CraysMinibits
Minibits brings Cashu ecash onto the phone and connects it to Lightning, Nostr names, zaps, NWC and NFC. It is useful, ambitious and still explicitly beta.
A phone wallet for Cashu, Lightning and Nostr
Minibits is a mobile wallet first. The reader meets it on Android, iOS, Zapstore, the App Store, Google Play and GitHub releases, not as a server dashboard. Its public site describes a Bitcoin Lightning and ecash wallet for Android and iOS, with Cashu as the ecash protocol underneath. The App Store text adds the important user promise: low-cost private value transfer, Lightning addresses, zaps and Nostr Wallet Connect built into the wallet.
That makes Minibits different from a normal Lightning wallet and also different from a pure Cashu experiment. It tries to turn bearer ecash into a phone-native payment experience: scan a token, paste a token, receive through a wallet address, pay a Lightning invoice, tap another phone, send to a Nostr contact, or let a Nostr app initiate a payment through NWC. The product is about making ecash feel like money people can actually move.
The right first question is not whether Minibits is custodial or non-custodial in the ordinary wallet sense. Cashu changes the shape. Tokens live with the user, but the mint issues and redeems those tokens. Minibits gives the phone user a practical interface around that model. The mint remains a trust anchor, and the device remains a storage boundary.
The README is deliberately cautious
The GitHub README is more sober than a product landing page, and that is valuable. It says the wallet explores bitcoin-backed ecash for cheap, instant and private transfers. It also warns that the wallet is beta software with incomplete functionality, known and unknown bugs, and should not be used with large amounts of ecash. That warning belongs close to the top of any serious Minibits article.
The Cashu model means a user trusts the mint to redeem ecash for bitcoin until the user moves value out through Lightning or another route. If the mint disappears, refuses redemption or has a serious failure, the app interface cannot make the promise whole by itself. Minibits can improve wallet UX, backup handling and payment flows, but it cannot remove mint risk.
The same caution applies to the phone. Ecash tokens are bearer-like digital instruments. The App Store text says ecash is stored on the device and warns that losing the device can mean losing coins if backup is not handled. Minibits provides seed and export paths, but a user still needs to treat phone storage and seed backup as money storage.
Cashu gives Minibits its privacy shape
Cashu is the protocol layer behind Minibits. Cashu uses Chaumian ecash, where users hold proofs and mints issue blind signatures. The protocol design can improve privacy because the mint does not need to know the user's complete wallet balance or every future recipient when tokens are exchanged. That privacy story is strongest when users understand mint selection, token handling and redemption limits.
Minibits exposes a long list of Cashu wallet flows. The README lists multiple mints, mint status screens, grouped balances by unit, QR and animated QR support, Cashu payment requests, P2PK-locked ecash, offline receive, Lightning top-ups, Lightning cash-outs and transaction recovery. Those are not small features. They make the app a serious Cashu wallet surface, not only a demo scanner.
The Minibits mint info endpoint confirms the project also operates a mint at mint.minibits.cash/Bitcoin. At the time checked, the mint described itself as a beta, best-effort service and reported Nutshell 0.20.1, SAT unit support, Bolt11 mint and melt methods, and several Cashu NUT capabilities. That is useful for testing, but the same endpoint warns readers not to treat it as guaranteed production infrastructure.
The Minibits address is both wallet name and payment surface
One of Minibits' most reader-friendly ideas is the name@minibits.cash wallet address. The official site presents a free Lightning address as a core feature. The README says wallet addresses can be random public Nostr addresses, can use custom wallet names, can be used as Lightning addresses, and can receive Nostr zaps or Lightning payments.
This matters because normal Cashu tokens are not socially memorable. A token string is useful for machines, QR codes and copy-paste, but it is not a human payment address. Minibits uses Nostr keys, NIP-05-style naming and server-side support to give the wallet a reachable identity. A user can receive from other Minibits users, from Lightning wallets, and from Nostr clients that know how to send zaps or address payments.
There is an important privacy tradeoff. A stable address makes receiving easier, but it also creates a durable identifier. A reader who wants highly compartmentalized ecash use should not put every payment flow behind the same public name. A reader who wants convenience may accept that tradeoff. Minibits gives the address layer; the user still chooses how public to make it.
Nostr is in the wallet, not bolted on later
Minibits uses Nostr in several places. The official site links a Nostr profile. The README lists public contacts from Nostr, private contacts with Nostr addresses and relays, ecash sent over Nostr messages, and one-tap zaps to Nostr users. OpenSats describes the wallet as supporting Nostr-native flows through encrypted direct messages and wrapped events. The code includes wallet profile publishing, relay stores, Nostr service code and a dedicated NWC store.
