Boosts
Updated October 15, 2026
A boost sends sats from your own Lightning wallet to the wallets that a podcast lists in its feed. Pod Monster tells your NWC-enabled wallet who to send sats to. We never hold your sats.
What a boost is
A boost is an optional gift made from a podcast listener to a podcaster. It is a payment made on the Lightning Network that sends Satoshis, or "sats" from one source wallet to any number of recipient wallets that a podcast lists in the podcast:value or podcast:valueTimeSplit tags of its feed. Pod Monster connects to the wallet and never holds your sats.
A boost unlocks nothing in the app, and a sent boost is final.
The terms of use cover boosts in more detail.
Connecting a wallet
Connect a wallet in Settings > Boosts in the app. Today, we only support connecting an NWC (Nostr Wallet Connect)-enabled wallet. If you have a Bitcoin or Lightning wallet already, but it doesn't support NWC, you can simply download another NWC-enabled wallet, transfer some sats there, and use that to send boosts to podcasts. I use Alby Hub for that purpose, but here's an open list you can choose from after reviewing for yourself. Once it's set up, your wallet will allow you to connect via a Nostr Wallet Connect string, often shown as a QR code.
The connection string and its QR code are a secret. Anyone who holds a copy can spend from your wallet. Share them with nobody. After you pair, delete any saved image or copy of the string.
The app offers three ways to pair:
- Scan QR code uses the camera to read only the QR code.
- Paste wallet connection reads the clipboard once.
- Choose image reads the QR code from an image you pick in Files.
Scan the QR code when you can. A copied connection string can stay on your Mac or in a clipboard manager, and Universal Clipboard can sync it to your other devices. Because of that, if you do pair with a paste, Pod Monster clears your clipboard afterwards.
Once paired, the connection stays in the Keychain of your device. It does not sync between your other devices, and is never sent to Pod Monster's servers. If you delete the app without removing the connection, iOS keeps it in your Keychain, so it's smart to unpair first. Regardless, on a new install of Pod Monster, we clear it and the wallet must be re-paired before use.
The following are the permissions we need to make boosts work. Some, like reading transaction history, are not necessary, but may enable us to show you an improved experience within the app (e.g., showing Boost History, contextual boost badges and sorting):
| Feature | NWC permission | Alby Hub |
|---|---|---|
| Paying the recipients of a boost Required | pay_keysend or pay_invoice | Send payments |
| Checking what your wallet supports Required | get_info | Read your node info |
| Checking the status of a payment that is taking a long time Required | lookup_invoice | Lookup status of invoices |
| Showing your balance in the app Optional | get_balance | Read your balance |
| Showing Boost History and contextual boost info from your wallet Optional | list_transactions | Read transaction history |
Some wallets let the app pay invoices but not keysend payments. With such a wallet, the app pays only the recipients that have a Lightning address. A wallet that grants no way to pay cannot send a boost.
Set a budget, and confirm each boost
If your wallet offers a budget for the connection, it's smart to set one. Anyone who gets ahold of the connection string can spend up to the budget, or your whole balance if there is no budget. Pod Monster cannot set or see the budget (we just see an error if you hit it).
When your wallet reports a balance below the amount, the Send Boost button will be disabled. A boost above 100,000 sats asks you to confirm first. The most one boost can send is 1,000,000 sats.
The Send Boost button asks for Face ID, Touch ID, or the device passcode before each boost. If you cancel the check, nothing is sent. A device with no passcode cannot send a boost, and the app says "Set a device passcode in Settings to send boosts." The app receives only a pass or a fail, and no face or fingerprint data.
Where the sats go
The podcast lists the recipients and their shares in its feed, which we show to you in the boost sheet prior to you confirming the boost. Pod Monster does not check the recipients prior to sending.
A feed can also list "fee" recipients, which are paid first.
A share the app cannot send, such as a share below one sat or one your wallet cannot pay, stays in your wallet. It does not go to any other recipient.
On an episode page, a time split can change the recipients for part of the episode. The app looks up a recipient that points at another feed through Podcast Index or that feed.
