lightning-dev

[BOLT Draft] Onion Routing Spec

[BOLT Draft] Onion Routing Spec

Original Postby Olaoluwa Osuntokun

Posted on: August 16, 2016 04:54 UTC

In a conversation between Christian Decker and Laolu Osuntokun, they discussed the potential ambiguity that could arise when multiple channels on different chains use the same identifiers between two nodes.

This ambiguity could result in guesswork when transferring funds as it is unclear whether the transfer should be denominated in bitcoin or litecoin. To prevent this, they suggested making the chain of the target link for each hop along the route explicit by adding a byte specifying the target realm, which should be protected under a MAC to ensure the payment's success. The byte could be stored in the per-hop payload along with the instructions for the hop, or the header may need to be extended by a byte.