Published on: 2018-03-06T03:32:23+00:00
In a discussion on the Lightning Network's RFC page, Rusty Russell raised concerns about privacy limitations with refund requests. He pointed out that the current scheme using round-trip payments is not ideal as each encrypted hop contains the expected amount to be sent. To address this issue, Russell proposed the inclusion of a smaller return onion in order to facilitate proper refunds. This suggestion was added to the brainstorming phase of the Lightning Network RFC.However, Andy Schroder questioned the feasibility of Russell's proposal. He raised two main concerns: firstly, if the route no longer has capacity or goes down by the time the payee wants to send the refund back to the payer; and secondly, if the payer would be able to determine the best route to build an onion for without knowing the refund amount. These are important considerations that need to be addressed in order to ensure the effectiveness and reliability of the refund process.Russell acknowledged these potential issues and recorded them in the brainstorming section of the Lightning Network RFC. He also suggested the possibility of returning a reply message on success, but noted that it would only be a best-effort solution and might not appear if the system dropped to chain. It is worth noting that the general solution to these challenges requires the ability to send payments to anonymous destinations, which is currently not available.
Updated on: 2023-07-31T19:48:51.231699+00:00