What recipients receive
Each recipient paid by keysend receives a record with the payment. The record holds:
- your sender name and your message
- the amounts
- the show title and the episode or livestream title
- the feed identifier and the episode or livestream identifier
- your position in the episode (a livestream boost sends no position)
- the app name and version
- two random IDs: one is the same for every recipient of the boost, so it links the parts of one boost, and one is new for each payment
The app pays a Lightning address by invoice when its host offers no keysend, when your wallet pays invoices only, or when you pay a failed keysend payment by invoice. The payment host that the address names then receives:
- the amount
- a comment with the show title, then your message, when the host accepts one
- your sender name, when the host accepts a name
- the IP address of your phone, because your phone sends the request
The payment host isn't always run by the company whose name is in the address, so these details can go to a company you didn't expect.
A recipient paid by invoice gets only the details above, not the full record that a keysend recipient gets. Payment hosts limit how long a comment can be, so when you send a boost, Pod Monster truncates the comment to fit. The boost sheet tells you when that happens: it marks that recipient "Invoice, message truncated", or "Invoice, no message" when the host doesn't accept a comment.
You can change your sender name in Settings > Boosts. It can be up to 64 characters and is stored in iCloud key-value storage under your Apple Account, so your other devices use it too. A recipient sees this name if their payment host supports it.
Your wallet's history contains a record for each payment, and any apps you connect to that wallet with the history permission will be able to read it too. For an invoice payment, the record holds your message and sender name only when the payment host took them. Alby Hub keeps the record and does not forward the record of an invoice payment. Other wallets can differ.
The privacy policy lists what each party receives.
When a payment fails
It's possible for a Lightning address to point to a keysend node that cannot take payments. If your wallet reports that a keysend payment to a Lightning address failed, and your wallet supports invoices, you'll be given the option to "Pay with an invoice" for that recipient.
When a keysend payment fails, you can try the payment again as an invoice, but please be careful if you do this. In certain cases, your wallet may try to settle the failed keysend payment later, and if the wallet was only temporarily down, it may succeed, which means you would've paid twice. The "Pay with an invoice" sheet warns about this. Always double-check your wallet whenever you are in doubt about a payment's status.
When paying an invoice, you'll be asked to verify that your comment still makes sense within the character limits and reduced context of an invoice. Pressing "Pay Invoice" triggers auth again via Face ID, Touch ID, or the device passcode. The app then pays the share by invoice, as What recipients receive describes. It pays each recipient by invoice at most once per boost.
When a result is unknown
If your wallet doesn't reply about a payment within 30 seconds, Pod Monster can't tell whether the payment went through, so the app shows "Unknown. Check your wallet before you boost again." for that recipient. The payment may still go through later, so we don't send it again, since that could pay the recipient twice.
To see what was paid, check your wallet's history, or Boost History, which reads from it. We don't keep a boost history of our own, and our servers never receive a record of a boost.
Until you quit the app, Pod Monster remembers how each boost went. If you boost the same show again after an unknown result, the app asks you to check your wallet first and offers "Show last result". Once you quit the app, there's no reminder, so check your wallet before you boost again.
For help with a boost, see the support page.
Boost History
Boost History is in Settings > Boosts and needs the optional "Read transaction history" permission. If you didn't allow that permission for the Pod Monster connection, Boost History within the app will be unavailable.
To build Boost History, Pod Monster reads the payments your wallet sent, including payments from other apps, and shows only the boosts. Boost History defaults to showing your Pod Monster boosts, and you can choose "All Apps" to also see the boosts you sent from other apps.
We do not keep a copy of your history. The app holds it in memory only while Boost History is open, and never saves it to storage, logs, crash reports, or a server.
Disconnecting a wallet
To disconnect your wallet, tap "Disconnect" in Settings > Boosts on the device where you connected it. You can also clear or change your sender name on this page.
You can also disconnect your wallet when you delete your library. While a wallet is connected, "Delete this library" in Settings offers "Delete and Disconnect Wallet". Along with your library, it clears your sender name on every device signed in to your Apple Account and disconnects your wallet.
Disconnecting removes the connection from Pod Monster, but not from your wallet. Until you revoke the connection in your wallet, anyone with a copy of the connection string can still use it to spend your sats. The same is true after "Delete and Disconnect Wallet" or after you delete the app, so it's smart to revoke the connection in your wallet whenever you disconnect. If you lose your phone or a copy of the connection string, revoke it right away.
If you'd rather not use Boost History but still want to send boosts, you don't need to disconnect. Just turn off "Read transaction history" for the Pod Monster connection in your wallet.