lightning-dev

Lightning Address in a Bolt 12 world

Lightning Address in a Bolt 12 world

Original Postby Bastien TEINTURIER

Posted on: November 20, 2023 09:40 UTC

In a recent correspondence, additional clarity was provided regarding the roles and processes involved in a proposed payment system design.

Alice is identified as the payer, while Bob is the recipient of the payment, using an email address associated with domain.com. Bob is not the domain owner but does have the potential to assume that role. The system allows for a single DNS record tying a domain to a specific lightning node, which the payer queries to obtain an offer from their intended recipient.

It is noted that while domain owners may initially choose to implement the first option within the system, it would be beneficial if they also supported the third option, assuming they possess the necessary capabilities. This recommendation, however, is not intended to be mandatory according to the current specifications, which are still at the design document stage.

The design aims for offers that are both long-lived, potentially lasting months or years, and compact. To achieve small offer sizes, a 1-hop blinded path is suggested, along with the use of subdomains to shard users, thereby optimizing the scalability of the system. This information is expected to be included in future specifications.

Terminology consistency has been acknowledged as an area for improvement, particularly in the use of the term "domain owner," which will be addressed in the spec. An alternate option using only lightning was discussed as a conceptual possibility, though it was not recommended as the preferred method. Additionally, the trust-on-first-use issue was mentioned as a concern.

Feedback was appreciated, indicating a collaborative effort toward refining the proposed payment system's design and functionality.