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Receiving and Sending Bitcoin

Make the most of Bitcoin payments using Bitkit.
Matt Carvalho
By Matt Carvalho
• 4 articles

How do I send bitcoin?

You can send bitcoin regularly or instantly in different ways. If you paste or scan unified invoices that support both regular and instant payments and you have enough spending balance, Bitkit will prioritize sending instantly rather than regularly. If you paste or scan an invoice that has no specified amount, Bitkit will ask you to specify it. It's not possible to cancel unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions on Bitkit, so always double-check before sending. Sending to different address types Bitcoin supports paying to: - Legacy addresses (P2PKH) - Nested Segwit addresses (P2SH) - Native Segwit Bech32 addresses (P2WPKH) - Taproot addresses (P2TR) - LNURLs - Slashtags profile keys Bitkit doesn't yet support: - Lightning Addresses - BOLT 12 offers - Keysend - AMP invoices - BIP47 payment codes - Silent payment addresses Paying to contacts Bitkit will prioritize paying according to the recipients' preferences. By default, instant payments are prioritized. It's only possible to pay contacts instantly if the receiver keeps the app opened. If they close it, you'll only be able to send an on-chain payment. Currently, it's only possible to pay and be paid by other Bitkit users who have opted in. We developed and open-sourced this feature so any wallet can integrate it, so in the future it will be possible to pay contacts using other wallets. Selecting your coins You can configure Bitkit to prioritize consolidating UTXOs, maximizing privacy, or minimizing the number UTXOs. If you don't know the tradeoffs of each option, leave it as default. If you choose manual coin selection, Bitkit will ask you to select coins before making a transaction.

Matt Carvalho By Matt Carvalho
• Last updated on Dec 15, 2023

How do I boost unconfirmed transactions?

Lightning payments get confirmed instantly, but regular, on-chain payments can take longer, especially when the network gets congested. If you want a payment you've sent or received to confirm faster, you can go to the transaction details and tap Boost. You'll need to pay miners an additional fee to prioritize your transaction. Bitkit uses a technique known as Child Pays for Parent (CPFP). The recommended fee you can set refers to the fee of the child transaction, so the fee rate editable via the pencil icon refers only to the child transaction, not to the effective fee rate fee of the package of the parent and child transaction. Thus, if you opt not to use the recommended boosting fee, you must ensure the fee rate of the child transaction is higher than of the parent transaction to effectively boost both. You can't change the fee after boosting or boost a transaction twice, if you are not using the recommended fee, make sure to choose it carefully. Canceled transactions Unconfirmed on-chain transactions aren't final and can get canceled when: - The sender paid a low fee, causing miners to deprioritize it and leading it to get canceled (i.e. removed from the mempool). Boosting can prevent these incoming transactions from getting canceled. If they do get canceled, the only solution is to ask the sender to resend it. - The sender replaced the transaction with a higher-fee one. In this case, you'll see the replacement transaction in your activities as long as the sender didn't remove your address as a receiver from the new transaction.

Matt Carvalho By Matt Carvalho
• Last updated on Dec 15, 2023

How do I manage my spending balance?

Bitkit offers you the unique capability of managing your savings and spending balance so that you always have enough capacity to send and receive instant payments through a Lightning connection. Your spending balance contains the bitcoins you can spend instantly, and your savings balance contains the bitcoins you can spend on-chain. Transferring from savings to spending To transfer funds from savings to spending, tap on Bitcoin in the "ASSETS" section and then ⇅. Bitkit doesn't provide Lightning connections to citizens and residents of the US or Canada. If you see the following message after tapping ⇅, the issue may be your VPN. Turn it off, and try again. On the Quick Setup, use the slider to choose how much you want to transfer. You can't allocate more than 80% of your funds to your spending balance because you need at least 20% of your savings available to cover fees. On the Custom Setup, you can select the exact amounts you want to be able to send and receive instantly. You can also click on the pencil to decide the minimum connection duration. At the end of the period, Blocktank, the Lightning Service Provider integrated with Bitkit, might close your Lightning connection, or might keep it open for longer depending on numerous conditions. For more details, read Blocktank's Term of Service. After swiping to connect, keep the app open while your connection is being set up. Your connection might take ±10 minutes to open because it requires one on-chain confirmation. Transferring from spending to savings You can transfer your funds back to savings at any time. Your spending balance will be transferred to your spending balance in ±1 hour because it requires one on-chain confirmation on a transaction sent with a medium priority fee. Connecting to Lightning through third parties Bitkit provides you with the Lightning connections you need to send and receive instant payments conveniently and reliably. Yet, you might need third-party connections if: - You don't want to use the connection provided by Bitkit. - You want to be able to send and receive more than a total of US$ 999, higher than the maximum limit provided by us. - You are an American or Canadian citizen or resident and can't get a connection from Bitkit. All you'll need to connect via a third party is your node ID, available on Settings → Advanced → Lightning connections. If the third-party provides you with a QR, simply scan it and Bitkit will ask you to confirm opening the connection. Remember to keep Bitkit open while you're connecting.

Matt Carvalho By Matt Carvalho
• Last updated on Jan 08, 2024