Lightning This Week | 614,837
Custom Data Records in LND Payments, Square Crypto Announces LDK Plans and ZEBEDEE Lightning Node
Hi there, this is Lightning This Week — the latest updates in the world of Lightning Network development. Let’s get to it.
Custom Data Records Support on LND
LND recently introduced the ability to send and receive custom data records in payment HTLCs. With this feature, users can imagine a scenario where text messages are actually being sent between the two nodes involved in the payment (sender to receiver). This is the idea behind WhatSat (covered in LTW 602,888), and it’s an interesting thought experiment — truly encrypted peer-to-peer messaging over Lightning. Another use-case that many have thought of is tipping, where the tipper can attach a message to the tip.
The recent PR 3900 abstracts some of the nuisances of creating a message-attached-payment by providing some new options on the sendpayment RPC method. More specifically, it leverages a new --data flag along with a record ID followed by the data in hex format (e.g. 65536=c0deba11ad).
lncli sendpayment -d 0274e7fb33eafd74fe1acb6db7680bb4aa78e9c839a6e954e38abfad680f645ef7 -a 100 --key_send --data 323442=00,3234556=ffff080812
An operator can use a tool like xxd to create a hex dump of a given file or text string like so: --data 7629168=$(echo -n "Thank you!" | xxd -pu -c 10000).
The 7629168 record ID in this example is the ASCII characters of the word ‘tip’ represented as an integer.
One other interesting note that was pointed at the PR is that the available size for these custom data records in the onion blob is limited to 1300 bytes. These 1300 bytes also have to include the routing information for the onion payment, which means the more data you put (in text message format for example), the less routing information can be attached to the HTLC, which means shorter maximum route length (fewer possible hops).
Looking forward to seeing more messaging in Lightning developments in the near future.
Square Crypto Announces LDK Plans
Square Crypto have announced their focus for open-source development in the Bitcoin ecosystem — you guessed it, Lightning Network! The Square Crypto team will be working on developing a Lightning Development Kit (LDK) to allow for easier integration of current wallets into the Lightning ecosystem. In their own words:
[…] We’re building a Lightning Development Kit (LDK) that gives wallet and application developers a convenient way to create custom experiences. LDK will include an API, language bindings, demo apps, and anything else that makes integrating Lightning easy, safe, and configurable.
The API is based on rust-lightning, and aims to 1) facilitate adding Lightning capabilities to existing Bitcoin wallets, 2) support multi-device, multi-application access to a single wallet, and 3) allow wallets to make better UX/security/privacy trade-offs. Excited to see what the team can deploy into the Lightning open source community!
Announcement: https://medium.com/@squarecrypto/what-were-building-lightning-development-kit-1ed58b0cab06
MIT Bitcoin Expo 2020
The MIT Bitcoin Expo returns for the 2020 edition. This is a really great conference in Cambridge/Boston area, held at the MIT Campus, and made possible by the MIT Bitcoin Club.
The MIT Bitcoin Club is a student and blockchain-enthusiasts run club at MIT, whose mission is to increase awareness and use of cryptocurrency and to provide forums where blockchain-related ideas, projects, programs, and businesses can be studied, discussed, and developed. The club has also organized the MIT Bitcoin Expo every year since 2014 — a two day conference focused on all things blockchain.
I was at MIT Bitcoin Expo 2019 and it was a really great event. Would highly recommend for those around.
ZEBEDEE Lightning Network Node
ZEBEDEE has officially launched our first public Lightning Network node. As we gear up for releasing beta versions of our products, we’ve begun deploying some capital into the network and hope to be really well connected in the near future. More information about our node can be found on our website at ZEBEDEE Nodes.
That is all for Lightning This Week. If I’ve missed something important please let me know through the comments or on Twitter.
ZEBEDEE’s mission is to develop software and infrastructure to introduce first-class Bitcoin and Lightning support into digital experiences and gaming environments. This allows players, developers, streamers, and watchers to interact and instantly exchange value in a frictionless manner.
