Second, a Bitcoin development lab has officially launched Bark – the implementation of the Ark Protocol – on the Bitcoin mainnet, allowing both developers and regular users to make self-custodial Bitcoin payments without the complexity traditionally associated with Lightning Network or on-chain transactions.
Bark is built on the Ark Protocol, a layer 2 solution that allows large numbers of users to share on-chain UTXOs through trees of pre-signed, off-chain transactions, spreading costs across participants while maintaining individual self-control.
Unlike Lightning, Ark requires no channel management or upfront liquidity allocation, addressing pain points that have long kept regular users tied to custody alternatives.
“We wanted to make it ridiculously easy for users to get started with, hold, and spend self-custody bitcoin, without surprise fees and without having to manage channels or liquidity,” CEO Steven Roose wrote in a blog post.
As of today, Second’s Ark server is publicly accessible for payments. The launch includes a full developer toolkit – the Bark SDK – written in Rust with language bindings for Kotlin, Swift, React Native, Flutter, Go, Python and WebAssembly. For server environments, Second also provides Barkd, a standalone wallet daemon that exposes a REST interface with an OpenAPI specification.
Several applications are already suitable for mainnet at launch.
Noah is a full-stack mobile Ark wallet that combines a React Native frontend with a Rust backend. Arke is a design-driven native iOS wallet built around open-source UX principles from bitcoin.design. Satsigner brings Sparrow-style UTXO management and multisig workflows to mobile users. Bark Wallet is an Umbrel app that supports Ark, Lightning, and on-chain payments.
A BTCPay Server plugin – also built by Second – allows merchants to process Lightning payments in-house without opening channels or managing liquidity.
Second has raised $5.1 million from a private investor and operates with a team of eleven people. The company has attracted notable industry talent, including former Blockstream engineers.
The launch comes at a time of heightened competition in the Bitcoin layer 2 space, with multiple protocols – including Arkade and statechain-based solutions from Ark Labs – competing to bridge the gap between self-management and user experience.
Second will also host a live AMA on Stacker News on June 9 at 10am EST.
This post Launches Second Bark on Bitcoin Mainnet, Focused on Self-Management UX Gap first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Micah Zimmerman.