Phoenix review: self-custodial Lightning on your phone
Phoenix is the Lightning wallet I recommend first to people who want to hold their own keys and still pay a Lightning invoice in seconds.
Phoenix is the best self-custodial Lightning wallet for most people: a real Lightning node on your phone that manages its own channel, with a 12-word seed only you hold. The trade-offs are that ACINQ is your only Lightning peer and can see who you pay and how much, and receiving without enough inbound liquidity costs 1% plus mining fees. Keep a spending balance in Phoenix and your savings on a hardware wallet.
I have not used Phoenix day to day. This review is built from ACINQ's FAQ, terms, and privacy pages, the Phoenix source and release notes on GitHub, and my incident tracker.
Disclosure: I work at Blockstream, the company that makes the Jade wallets mentioned here. I joined after many years as a satisfied user. There are no affiliate links on this site.
What Phoenix is and who makes it
Phoenix is a Lightning wallet made by ACINQ, a French company that also builds the eclair Lightning implementation. ACINQ's FAQ says Phoenix is a real, self-contained Lightning node that runs on your phone, and that it is not a custodial wallet. The code is open source under Apache-2.0, and the latest release is 2.8.4, published October 2, 2026 for Android, with a matching iPhone tag.
Phoenix needs iOS 16.0 or later, or Android 8.0 or later. Android users can also install the APK from GitHub, where each release ships a signed SHA256SUMS file and the steps to verify it with ACINQ's signing key.
Under the hood, your balance sits in a Lightning channel with ACINQ. The FAQ puts it bluntly: there is no on-chain balance. You can still send to and receive from regular Bitcoin addresses, and Phoenix moves the money in and out of the channel for you. Since version 2.7.0, new channels use Taproot, which ACINQ says makes them about 15% cheaper and harder to spot on-chain.
Who Phoenix is for
Phoenix fits anyone who wants to pay and get paid over Lightning without trusting a company with their coins and without managing channels. It handles BOLT12 offers, which Phoenix can now generate in any number as reusable payment codes, plus Lightning addresses and LNURL. Since 2.7.0 one app can hold several wallets, each with its own PIN.
Pick something else if you already run a Lightning node at home: ACINQ's FAQ says you would be better off with a remote-control app for your own node. Zeus is that kind of app, a remote node manager for LND and Core Lightning. Phoenix is also the wrong place for savings. It is a hot wallet on an internet-connected phone.
Fees
Receiving over Lightning is free when your channel has room. When it does not, Phoenix grows the channel on-chain, and you pay for that.
| What you do | Fee |
|---|---|
| Send over Lightning | 0.4% + 4 sat |
| Send on-chain | Mining fees, at a rate you choose |
| Receive over Lightning, with enough inbound liquidity | 0, no fees |
| Receive over Lightning, without enough inbound liquidity | 1% + mining fees |
| Request liquidity in advance | 1% + mining fees |
| Receive on-chain | Mining fees |
| Channel creation | 1,000 sat |
Your first Lightning payment creates the channel, so it pays the 1% plus mining fees and the 1,000-sat channel fee. By default Phoenix rejects an incoming payment if the fee would be more than 5,000 sat or 50% of the amount, and you can raise that limit in the channel settings. If you expect to receive a lot, requesting liquidity in bulk means fewer on-chain operations.
How liquidity works
ACINQ's FAQ uses a bucket. Your balance is the water, and the channel is the bucket. Inbound liquidity is how much more water fits before the bucket overflows. Spending empties the bucket and frees room. Receiving more than the room left means a bigger bucket, which is an on-chain transaction with a mining fee. Some funds stay locked by the Lightning protocol to cover a forced close, so you cannot receive the full gap between balance and capacity.
Bitcoin sent to your Phoenix address lands in a swap-in wallet controlled by Phoenix, then moves into the channel after 3 confirmations if the mining fee is under your limit. Until then it shows as sleeping, still under your control.
Setting up Phoenix
Install from the App Store, Google Play, or the Phoenix GitHub releases. Fake wallet apps are a common scam, so install only from those sources. For screens and menus, use ACINQ's FAQ.
- 1Create a wallet. Phoenix makes a 12-word seed, and ACINQ's terms say it is stored on your device only.
