Author: Subhra Mazumdar 2020-01-27 08:11:33
Published on: 2020-01-27T08:11:33+00:00
In a discussion thread on the Lightning-dev mailing list, Subhra Mazumdar asked about potential problems with not revealing the channel capacity during the opening of a channel in the Lightning Network. Ugam Kamat responded that in order to have faith that the announced channel is actually locked on the Bitcoin mainchain, we need to verify the outpoint (txid and vout) of the funding transaction. This information is broadcasted in the channel_announcement message in the short_channel_id field which includes the block number, transaction number, and vout. Since Bitcoin does not allow confidential transactions, the channel capacity can be queried from the blockchain even when the amounts are never explicitly mentioned. Kamat also explained that if this verification is not done, nodes can cheat us that a particular transaction is confirmed when it is not the case. Therefore, nodes must announce the public keys and signatures of the public keys used to lock the funding transaction along with this information. The post did not mention any specific solutions or provisions for Monero, but suggested looking for off-chain payment systems that could address these concerns.
Updated on: 2023-06-02T22:51:01.443711+00:00