Muun is the “walking-around-money” bitcoin Lightning app for all

I recently made a small in-person point-of-sale purchase (see blog article) using Muun, which seems to be the most popular self-custodial Lightning network wallet for Android.  It seems to me that Muun is a must-have for the Android user who wants to carry a little “walking around money” for in-person incidental purchases such as the occasional cup of coffee. 

The starting point for this discussion is to figure out which cryptocurrency, and which crypto payment mechanism, to use for paying for small in-person purchases.  The answer to the first question, I think, is bitcoin, and the answer to the second question, I think, is the bitcoin Lightning network.  (See my blog article about Lightning network bitcoin.)  If we accept those two answers, then what remains is to pick a way to pay for small in-person purchases using bitcoin Lightning, and so far as I can see, a very workable way is Muun.

Why Muun?  One important factor, I suggest, is that there is no KYC or AML (know your customer or anti-money-laundering) formality for Muun.  A person can carry out all of the steps to create and fund and make use of a Muun wallet without having to show a government ID or provide any other personal information.  Muun is simple and easy to set up and easy to use and it works.

The normal funding path would be to load the Muun wallet with some “pocket change” amount of money (I chose to fund mine with about $50 worth of bitcoin, using an on-chain transfer from my Trezor wallet).  The way to do this would normally be an on-chain transfer from a person’s cold (hardware) wallet.  One would then “top up” the Muun wallet from time to time to maintain the intended “pocket change” amount of money.

As I said above, it seems to me that Muun is a must-have for the Android user.  But by this I do not at all suggest that anyone should use Muun as one’s way of buying and holding bitcoin generally.  I think the correct use case for Muun is only as a substitute for the pocket change that one might use to pay for a cup of coffee.  Ask yourself how much cash you might carry around in a pocket or purse or billfold for incidental in-purchases.  That amount of money, and not more, is what I think you should hold in your Muun wallet.

If you were to click around on the internet to see user reviews of Muun, you would find some negative reviews and gripes.  As best I can see, nearly all of the gripes and negative reviews are from people who were trying to use Muun for something that it was never intended to do.  For example, some reviewers mistakenly try to use Muun as a buy-and-hold wallet solution for large amounts of cryptocurrency.

The problem with using Muun as a buy-and-hold wallet solution for large amounts of cryptocurrency is that Muun is a “hot wallet”, meaning a wallet storing its on-chain crypto keys in a place that could get infected with a virus or malware (to wit, a smart phone).  It is, in my view, daft to use any wallet other than a cold hardware wallet for buy-and-hold of large amounts of cryptocurrency.  (It is also, in my view, daft to use any make of a cold hardware wallet other than Trezor, for a lot of reasons that I discuss here.)  A hot wallet is appropriate only for the modest amount of money that we would term “walking around money”, by which we mean the amount of cash that you might carry in your billfold or pocket or purse.

Other reviewers gripe that a Muun wallet is incapable of holding any cryptocurrency other than bitcoin.  Again it seems to me that such a reviewer is trying to use Muun for something that it was never intended to do.

What are the potential consequences of failure with a selection of a smart phone app such as Muun?  Suppose the app crashes, or the Muun company disappears without warning?  Then (if you follow my advice and do not store large amounts of bitcoin in it) you have only lost a small amount of bitcoin.  It’s a hot wallet, so we cannot rule out the chance that some virus grabs the money in the app?  Again you have only lost a small amount of bitcoin.

I predict that as time goes on, the smart phone app that many will use for Lightning transfers is Muun.

Suppose you are in a foreign country and need to pay a little money to somebody.  Probably none of your familiar and local payment methods (in the US, Zelle or Venmo or Paypal) will work in that foreign country.  But as time goes on, I think more and more people will have a Lightning bitcoin app on their smart phone, and a simple transfer of bitcoin will be ideal.

Have you made use of a Muun wallet?  Please post a comment below.