The Joule browser extension is a way for Bitcoin Lightning users to quickly make payments and authenticate using their Lightning node. By injecting a small script into every page, websites can leverage the WebLN standard to initiate interactions, a standard I developed alongside Joule based on the Ethereum community’s Web3 standard.

At its peak, Joule had over 1,500 active users, and was featured in many publications and at many conferences. It has also inspired many similar open source projects such as Alby and Jolt. The WebLN standard has been adopted and extended by many applications, such as Sphinx.

The project ceased development in 2021 due to Google’s significant changes to the web extensions API.

Technologies used

• TypeScript w/ React.js & Redux
• Web Extension API