Payment Points – Part 3: “Escrow Contracts”
In our previous post, we discussed a Lightning Network feature referred to as “Stuckless Payments” that requires Payment Points. Stuckless Payments allow users to attempt multiple payments concurrently. For an in depth description of Payment Points themselves and the problems …
Payment Points – Part 2: “Stuckless Payments”
In our previous post, we discussed how using pre-images and payment hashes to make lightning payments atomic results in the possibility of payment correlation and vulnerability to wormhole attacks. We also discussed how replacing pre-images and payment hashes with scalars …
Payment Points – Part 1
In Lightning v1.0, routed payments are enabled by Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs). These are contracts for conditional payment that say Alice will send Bob the specified bitcoin if Bob reveals the pre-image to a specified hash. Otherwise Alice gets her …
Announcement: Historical Crypto Prices API
We are pleased to announce our new service for historical cryptocurrency prices is available on our beta Lightning API application. The Historical Prices API will support all of our current Spot and Futures exchange trading pairs for the years 2018 …
Zero Amount Invoices
Zero amount invoices have been around since the inception of invoices on the lightning network and are widely used for tips, among other things. At Suredbits, we use them as part of our refund mechanism. It turns out, however, that …
SEC Broker-Dealer Custody of Digital Assets
On July 8, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement regarding the complexity around digital assets and the broker-dealer relationship. The SEC did not put forth new rules or guidelines. Rather, they articulated some of the issues under …
Discreet Log Contracts: Blockstream & Crypto Garage’s Contract
On April 19th, Blockstream and Crypto Garage successfully executed one of the first Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs). Specifically, they engineered a forward contract within the DLC framework. This achievement marks a significant step forward in P2P finance whose benefits …
Bezos and Crypto Revisited
Since originally publishing our “Bezos and Crypto” series in the fall of 2018, Bitcoin market cap has increased approximately 70% to $183,289,192,185. The number of Lightning nodes (that we know of) with channels increased 170% for a total of 4,498 …
Encryption and Lightning Paywalls
Introduction There are many applications that monetize some form of digital data to users in the form of blog posts, games, videos, music, live data, and much more. One of the most common strategies for monetizing digital data is through …