Author: David A. Harding 2021-11-20 23:02:32
Published on: 2021-11-20T23:02:32+00:00
In an email exchange, Joost Jager expressed his view on reliability as a property of a route that can be expressed as a probability. However, Dave argued that users are not interested in the abstract concept of reliability but rather how long it will take for their payment to be confirmed so they can walk away with their warm beverage. This is similar to the fee optimization question that onchain wallets have been asking users for years. Onchain estimates in Bitcoin Core are based on a 95% threshold, and LN software could use a similar approach by speculatively choosing a series of attempts with a 95% probability. By presenting users with options such as ~1 second, x fee; ~3 seconds, y fee; and ~10 seconds, z fee, software can efficiently use its reliability scoring to choose the appropriate payment attempt and provide users with the information they need to make a choice suitable for their situation. As a bonus, this approach makes it easier for wallet software to move toward a world where there is no user-visible difference between onchain and offchain payments.
Updated on: 2023-06-03T06:30:42.847111+00:00