- 2Write the 12 words on paper or steel before you put money in. ACINQ cannot recover a lost seed.
- 3Turn on the app lock so someone holding your unlocked phone cannot spend.
- 4Receive a first payment big enough that the 1% channel fee does not matter much to you.
- 5Never restore the same seed in two Phoenix apps at once. The FAQ warns this can cause payment channels to close.
Your seed restores the channel funds on a new phone, iPhone or Android. On iPhone the payment history comes back from iCloud unless you turned that off. On Android you export the payments database by hand.
Trust and privacy
ACINQ describes Phoenix as trust-minimized, with trust needed at specific moments. When an incoming Lightning payment opens or grows your channel, you trust ACINQ until the funding transaction confirms. When an on-chain deposit does it, no trust is needed, and swaps are trustless.
Privacy is the weak spot, and ACINQ says so: the current version offers no advantage regarding privacy over existing, hosted, custodial wallets, because ACINQ's node calculates your routes and knows the final recipient of the payment, and the amount sent. Your on-chain addresses rotate, and swaps use a Taproot script that makes them look like ordinary transactions.
Two settings help. You can point Phoenix at your own Electrum server to watch the blockchain, which also cuts your dependence on third parties for securing channels. And Tor works through a separate Tor VPN app such as Orbot, a change ACINQ made in version 2.5.0. If you run a node, my guide to electrs vs Fulcrum covers the Electrum server.
Push notifications wake Phoenix up to receive payments, through Apple's service or Google Firebase Cloud Messaging. On GrapheneOS without sandboxed Google Play, the FAQ says payments might fail while Phoenix is in the background or closed.
What happens if ACINQ disappears
ACINQ says your funds stay safe, but you won't be able to make any payments. In that case only, you force close your channel from the app's danger zone. After a 720-block delay, about five days, the funds return on-chain, and you pay high fees for the trip. ACINQ is clear that force closing is a last resort, never a fix for an ordinary bug: contact support first.
Security record
The Phoenix repository lists no published security advisories, and my security incident tracker has no entry for ACINQ. The 2.8.4 release notes mention security improvements, including against misuse of accessibility tools, credited to an outside researcher. ACINQ's terms say your phone must not be rooted, or your seed is exposed.
How Phoenix compares
| Phoenix | Zeus | Blixt | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the Lightning node runs | On your phone, with ACINQ as the only peer | It can remote-control your own LND or Core Lightning node | lnd and Neutrino on the phone |
| Channel management | Automatic | Depends on setup | You manage channels |
| Best for | Most people | Node runners | Lightning tinkerers |
Phoenix ranks first on my Lightning wallet list because it is the simplest wallet that keeps you in control of your keys. Zeus is the better pick if you run your own Lightning node, Blixt suits people who want to manage channels themselves, and Alby rounds out my list. Phone wallets with built-in Lightning, such as BlueWallet, are thinner on that side today.
Verdict
I rate Phoenix 9.6. It gives you a self-custodial Lightning node that needs no channel management, clear published fees, and an exit that works even if ACINQ vanishes. The costs are the 1% fee when you need more inbound liquidity and a company that sees your payments. Use it for spending, and keep savings on a hardware wallet such as the Jade Plus or SeedSigner.
Frequently asked questions
Is Phoenix wallet custodial?
No. Phoenix runs a Lightning node on your phone, and the 12-word seed is stored on your device only. ACINQ's FAQ says you, and only you, hold the key that controls the funds.
What are Phoenix wallet fees?
Sending over Lightning costs 0.4% plus 4 sat. Receiving is free when your channel has room; otherwise it costs 1% plus mining fees, and creating the first channel costs 1,000 sat.
Can ACINQ see my Phoenix payments?
Yes. ACINQ says its node knows the final recipient and the amount of each payment you send, and that Phoenix is no more private than a custodial wallet today.
What happens to my bitcoin if ACINQ shuts down?
Your funds stay safe but you cannot make payments. You force close the channel in the app, and after about five days the funds return to an on-chain address you control.
Can I connect Phoenix to my own node?
You can use your own Electrum server for blockchain data. Phoenix is built around ACINQ's node as its Lightning peer, and ACINQ suggests a remote-control app such as Zeus if you run your own Lightning node.