Author: Rusty Russell 2018-02-02 05:48:46
Published on: 2018-02-02T05:48:46+00:00
In a post on the Lightning Development mailing list, Ignatius Rivaldi has raised concerns over the potential problems for sellers to accept lightning network payments. This is because they need someone to open a channel with them that is filled with bitcoins so that they can start receiving bitcoins from other LN users. However, if a buyer can simultaneously open a channel and pay the seller, they need to know the IP address of the seller and how much bitcoins they need to pay.Currently, a channel is opened using the pubkey at ip format, which doesn't have amount information, and then payment is made using lntb... format, which doesn't have IP address information. DNS seeds have this information if one is bootstrapping, or one can connect to any other node and get information on the network as a whole. While connecting to the first recipient is one strategy, it may not be the best if they're not reasonably connected. A more informed decision can be made if one knows the topology. Adding an 'a' field could address this issue, but it's not a good idea as it is a layering violation.
Updated on: 2023-05-24T18:52:02.832574+00:00