Today we’re excited to announce a new update to Blitz Wallet that brings significant improvements to your user experience. At Blitz Wallet, our mission is to be the simplest wallet ever, and this release reflects our ongoing commitment to just that.

Let’s dive into the details:

A Fresh Start for Contact Payments

The contacts feature in Blitz Wallet delivers a simple and seamless payment experience for users. However, the previous system for managing sending and receiving messages lacked the flexibility needed to provide the best possible experience.

That's why we've completely redesigned how contact payments work in Blitz Wallet. This update introduces a more robust system for retrieving offline messages and allows for more customizable messages displayed to users.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Important Note: Due to these changes, any contact payments sent before this update will no longer appear in your transaction history.
• Faster and More Reliable Messaging: We’ve replaced the previous Ably messaging system and individual payment message storage to make contact payments more efficient and seamless.
• Improved Offline Support: The new system ensures that contacts can retrieve offline messages, solving a common pain point for our users.
• Future-Proofing Features: With this update, we’re laying the groundwork for exciting new capabilities in future releases.

Other Enhancements:

Decluttering the Homepage: Removed Internal Transfer Payments

In our previous update, we introduced manual internal Bitcoin transfers. This feature allows users to manually rebalance their Lightning channels or Liquid balances instead of relying on the app to handle it automatically.

However, some users pointed out that these transactions cluttered the homepage transaction list and should be hidden. In response to this feedback, internal transfer payments will no longer appear on the homepage. This update streamlines the main payments screen by removing unnecessary transaction records, allowing you to focus on the payments that matter most.

Migrating to Firebase Functions

We’ve moved our backend operations from Netlify to Firebase Functions. This migration enhances the robustness and reliability of our server-side processes, ensuring smoother performance and faster response times for users.

Globalized Liquid and Lightning Event Listeners

We found a problem with how the app was checking for incoming payments. Previously, we initialized the functions to look for new payments while you were on the loading screen. However, once you moved to other screens in the app, this system became unreliable because of how phones handle screens that aren't currently being used.

To solve this, we created a new system that constantly watches for payments no matter which screen you're using in the app. This means you'll now receive all your payment notifications reliably, regardless of what you're doing in the app.

General Bug Fixes

This update includes several under-the-hood improvements to boost overall app stability and provide a more dependable user experience.

Best,

Blitz Team