The app's default relay choices are visible in the source. The Nostr service defines public relays such as Primal and Damus, search relays such as Nostr.band and Noswhere, and the project relay at wss://relay.minibits.cash. The relay's own NIP-11 response says it keeps and shares Minibits wallet Nostr profiles and direct messages, runs strfry, and advertises supported NIPs including 1, 2, 4, 9, 11, 22, 28, 40, 70 and 77.
A reader should see this as wallet infrastructure. Nostr is not only where Minibits has a social account. It is part of how wallet profiles, contacts, messages and NWC requests move. That brings portability and openness, but it also makes relay selection, relay uptime and encrypted-message handling part of the payment experience.
Nostr Wallet Connect on a mobile wallet
Minibits appears in the NWC ecosystem because it can act as a wallet service for Nostr Wallet Connect. The README says NWC lets users initiate payments from another app, such as a Nostr client. The website says built-in NWC lets users send zaps from Nostr social networks straight from the wallet. The NWC screen and store in the code create connection strings with nostr+walletconnect://, one or more relays, a secret and the wallet's Lightning address.
The source shows supported methods around pay_invoice, get_balance, get_info, list_transactions, make_invoice and lookup_invoice. There is also code for a multi-pay path with a five-invoice cap, although the visible supported-method list is more conservative. Payment limits are part of the connection model: the NWC connection tracks a daily limit and remaining daily limit, and returns a quota error when a payment would exceed it.
Mobile NWC has a different reliability profile from an always-on hub. A phone can be asleep, offline, battery constrained or background-limited by the operating system. OpenSats notes that Minibits' own server helps with zap notifications and NWC delivery so payments can reach the app when it is backgrounded. That is useful, but it also means a reader should test NWC with the exact phone, OS, relay path and app before depending on it.
Zaps are a spending decision
Minibits makes Nostr zaps convenient, but convenience should not hide what is happening. A zap is a Lightning payment attached to Nostr social activity. When a Nostr client uses NWC to send a zap through Minibits, the app is spending from the user's ecash-backed wallet path and settling through Lightning. That means fees, mint liquidity, Lightning routing, wallet balance and connection limits all matter.
The NWC code reserves a small Lightning fee estimate for invoice payments, with a minimum fee and percentage rule visible in the source. It also prefers the Minibits mint balance when enough SAT balance is available. That gives the app a fast path, but it does not make payments free or riskless. A failed zap can be a wallet, mint, relay, Lightning or app issue.
The practical advice is simple: keep NWC zap connections narrow. Give each Nostr client a recognizable connection name. Set a daily limit. Delete old connections. Use small balances. Test with tiny payments. Minibits is most comfortable as a nimble ecash wallet for small social payments, not as an unrestricted spending vault.
Offline and NFC are the boldest parts
Minibits is unusually focused on offline and tap-to-pay use. The README lists receiving ecash in person while offline and redeeming later. It also lists NFC reading of Cashu requests or Lightning invoices, plus Android host card emulation for sharing Cashu tokens, requests or invoices over NFC. The June 2026 GitHub release focused heavily on NFC tag discovery, host-card-emulation conflicts and cold or hot start behavior.
This is where Cashu becomes more than a web wallet idea. If a payer can prepare or hand over a token without live connectivity, the payment experience starts to look like digital cash. OpenSats describes a tap flow where the wallet writes a Cashu token back to an NFC tag, letting the payer remain offline during the tap. That is the sort of user experience that makes ecash worth testing.
Offline ecash also increases responsibility. The receiver still needs to redeem or swap proofs later. The app needs cached keys and DLEQ verification for safer offline acceptance. The tests in the Minibits repo explicitly reject proofs without required offline verification material. A reader should treat offline payment as a feature to test carefully in realistic conditions, not as a magic guarantee that every token is good forever.
Backup is not a checkbox
Minibits puts real work into backup and recovery. The README lists a local append-only backup, exportable wallet backups, 12-word mnemonic recovery, address recovery, recovery of stuck or spent-looking ecash, retry after recoverable errors and auto-recovery if receiving failed due to network or device failure. The app strings warn that local backup stores copies of ecash in a local database and that the seed phrase is what recovers the balance after device loss.
