your own bank · on your Mac
hM Desktop
v0.2.5A Mac app that holds your bitcoin and talks Lightning — instant payments, no higherMark fees. We picked phoenixd so you do not have to run a Bitcoin node or babysit channels. The live embed on this page is a demo. The download is the real thing.
still under active development!
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v0.2.5 · Apple Silicon
Mac app = your own phoenixd. Browser = demo.
higherMark · hm-wallet on phoenixd. Advanced Mode in Profile demos extra wallets. Keep it off for the simple path.
higherMark for iOSWhy phoenixd
So each person has their own wallet — not ours
Lightning is Bitcoin that arrives in about a second and costs almost nothing. The hard part has always been the plumbing: you either run a full node and manage channels, or you hand your money to an app that holds it for you.
Phoenix, the phone wallet from ACINQ, already solved that. You keep the keys. When you need to receive, their network opens the pipe for you. You never babysit channels. phoenixd is that same idea for a computer. We chose it so higherMark could be a real Lightning wallet without turning every user into a sysadmin, and without us ever holding the pot.
One phoenixd is one wallet. If we ran one node on this website, every visitor would be spending our bitcoin. That is the opposite of “your own bank.” So this page stays a demo. The Mac app is where it is live.
- On this websitePlay with hm-wallet in the browser. Balances here are a demo ledger. Nothing on 4thsol.online can spend real sats.
- In the Mac appphoenixd is packed inside the download. Open hM Desktop and it starts on your machine. Your secret words stay on that Mac. We never see them.
- When you get paidThe first real receive opens your own Lightning channel through ACINQ. After that you send and receive like any other Lightning wallet.
Live
Pop it out of the page
hm-wallet loads as a large glossy rectangle. Pop it out and you can minimize that window on its own, the way a Chrome app works. Click the sats balance in the titlebar, or Lightning in the sidebar, and the same modal opens.
hm-wallet · phoenixd · v0.2.5
Open the wallet as its own window
Create or unlock in the live app below, or use this button. The sats figure in the titlebar is Courier New on purpose — click it.
Now
Live today, no fees
There are no higherMark fees. hm-wallet is free. It transacts with Lightning finality and is interoperable with all other Lightning wallets that speak BOLT 11. You hold the seed. We do not. phoenixd generates it on first run; back it up or the funds are gone.
As the standalone app is released, highermark.xyz will be updated once official Apple Distribution applications go live. In the meantime you can use this as a new Lightning wallet right now, or download the Apple Silicon .dmg.
How to run
Demo on the web. Live on the Mac.
Advanced Mode is off by default. Extra wallets stay hidden.
- Web appDemo. The embed below and the hm-wallet window use an on-device ledger so this site is never a shared company node.
- Mac appLive. The .dmg starts phoenixd on that Mac. hm-wallet talks to localhost. The seed stays on that machine. That is the real wallet.
- Your own nodeNo extra setup. Opening hM Desktop is running phoenixd. First receive opens your channel through ACINQ’s LSP.
The app also generates an npub and nsec you can use elsewhere. Advanced Mode toggled on displays demo wallets in development — Bark, Grid, Ark, on-ramp — to be released with later versions. Keep it off for simplicity.
First launch
macOS may send the app to Trash
We are not on a paid Apple Developer account yet. New macOS versions quarantine unsigned downloads and skip Open Anyway.
xattr -cr /Applications/higherMark.app open /Applications/higherMark.app
Drag higherMark.app to Applications
From the disk image. If macOS put it in Trash, drag it out first.Run Install higherMark.command
Also on the disk image. It clears the download quarantine.If it still will not open
Paste the two Terminal lines above. Later launches are a normal double-click.
This is a Lightning wallet for daily or weekly spending, not a hardware vault. Keep only what you need to transact. Back up your seed phrase. Keys stay on your Mac — we cannot recover them.
The idea
Your own bank, on your own machine
Drive across America and you see the same skyline everywhere — fast food on every corner, bank towers over every downtown. The whole landscape is built to address you as a consumer, and everyone is inundated by it.
hM Desktop is built for the other role. It is a desktop app that is your own bank — your keys, your Lightning, your AI, running on your machine — teetering on a new future where you have control over your finances and unlimited productivity.
This is our current flagship. We're proud of it, and increasingly we think it's inevitable.
Testing now
Where the build stands
v0.2.5 is current. hm-wallet is the live Lightning. Advanced Mode demos the rest.
The live app below signs you in automatically on this device (npub generated on load). Download the Apple Silicon .dmg for the native build. Click the sats chip next to the color icons to open hm-wallet.
If you'd like to test, feel free to join our Discord or contact us today to test further and contribute feedback as an early user — thank you. Check back later for our public release.
Specs
What hm-wallet supports
Honest matrix for v0.2.5. Yellow means live. Demo means Advanced Mode only.
| Capability | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| BOLT 11 invoices | Live | Send and receive. Standard Lightning invoices. |
| BOLT 12 offers | Live | phoenixd createoffer. Pay-to-offer without an invoice handshake. |
| Lightning Address | Live | getlnaddress on the phoenixd HTTP API. |
| Auto liquidity | Live | ACINQ LSP opens inbound on the fly. No channel management. |
| Self-custody | Live | 12-word seed in ~/.phoenix. We do not hold keys. |
| No Bitcoin node | Live | phoenixd talks to the LSP. You do not run bitcoind. |
| On-chain swap-in | Live | On-the-fly funding and on-chain send if a channel closes. |
| higherMark fees | None | Free to use. LSP / routing fees may still apply. |
| Interoperability | Live | Pays and is paid by other Lightning wallets that speak BOLT 11. |
| Bark / Grid / Ark | Demo | Behind Advanced Mode. Not the live path. |
| On-ramp / off-ramp | Demo | Shown in Advanced Mode only. |
Coverage
- BOLT 11 send / receive100%
- Self-custody + backup100%
- Auto liquidity (ACINQ LSP)100%
- No node / no channels100%
- BOLT 12 + Lightning Address100%
- On-chain swap-in90%
- Fiat on-ramp / off-ramp8%
Live build
Public release / open-source
Page in progress — the desktop app repository, opening up as we move toward the public release.
The repository is private while the alpha hardens; it will open with the public release.
Live app
higherMark · hm-wallet
Signed in automatically. Pop out to a new tab anytime. Sats sit next to the color icons.
higherMark · demo in browser · live phoenixd in the Mac app
Open in new tabiOS
Looking for the iPhone app?
While the desktop app is being worked on, higherMark for iOS has its own home.
As the standalone app is released, highermark.xyz will be updated once official Apple Distribution applications go live. In the meantime you can use hm-wallet right now. There are no fees. It is free, transacts with instant Lightning finality, and is interoperable with all other Lightning wallets.
At a glance
- Product
- hM Desktop · hm-wallet
- Version
- v0.2.5 · extra wallets via Advanced Mode
- Lightning
- phoenixd · ACINQ Phoenix server · self-custodial
- Platform
- macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon · web app
- AI
- Runs privately, on device · Cerebras in the cloud
- Channel
- Early-access alpha
News
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