LoginSign Up
← Back to all sparks
L

LNbits

FINANCE
Velocity6.3

Lightning Network wallet and accounts system with extensions

lnbits.com ↗

LNbits ships sandboxed WASM extensions, opening self-hosted Lightning wallets to uncurated plugins.

lightning-networkwasm-extensionsself-hostedbitcoinopen-sourcepayments
◆Current state
LNbits v1.6.0 was the project's most architecturally significant release: sandboxed WASM extensions let anyone write and share plugins without core-developer security review, addressing the bottleneck that kept third-party contributions slow. The same release shipped native Lightning Addresses in wallet core, an Electrum-backed block explorer, and Bark funding source support. v1.6.1 and v1.6.2 have since patched a PostgreSQL backup regression and closed NWC payment-failure false positives.
◆Where it's heading
The WASM extension model is a deliberate shift from curated gallery to permissive, sandbox-first plugin ecosystem — LNbits is betting that sandboxing replaces curation as the trust mechanism. Alongside that, native Lightning Addresses and payment breakdowns push the product further up the stack, adding first-class wallet UX that previously required an extension. LNbits is moving from infrastructure toolkit toward a more complete, self-sovereign financial application.
◆Prediction
The next likely move is expanding the WASM sandbox API surface — more core hooks exposed to extensions, tooling improvements for the WASM manifest format, and a community-driven extension registry that can grow without gating on core-team review.

◆Recent moves

  1. 1mo ago

    v1.6.2 - Tal (PostgreSQL backup hotfix)

    A targeted hotfix for the PostgreSQL backup feature introduced in v1.6.0, keeping the release branch stable as v1.6.x rolls out to production instances.

    View source ↗
  2. 1mo ago

    v1.6.1 - Tal

    v1.6.1 closes functional gaps opened by the v1.6.0 wave: NWC payment-failure false positives, LNURL-pay payer-detail restoration, and improved async tooling for the new WASM runtime. The Blink funding source gets caching and exponential backoff, reducing polling pressure on the external API.

    View source ↗
  3. 1mo ago

    v1.6.1-rc2

    Release candidate version bump ahead of v1.6.1 stable — no user-visible changes, internal staging step.

    View source ↗
  4. 1mo ago

    LNbits 1.6.0: sandboxed WASM extensions and Lightning Addresses

    ⚡ SPARK

    v1.6.0 is LNbits' most expansive release, anchored by WASM extensions that allow building and distributing plugins in a tightly sandboxed environment without core-team security review. Combined with native Lightning Addresses, a block explorer, and Bark funding source, this release meaningfully widens LNbits' capability surface beyond pure payment infrastructure.

    View source ↗
  5. 2mo ago

    v1.6.0-rc2

    Release candidate version bump for v1.6.0 — internal staging step with no user-visible changes.

    View source ↗
  6. 4mo ago

    v1.5.5-rc3

    Release candidate for v1.5.5 — an internal version bump, no shipped features or fixes visible to users.

    View source ↗