our vision for how Kollider Wallet contributes to the future of Lightning Network.

What is Kollider Wallet?

Kollider Wallet is a browser-based Lightning wallet that we’ve built to make Lightning Network simple, seamless, and incredibly easy to use.

Our wallet allows users to send and receive money over the Lightning Network, interact with Lightning apps and services, and hold balances in BTC, USD, or EUR. It’s the world’s first browser-based Lightning wallet with native stablecoin functionality, powered by Kollider’s synthetic stablecoins.

With Kollider Wallet, users can spend directly from and receive directly into any of these balances and easily swap between them. It’s the first wallet that makes it dead simple to spend over the Lightning Network using fiat currencies. In addition, Kollider Wallet is packed with features that allow users to take advantage of all aspects of Lightning Network.

You can think of Kollider Wallet as your internet wallet— a place for you to hold Bitcoin and fiat balances, make payments directly from your browser, and interact with apps and services built on Lightning— all through a beautifully designed app that offers the best user experience available on Lightning today.

Custody and Security

Kollider Wallet is a custodial wallet, meaning that users of Kollider Wallet don’t self-custody their own funds. We realize that this is a controversial topic among Bitcoiners, but we believe that custodial wallets can serve an important function in onboarding users onto the network.

Our custodial approach allows us to easily onboard users onto Lightning without requiring the complex and confusing things inherent in both Lightning (channel creation, liquidity management) and Bitcoin (seed phrases, hardware devices, etc). Users simply have to create a username and password, save that with a password manager, and they’re on their way.

The vast majority of users aren’t holding large amounts of money on Lightning Network, and thus don’t need to adopt the same security measures that they would if they were holding large amounts of funds on-chain. We believe that we can strike a balance where we provide sufficient security for an online hot wallet, while also making it extremely easy for users to onboard and use Lightning.

We encourage users to think of Kollider Wallet as their everyday spending wallet. If they are holding Bitcoin for the long-term, that should be done in an entirely separate cold storage wallet. Users can withdraw their funds from Kollider Wallet to another wallet they control at any time. Withdrawals via Lightning happen instantly, and we also offer users the ability to withdraw to an on-chain address if they prefer. Kollider Wallet, on the other hand, is more akin to a checking account. Users can easily onboard and hold funds for everyday use, with far fewer barriers to entry.

That being said, the software that powers the wallet is entirely open-source. Users can deploy their own instance of LndHubX on their own server and connect their node to that if they’d like to use the software in a more self-sovereign way.

The Kollider Wallet Vision

We believe that Lightning Network offers a 10x improvement in online payments. Payments made over Lightning Network are faster and cheaper than those made with legacy systems, all while being global, interoperable, and censorship resistant. Lightning Network allows Bitcoin to truly become the native money of the internet. Not just as a store of value, but also as a medium of exchange.

We believe that many of the most exciting use cases for Lightning revolve around online payments. Not only does Lightning Network make it simple to send and receive money instantly all over the world, but it also opens up entirely new business models that can help us re-monetize the internet in new and improved ways— through things like micropayments, streaming payments, and more.

Unfortunately, Lightning Network still hasn’t been widely adopted. Users aren’t taking advantage of this incredible technology because it’s still quite hard to use.

We’ve built Kollider Wallet to solve that issue. Kollider Wallet is purpose-built to offer a best-in-class user experience that makes Lightning approachable and easy. Users get access to a simple extension that allows them to use Lightning Network natively within their browser. It integrates seamlessly into their existing browser experience, while adding new functionality to send and receive payments, manage their funds, and access applications built using Lightning.

Perhaps most importantly, Kollider Wallet offers a native stablecoin experience so that users can interact with the Lightning Network using a currency they’re familiar with. We believe this is an important step for onboarding many users onto the network, and we’ve built our own stablecoins in order to be the first browser wallet to offer this today.

We’re so excited to share it with the world.

Kollider Wallet Features

Below are some of the many features we’re excited about with Kollider Wallet.

Native Stablecoins

Kollider Wallet allows you to hold balances in BTC, USD, and EUR. These synthetic stablecoins are created using hedged positions on Kollider Exchange. We take care of the hedging and exchange interactions on the back end, so you can easily denominate some portion of your funds in fiat but use that balance for apps, services, and purchases with Lightning.

Currency Swaps

Kollider Wallet allows you to easily exchange one balance for another, all instantly and without leaving the app. This makes it simple to convert between fiat and BTC balances.

Lightning Login

Kollider enables Lightning Login, a simple and secure single sign-on protocol that allows you to login to Lightning apps and services with your Kollider Wallet. Instead of creating an account with an email and password, simply click a QR code and authenticate with Kollider Wallet to instantly sign in.

Lightning Addresses

Lightning Addresses allow you to send money to any Lightning user with human-readable account names. Every Kollider Wallet user is automatically given a Lightning Address, so you can send and receive funds using this protocol.

Fast and Easy Payments

Kollider Wallet makes sending payments over the internet as fast, cheap, and smooth as possible. Simply click a Lightning invoice, confirm in the app, and send money to anyone on the network instantly.

On-Chain Deposits and Withdrawals

We’ve enabled users to easily deposit sats on-chain and receive sats on Lightning via Kollider Wallet. This will make it simple for existing Bitcoin users to get onto Lightning Network for the first time. We’ve also made it easy to withdraw from Lightning to an on-chain address using the wallet.

Nostr Integration

Kollider Wallet allows you to generate (or import) and hold Nostr keys within the extension. This means that you can use Kollider Wallet so sign into and sign messages from select Nostr clients.

Lightning App Directory

Kollider Wallet includes a native Lightning application directory so that you can explore some of our favorite Lightning-enabled applications.

Future Features

Fiat On and Off Ramps

We plan to integrate a fiat on and off ramp, which will allow users to purchase Bitcoin directly onto Lightning Network and cash out their earnings directly to their bank account.

Payments Tools and Widgets

We’re currently working on a number of tools and integrations that will allow users to easily accept tips and payments over the Lightning Network using Kollider Wallet. These tools will allow for unique forms of content monetization, and users will be able to accept payments directly into their fiat balances.

Additional Synthetic Stablecoins

We plan to add in additional synthetic stablecoins beyond USD and EUR this year.

Taro Stablecoins

As the Taro protocol matures and new institutions start offering fiat-backed stablecoins on the Lightning Network, we’ll make it easy for users to receive, hold, and spend with these tokens in Kollider Wallet.

Taro Asset Swaps

We’ve built out the functionality to make Kollider Exchange the very first spot exchange for Taro assets. We plan to add the ability for users to natively swap between different assets, all within the wallet.

Get Kollider Wallet

We're currently in the process of wrapping up our closed beta program and will be opening up Kollider Wallet publicly soon.

If you'd like to get early access, you can do so by signing up at our website.