On-chain Bitcoin wallets and Lightning wallets themselves will not be affected, according to a blog posted by the mobile Bitcoin app company.
BlueWallet, a Bitcoin wallet with apps in the iOS and Android stores, has announced that it will end its custodial Lightning wallet service on April 30, 2023.
In a blog post, the company explained that “Today, we are announcing that the Lightning node, Lndhub.io, where BlueWallet provides Lightning wallets to its users, is shutting down. While you can still withdraw sats, create a new Lightning wallet or recharge at the LndHub node will no longer work.
The post asks users to remove funds from BlueWallet’s custodial Lightning wallet as soon as possible. It is also made clear that the regular BlueWallet Bitcoin wallet will not be affected by this change, or the Lightning wallet is kept on its own – where users connect to Lndhub itself.
“Lndhub started as a weekend experiment in a new, almost unused edge technology at the time called the Lightning Network,” the blog explains. “Today, with the availability of leading services that offer scalable solutions, Lndhub has fulfilled its purpose in its current form.”
Users can still access Lndhub as a self-hosted software and solution, connecting to LndHub itself from BlueWallet or other software that supports the LndHub API specification.
The post ended optimistically, saying that “This may sound like bad news, but this means that BlueWallet will only support custody solutions going forward. This is good for bitcoin users and BlueWallet.