Quick note on why we chose Spark and Breez for the new Primal Wallet.

Let’s start with our requirements. We need a simple, reliable, zero-config spending wallet that just works out of the box. Anything less than that is a non-starter for our target audience of casual social media users.

Those who have used Primal’s custodial wallet over the past couple of years will agree that we were able to meet these requirements. The big tradeoff was that, in order to legally offer a custodial service, we had to KYC our users, impose balance limits, and deny service in certain regions where we didn’t have a license to custody funds.

Building on Spark via the Breez SDK enabled us to deliver a wallet that is a strict improvement for our users: no KYC, no limits, and available globally. It’s interoperable with other Spark-based wallets — so you can use the same seed phrase in Primal, Wallet of Satoshi, Cake Wallet, and others. This undeniably gives a lot more agency to our users.

There is ongoing debate about what constitutes “real” self-custody. Spark uses a federation of operators and provides unilateral exit. From a legal standpoint, this clears the self-custody threshold. That said, nothing matches the self-sovereignty of holding bitcoin funds on-chain. Primal is a spending wallet, not meant to hold large amounts. We always encourage our users to store their savings in self custody on-chain.

I believe the wallet we shipped with Primal 3.0 offers the best set of tradeoffs available today. The good news is that our new wallet architecture enables us to easily add support for Ark, Cashu and other protocols in the future. If you have specific suggestions for how we could do better by our users; if you think there’s a better way to legally deliver a simple, reliable, zero-config spending wallet that just works, let us know and we’ll be happy to explore it.