The Wallet That Introduced Bitcoiners to Lightning Is Gone From Europe

Wallet of Satoshi has stopped providing Bitcoin custody services in Europe.

It's an interesting twist. Wallet of Satoshi was - and still is - the only truly mainstream wallet built around a custodial model that gained real popularity among everyday Bitcoin users. Sure, there are a few other custody-based wallets designed for businesses or for fiat-focused crypto services, but among people who would proudly call themselves Bitcoiners, there has always been just one dominant custodial wallet: Wallet of Satoshi.

How did that happen? Most likely because in the early days of the Lightning Network, there simply weren't many wallets that were easy, intuitive, and beginner-friendly. Bitcoin enthusiasts wanted to try Lightning, and Wallet of Satoshi became their gateway. Yes, it held their Bitcoin, but it also demonstrated something exciting: instant micro-payments, frictionless transfers, and the ability to receive tiny amounts (even 1 satoshi). And maybe - just maybe - those ultra-small transactions earned it a kind of "forgiveness" from the community, which normally rejects custodial models as a bad fit for crypto.

But even as user-controlled, non-custodial Lightning wallets improved and multiplied (Muun, Phoenix, and others), Wallet of Satoshi never disappeared. People kept using it - and they still do today. The wallet does offer a non-custodial mode now, but its custodial version has remained the crowd favorite for many users.

Until recently. New regulatory rules in Europe made custody services impossible - or at least impractical - for Wallet of Satoshi to continue operating there. So, what are users being told now? "Switch to non-custodial."

I doubt this was the outcome regulators had in mind. After all, why lose a compliant custodian - one so committed to following the law that it exits an entire region rather than bend the rules? It could have served as a bridge between regulators and the crypto community, helping onboard Bitcoin users into regulated services. But that won't happen anymore.

The good news? Wallet of Satoshi's non-custodial Lightning setup is extremely user-friendly. It's clean, simple, and intuitive. Anyone can figure it out.

Give it a try! And if you're looking for your first Lightning sats, you can always swap into them on Rabbit.io.