Author: Subhra Mazumdar 2020-01-27 04:23:16
Published on: 2020-01-27T04:23:16+00:00
In an email exchange, Subhra Mazumdar has asked if it is possible to lock just a partial amount of funds in a payment channel and leave the rest for another payment request. ZmnSCPxj responded that only the amount required for a payment transfer is locked behind an HTLC and the remaining funds are available for other HTLCs. In response, Mazumdar mentioned the concept of sub-channels from the paper "Atomic multi-channel updates with constant collateral in bitcoin-compatible payment-channel networks". According to the paper, during the setup phase, the balance at each payment channel is split into two, creating two sub-channels: one sub-channel with coins required for the present protocol session, while the other sub-channel is set with the remaining coins which can then be freely spent. Users sign the transaction so that it can eventually be enforced on-chain if required. The operations at each channel in this phase of the protocol can be carried out in parallel.
Updated on: 2023-06-02T22:48:33.281052+00:00