Wallby FAQ part 1

Let’s answer some frequently asked questions

Hello everyone!
My name is Alessandro Olivo, and for those who don’t know me already I’m in charge of business and product development at Wallby.

Since our single most frequently asked question (by far) has been recently answered (here’s the announcement for Wallby’s iOS release), we figured it was time to give some attention also to other questions we’ve been receiving.
As Wallby quickly approaches its first 1000 downloads, we have been getting amazing support and feedback from users, and we’d like to clarify some topics and features which might not be as straightforward as they should be, given the limits of the beta status of the current release.

1. Q: is Wallby a decentralized wallet? Is it open source?
   A: yes, Wallby is a 100% decentralized wallet! It is not yet open source though, so you have to trust us on this.
   Trusting anyone is not a good practice with Bitcoin, and that’s why you should treat Wallby as experimental software, using it only for testing purposes and with small amounts you are ok with losing for now.
2. Q: when will Wallby be released as open source?
   A: as soon as possible, at least for “critical” components (such as the wallet components); we hope to be able to release it by mid-2024 at the latest.
3. Q: what are the current priorities in the development of Wallby?
   A: our top priorities for the short term (~6 months) are the open source release of critical components of the app and the integration of peg-in/peg-out to/from Liquid/Rootstock.
   Once those goals have been reached, the next priority for the medium term is the Lightning Network/RGB integration.
4. Q: what assets does the Bitcoin component of the wallet support?
   A: currently the Bitcoin/mainchain component of the wallet only supports BTC.
   We are closely following the Inscriptions/Ordinals/BRC-20 tokens/etc. phenomenon, but the support for those assets is not currently on our development timeline. We suggest not to send any of these assets to a Wallby-generated Bitcoin address, and we can not guarantee you will be able to recover them if you do that by mistake.
5. Q: what assets does the Liquid Network component of the wallet support?
   A: the Liquid Network component of the wallet already supports L-BTC and all Liquid assets (including tokens and NFTs).
   It’s possible to send any Liquid asset to any Liquid address generated by Wallby, and the wallet will display those assets once received. Full visualization is only supported for “official” assets, other custom assets might not be correctly displayed (but are nevertheless manageable).
6. Q: what assets does the Rootstock component of the wallet support?
   A: the Rootstock component of the wallet at the moment supports RBTC and all tokens supported by Sovryn.
   We suggest not to send any of the unsupported assets to a Wallby-generated RSK address, even though if you do that by mistake they should eventually be retrievable using another wallet which accepts Wallby’s recovery phrase, but we can not guarantee that.
7. Q: is it possible to carry out decentralized finance operations on Wallby?
   A: yes! DeFi on Bitcoin is Wallby’s bread and butter!
   Wallby supports Sovryn’s decentralized exchange pairs/swaps and liquidity pools on Android, and Sovryn’s liquidity pools only on iOS.
   All of this is conveniently accessible within the app; note that Wallby charges a tiny additional fee on these operations.
   We hope to be able to bring Sovryn’s DEX/swaps to iOS too soon!
8. Q: who is developing Wallby? How’s the project funded?
   A: Wallby is currently incubated by Bcademy srl, one of the main Bitcoin companies in Italy, founded and 100% self-funded by a heterogeneous group of veteran Bitcoiners and entrepreneurs.
   We are in the process of creating a dedicated spinoff to give Wallby the chance to independently grow in the best possible conditions, and we are in talks with many different partners to bring additonal funding and opportunities to the new company.

This is all for today, hopefully we cleared some doubts and offered additional relevant information about Wallby.

We are looking forward to receiving more feedback and questions, and we’ll do our best to answer them in future articles!

Download Wallby on Android here.
Download Wallby on iOS here.
Watch Wallby’s presentation at Bitcoin Amsterdam here.