Zap

As fascinating as Bitcoin may be in most respects, it’s far from perfect. What worked perfectly on Satoshi Nakamoto’s paper back in 2009, turned out to be one of the most flawed blockchain networks to date, despite it still holding the crown in terms of popularity and market cap.

One of the biggest problem for the Bitcoin network has always been scalability. That’s exactly why,  in 2015, Thaddeus Dryja and Joseph Poon presented the world with an innovative idea aimed to fix what is arguably Bitcoin’s biggest drawback. The solution they came up with is called the Lightning Network, and it adds another layer to Bitcoin’s blockchain. This enables users to create payment channels between any two parties on the extra layer, allowing even faster, and cheaper transactions.

Zap is a specialized Bitcoin wallet developed specifically for the Lightning Network. In short, it’s built from the ground up to help users send and receive Bitcoin faster and cheaper via the Lightning Network from their desktop devices.

Created using technologies such as Redux, React, and Electron, Zap is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as for iOS.

Probably the first thing that stands out when using Zap is the fact that it has been designed with ease of use in mind. The app’s dark-themed interface is modern and professional-looking providing users with quick access to all the app’s essential features.

After a run-of-the-mill installation process, users are greeted by a welcome screen that allows them to choose how they want to connect to the Lightning Network.

At this point, users can either create a new wallet, import an existing wallet, connect their own Lightning node, or connect to their BTCPay Server instance to access the service’s wallet via the app.

Importing an existing wallet is probably the simplest option as it only requires users to use their recovery seed to load the wallet. However, creating a new wallet is not at all problematic. To create a new wallet, users are first required to save the provided wallet seed (comprised out of 24 words), retype three words from the seed above, set up a password to encrypt the wallet, and name the wallet accordingly.

Zap also boasts an autopilot feature that acts as a sort of automatic network manager. The autopilot automatically connects users to the network using 60% of their balances. This saves a lot of time since users are no longer required to manually add people to be able to make payments.

While users wait for the wallet to load, Zap automatically synchronizes with the blockchain (meaning that it downloads the whole blockchain on your computer). During this time, users have access to various useful tutorials.

From the Settings section, users can change the wallet’s name, the alias (the name visible for others on the network), the percentage of balance (60% by default), the maximum number of channels, the channel’s minimum, and maximum size, as well as to delete the wallet altogether.

Zap is a useful tool for all users interested in making payments via the Lightning Network. It’s very practical, and quite focused on providing users with a streamlined experience. The only real drawback is that it’s currently still in development (Beta stage, at the time of this writing), and, therefore, it’s not as popular as other alternatives out there.