[Top Builder 2024]: Blitz Wallet

[BlakeKaufman]

🏗️ Top Builder 2024 Application Form to track progress through Round 1 - 3 ~ Currently in Round 1

📝 Instructions

1. Only complete this form if you have been chosen for Top Builder, by PlebLab.
2. Provide detailed information to assist the judges in evaluating your project.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Team

• Team Name: Blitz

• Number of Founders: 1

• Team Background: I am a junior at Michigan State University studying Marketing with a minor in Information Technology. Last year I had a summer internship doing front-end development for a company called V2soft. During this time I also taught myself react, and react-native building various projects.

• Bitcoin & Lightning Involvement: Before I switched over to a Bitcoin lightning wallet, I created a normal base chain Bitcoin wallet which taught me a lot about how addresses are derived and UTXOs. Since I am using the Breez_SDK as the main lightning infrastructure to my lightning wallet I don’t have a ton of technical knowledge on the code of the lighting network, however, I do have a lot of knowledge about the working of the network (payment hops, routing nodes, liquidity, LSPs).

• Origin Story: I got into bitcoin at the ripe age of 16 because I was fascinated with the idea of being able to remove money from the state. Over the years I have gotten deeper into the bitcoin community by joining the Michigan Bitcoin Club in Lansing MI. Last year, I won an S9 Bitcoin miner at one of the meetups and ran it in my dorm room at college. I then used the Bitcoin generated to pay for my entrance fee in El Salvador (President Bukele retweeted it on Twitter) as well as buy various goods during my time there. More recently, I have become more passionate about the payment infrastructure of Bitcoin because truthfully I believe that there isn't enough being done to scale payments in a non-custodial way on Bitcoin.

💡 The Idea

• Project Overview: Blitz Wallet is a non-custodial Bitcoin lightning wallet that uses the Breez_SDK as the main lightning infrastructure. The wallet is connected to the Breez LSP which gives native BTC -> LN and LN -> BTC swaps, however, I also implemented LBTC -> LN swaps by utilizing the Boltz API. I also created a custom receive faucet feature, as well as implemented a user-friendly liquidity indicator so users are better able to visualize their inbound and outbound liquidity for their wallet.

• Website: https://blitz-wallet.com

• GitHub: Currently private, I plan to open source the code when I release my app but am happy to share if you want to see it.

• Project Stage: I am still in the building phase but am very close to having a working APK file using production certificates on Android. IOS is going to take longer as setting up a developer account is a lot harder and has more steps.

• Supplementary Materials: Demo videos, as well as some snapshots of my app are on my Twitter @blakekaufman17

📚 Additional Information

• Additional Links/Info: N/A

📌 Submission Type

• [ ] Initial Project Creation

🚀 Current Project Progress

• Progress Made: I have created a fully working Bitcoin lightning wallet that can send and receive lightning payments, working LBTC -> LN atomic swaps, working receive faucet feature, change fiat currency, delete the account from of device, and restore the account, can opt in or out of biometric login, can change style between light and dark mode for user preference, liquidity indicator for users to easily visualize their inbound and outbound liquidity, and can hide or reveal payments.

• Challenges Faced: Everything hahah. Actually, adding LBTC -> LN swaps. Using react-native navigation features instead of popups. Managing bare react-native workflow. Using production certificates with the Breez_SDK. Managing the difference in UI between iOS and Android. Setting up an LLC and getting a DUNS number.

• Future Roadmap of what's next: I need to figure out how to get expo secrets to load in the APK, create a website, create an Apple developer account, and see if I created a proper LLC.

⏳ Round 1 Milestone

• Keep in mind that completion will need to be by February 10th, 2024.
• First-round milestone the team has set for themselves: I want to have a fully production-ready version 1.0.0 APK for Android.

📝 Submission Complete

• All required information has been provided above.

📅 Top Builder Program Structure

Registration Opens: Monday, December 18, 2023

• Application: Interested teams apply for Top Builder.
• Selection: Teams will be chosen based on their application. See FAQ for details.

Round 1: January 13 - February 10, 2024

• Workshops: PlebLab weekly workshops start, available live and online.
• Chat Access: Selected teams join the PlebLab internal chat.
• Mentorship: Begins for teams.
• Project Milestones: Teams are set and judged on their first-round milestones.

Round 2: February 10 - 24, 2024

• Team Reduction: PlebLab cuts half of the Top Builder teams. (Only half continued in Round 2.)
• Project Milestones: Teams are set and judged on their second-round milestones.
• Workshops: PlebLab weekly workshops continue.
• Mentorship: Continues.

Round 3: Starting February 24, 2024

• Team Reduction: PlebLab narrows down to 6 Top Builder teams. (All will be pitching in Austin.)
• Final Milestones: Teams set final project milestones for the last round.
• Preparation: Teams prepare their pitch in front of judges. Final teams are contacted to come to Austin for Startup Day.

Final Round at Startup Day: March 14, 2024

• Preparation: Teams work on their final pitches at PlebLab.
• Presentations: Final teams present before judges on Startup Day.
• Deliberation: Judges decide during a happy hour.
• Announcement: The winner of Top Builder is announced at Austin BitDevs.
• Celebration: After-party for Top Builder.

[ECBSJ]

What kind of help are you looking for? I'd consider myself as a junior-mid full stack dev.

[BlakeKaufman]

My app is built in react-native do you know that framework? Most of the help that I'm looking for is business logistics stuff like setting up developer accounts, best practices when launching an app, company emails, and do I need an LLC for my app. Things like that. However, I would also appreciate some UI/UX design opinions.

[BlakeKaufman]

Blitz Wallet Demo Video.

https://blitz-wallet.com/pages/demovideo/

[ealvar13]

Blitz Wallet Demo Video.

https://blitz-wallet.com/pages/demovideo/

This is really cool great demo video : )

[BlakeKaufman]

Other demo videos are on my Twitter blakekaufman17.

[BlakeKaufman]

Summary of round 1:

My first milestone was to have a fully production-ready version 1.0.0 APK for Android. Whether I believed I was going to be able to achieve that or not I made it my mission to try as hard as possible to get there, and sure enough 3 weeks later I have a fully built Bitcoin lighting wallet running on the Breez SDK and greenlight. If you want to try it out you can go to blitz-wallet.com and download it on your device.

Although I competed my milestone, and will soon begin to promote people testing my wallet, there is still so much to do. And that's the funny thing about building something, just when you think you've done it, there's alows something else that needs to be done.

Future goals with blitz:

1. Add a cap gains calculator to settings
2. Add Noster Web Connect so you can connect Blitz to Alby
3. Build out a marketing website that doesn't look like a 2-year-old designed it
4. Get notifications to work in the production app to receive payments when the app is in the background
5. Add/fix bugs that testers find