lightning-dev

[BOLT Draft] Onion Routing Spec

[BOLT Draft] Onion Routing Spec

Original Postby Rusty Russell

Posted on: August 19, 2016 00:56 UTC

Christian Decker and Rusty Russell discussed concerns regarding the ambiguity in transferring funds between different chains using the same identifiers.

The scenario was explained with the route A -> B => C, where two channels used the same identity for C, one in litecoin and the other in bitcoin. In such a case, the instruction to forward 0.01 units to C is ambiguous, as it could be denominated in either litecoin or bitcoin. While not dangerous, this confusion results in guesswork. If the recipient does not know the intended amount and accepts anything, fee-shaving becomes profitable. Therefore, even the terminal onion should include an amount.Rusty raised concerns about rhash re-use as people might be tempted to publish a bitcoin address in Lightning. Christian also expressed his concern about the reuse of onion. Rusty suggested implementing code to fail or steal such re-sends to prevent them from becoming a habit. Besides, he couldn't figure out why there was so much concern about onion reuse since a node retransmitting the same onion runs the same risk.