The recovery site reinforces the same theme. It presents an ecash balance recovery tool and says the seed phrase never leaves the browser. The code has screens for seed recovery, wallet-address recovery and privacy migration of Nostr keys derived from a mnemonic. This is not ornamental UX. In a bearer-token wallet, recovery design is central to whether ordinary users can survive a lost phone, broken app state or failed transaction.
Readers should still verify the path themselves. Write down the seed. Export a backup if appropriate. Test recovery with a tiny balance before trusting the process. Understand the difference between recovering wallet address identity and recovering spendable ecash. Do not keep meaningful funds in a beta wallet before proving the recovery path on a second device or clean install.
The Minibits mint is a convenience mint
The official site includes a Minibits Mint section and encourages communities to run their own mints for production use. That sentence matters. The Minibits mint is useful because it gives the wallet a default path into SAT-denominated ecash, Lightning deposits and Lightning withdrawals. It also lets new users try the product without first researching a mint ecosystem.
The mint info endpoint is transparent about the tradeoff. It names the mint, exposes its public key, says it runs Nutshell, lists contact options, announces NUT support and sets maximum amounts for Bolt11 minting and melting. It also describes the mint as an active beta research project, operated on a best-effort basis and without guarantees. Those are not scary words by themselves; they are the correct words for an experimental mint.
A reader who likes Minibits should learn how to add and evaluate mints. The app supports multiple mints and multiple currency units, removing mints, blocking receiving from a mint, viewing mint balances and checking mint status. That flexibility helps, but it does not replace judgment. The mint is the issuer. Choose mints the way you would choose a counterparty, not like choosing a theme color.
Ippon is related, but not the same product
The Minibits site also promotes Ippon, a minimal Cashu and Lightning wallet API for AI agents and automated systems. Ippon is useful context because it shows where the Minibits project is going beyond the mobile wallet. The Ippon README describes an API server or CLI wallet for non-human systems that need short-lived, low-balance micropayment capability without a human wallet UI.
Ippon should not be confused with the normal Minibits mobile wallet. It is designed as a fully custodial server-side service, often for mint operators, with access keys, REST routes, optional MCP facade and strict balance and payment limits. The live info endpoint reports a SAT unit, the Minibits mint URL, operational status and caps for balance, send and pay amounts. That is a different risk model from a phone wallet holding bearer ecash locally.
For readers, the takeaway is that Minibits is becoming a small ecash product family. The mobile wallet is for human phone users. The mint issues ecash. The relay helps Nostr wallet profiles and messages. Recovery tools support lost-device scenarios. Ippon serves automated systems. These pieces share a brand and protocol philosophy, but each deserves its own trust boundary.
Distribution tells you where the project is now
Minibits is no longer only a side-loaded Android APK. The README lists Android through Google Play, Zapstore and GitHub, and iOS through the App Store, TestFlight and Freedomstore. The Apple page lists Bitango Technologies, s.r.o. as the developer and describes Minibits as an iPhone app. The Google Play page lists Minibits Wallet by Bitango Technologies and describes it as a Bitcoin Lightning and ecash wallet.
OpenSats provides a useful outside summary. It says Minibits is a mobile Cashu wallet built by Misovan, runs on Android and iOS, supports multiple mints, Lightning, Nostr contacts, Cashu tokens, NIP-17 and NIP-44 messaging, offline prepared payments, NFC tap-to-pay and modern Cashu NUTs. It also notes OpenSats funding in the seventh wave of Bitcoin grants and later renewal in the sixteenth wave.
The GitHub release stream is active. When checked on June 11, 2026, the latest GitHub release was v0.4.3-beta.3, published June 2, 2026, with Android APK assets. The release notes focused on local database migration, over-the-air update changes, NFC fixes and data-layer hardening. The main branch package file had already moved to a later beta version number, so readers should check the store, GitHub release and in-app update channel before assuming all platforms are on the same build.
Privacy promises need careful reading
Minibits is privacy-oriented, but no wallet can make privacy automatic. Cashu can hide important details from the mint, but the mint still knows when Lightning is used for deposit or withdrawal. A Nostr address can make receiving easier, but it is a public identifier. Relay use can reveal timing and metadata. Push notifications can improve reliability, but they add platform and server dependencies.
The App Store privacy section says the developer's practices may include handling identifiers and diagnostics, while the iOS privacy manifest in the repository declares no collected data types and no tracking, with required API categories for local app behavior. Those statements can coexist because app-store reporting, native privacy manifests and real-world infrastructure describe different layers. A careful reader should inspect the current store privacy label and privacy policy before installation.
