lightning-dev

Proposal: Bundled payments

Proposal: Bundled payments

Original Postby Matt Corallo

Posted on: June 20, 2023 17:00 UTC

In a recent email conversation between Thomas Voegtlin and Matt, the topic of BOLT-12 implementation in Electrum was discussed.

Thomas mentioned that Electrum has not implemented BOLT-12 yet and asked if bundled payments would work with the current specification or if changes to BOLT-12 would be required. Matt clarified that as specified, bundled payments would not work with BOLT-12. However, he pointed out that since BOLT12 offers are reusable, it would be possible to scan a single offer and send two payments as long as the sender implements this feature.Thomas expressed his intention to implement BOLT-12 support in Electrum in the coming months and offered his assistance. Matt responded positively to this news. He agreed that while BOLT-12 has the potential to become the dominant payment method on Lightning, it will likely take years after its merge before that happens. On the other hand, he believed that if this feature was adopted in BOLT-11, it could be deployed much faster.Matt explained that BOLT-12 still needs time to gain traction, but starting from zero with a new BOLT-11 extension would be even more challenging. He emphasized that with BOLT-12, a "swap-aware" client would eliminate the need to scan two QR codes or perform any complicated steps.The goal of Matt's proposal is to level the competition between Lightning service providers by allowing reverse submarine swap payments to come from any wallet. However, he acknowledged that there might be limited value in this approach. The user would need a "swap-aware" client for setup and enforcement, but they could use any lightning wallet to make the payment. Matt noted that this setup would only make sense if the user prefers to use an on-chain wallet separate from their lightning wallet and if their lightning wallet does not support splice-out.Overall, the conversation highlighted the potential benefits and challenges associated with implementing BOLT-12 in Electrum and the differing opinions on its adoption timeline and approach.