Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
BOLT 12: offers, sixth draft
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
A BOLT11 "invoice" has proven too low-level for human use in many
scenarios.  Efforts like lnurl have covered the gap, but integrating
some of such higher layers into the lightning protocol itself has many
advantages.

This draft defines three new things:

1. A new invoice format.  I know, this is painful, but it maps almost
   1:1 to the current format (though signatures are very different),
   is easier to implement, and easier to send via the lightning
   network itself.

2. Formats for an "offer", which for all intents and purposes serves
   as the new, persistent invoice for users.

3. Format for an "invoice_request": this is a message sent via the
   lightning network itself to receive the real invoice, or can
   be used directly in a send-money scenario (e.g. ATM).

The offer (for accepting payments) or invoice_request (for sending
payments) are usually presented via a QR code or similar, the replies
are sent using onion messages.  Each copies fields from the prior so
it stands alone, to allow statelessness.

Features which have been deliberately omitted for the initial version:
- Recurrence.
- Invoice replacement ("don't accept that old payment!")
- Payer proof for refunds.

This effort has been EPIC, and there is absolutely no way I could have
done this without the often thankless task of implementing,
re-implementing, revising and re-reading this text.

In particular I have been delighted to receive the mental boost from
the following people:

1. Thomas H of ACINQ (https://github.com/thomash-acinq)
2. Jeffrey Czyz of Square Crypto (https://github.com/jkczyz)
3. Joost Jager (https://github.com/joostjager)
4. Aditya Sharma (https://github.com/adi2011)
5. Rene Pickhardt (https://github.com/renepickhardt)
6. Bastien Teinturier of ACINQ (https://github.com/t-bast)
7. Valentine Wallace of LDK (https://github.com/valentinewallace)
8. Matt Corallo of LDK (https://github.com/BlueMatt)

Also @bjarnemagnussen, @ellemouton, @animatedbarber, @617a7a,
@instagibbs, @evansmj, @eupn and @yyforyongyu.

(And no doubt others over the years, who I've accidentally omitted!)

Yes, of course, thanks to my family for their patience with me.

Signed-off-by: Rusty Russell <[email protected]>
  • Loading branch information
rustyrussell committed Sep 24, 2024
1 parent df4af02 commit aed3d28
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 2 changed files with 908 additions and 0 deletions.
8 changes: 8 additions & 0 deletions .aspell.en.pws
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -410,6 +410,14 @@ quiesce
quiescing
SomeThing
onionmsg
unrequested
Merkle
whitespace
TLVs
LnLeaf
LnNonce
LnBranch
payinfo
griefing
unspendable
pkh
Expand Down
Loading

0 comments on commit aed3d28

Please sign in to comment.