The safest pattern is compartmentalization. Use small balances. Use separate wallet names for different contexts if needed. Do not publish a wallet address everywhere if you want privacy. Keep NWC connections per app. Avoid unknown mints. Remember that ecash privacy depends on how tokens are acquired, moved and redeemed, not only on the wallet screen.
What to test before relying on Minibits
Start with tiny amounts. Add a small balance from Lightning, send a small Cashu token, receive it back, pay a Lightning invoice, redeem from a different mint if that is part of your plan, and check the transaction history. Then test the recovery flow. A wallet that cannot be recovered under calm conditions should not hold funds under stressful conditions.
Next test the Nostr paths. Claim or create a wallet address. Send to a Minibits contact. Send to a Nostr contact. Try a zap through an NWC-compatible client with a low daily limit. Put the phone in the background, lock it, reconnect it and see what happens. The exact operating system version and notification settings matter for a mobile NWC wallet.
Finally test mint and network failures. What happens if the phone is offline? What happens if a relay is unreachable? What happens if the mint is slow? What happens if a Lightning invoice expires? Minibits has recovery and retry features, but the reader should understand them before a real payment gets stuck.
Who Minibits is for
Minibits is a strong fit for people who want to experiment with Cashu on a phone and actually use it for small payments. It is also interesting for Nostr users who want zaps and NWC without running a full wallet hub, and for communities testing offline or NFC payment flows. The app has enough product polish to be approachable while still exposing the sharp edges of ecash.
It is not the right fit for a reader looking for a conservative savings wallet. The project itself says not to use large amounts. Cashu mints are counterparties. The mobile app is beta. NWC adds app permissions. Offline payment adds verification nuance. These are all manageable in a small-payment setting; they are not reasons to park life-changing funds on a phone.
The most respectful way to use Minibits is to use it as intended: small balances, real testing, careful mint choices and honest expectations. In that lane, Minibits is one of the more important bridges between Cashu theory and everyday mobile payment behavior.
The practical takeaway
Minibits matters because it tries to make Cashu feel physical without trapping it in a lab. QR, clipboard, Lightning address, Nostr contact, zap, NWC, NFC and recovery are all attempts to answer the same question: how does bearer ecash become usable on a phone without losing the properties that made it worth building?
The answer is promising but not finished. The project is active, funded, open source and moving across Android and iOS. The feature set is unusually broad. The code shows serious attention to recovery, NFC and data handling. The public materials also keep saying beta, small amounts and mint trust. A reader should believe both sides.
For Nostr users, Minibits is worth opening because it makes Nostr identity and wallet control part of a mobile ecash wallet. For Cashu users, it is worth opening because it brings mint-backed ecash into a real phone interface. For everyone else, the right starting balance is still tiny.
Sources worth opening
Open the official Minibits site, GitHub README, current release, App Store and Play Store pages, OpenSats project page, Minibits mint info, relay NIP-11 response, Cashu NUTs, Nostr NIPs and NWC specification before using Minibits with real funds.
- Minibits official site
- Minibits privacy policy
- Minibits GitHub repository
- Minibits README
- Minibits MIT license
- Minibits package metadata
- Minibits latest GitHub release
- Minibits on the App Store
- Minibits on Google Play
- Minibits on Zapstore
- Minibits on OpenSats
- Seventh Wave of Bitcoin Grants
- Sixteenth Wave of Bitcoin Grants
- Advancements in Ecash impact report
- Minibits mint info
- Minibits mint keys
- Minibits relay NIP-11 info
- Minibits recovery tool
- Minibits NWC store source
- Minibits Nostr service source
- Minibits NFC service source
- Minibits wallet profile source
- Minibits iOS privacy manifest
- Minibits DLEQ test
- Minibits melt recovery test
- Minibits Ippon repository
- Minibits Ippon README
- Ippon live info endpoint
- Ippon OpenAPI JSON
- Minibits Ippon MCP README
- Minibits Nostr profile
- Cashu official site
- Cashu documentation
- Cashu NUT-00
- Cashu NUT-11 P2PK
- Cashu NUT-17 WebSocket subscriptions
- Cashu NUT-18 payment requests
- Cashu NUT-19 cached responses
- Cashu NUT-29 batched minting
- Nostr Wallet Connect official site
- NIP-47: Nostr Wallet Connect
- NIP-17 private direct messages
- NIP-44 versioned encryption
- NIP-57 zaps
- NIP-05 identifiers
