[Lightning-dev] Link-level payment splitting via intermediary rendezvous nodes

[Johan Torås Halseth]

Neat! I think this is similar to what has been briefly discussed earlier
about hybrid packet-switched/circuit-switched payment routing.

B doesn't have to care about how the payment gets from C to D, but she
knows it must go through D, keeping privacy intact. This would be exactly
equivalent to how TOR works today I would think.

C must also make sure the detour route stays within the fee limit of course.

Cheers,
Johan

On Fri, Nov 9, 2018 at 7:02 AM ZmnSCPxj via Lightning-dev <
lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Good morning list,
>
> As was discussed directly in summit, we accept link-lvel payment splitting
> (scid is not binding), and provisionally accept rendez-vous routing.
>
> It strikes me, that even if your node has only a single channel to the
> next node (c-lightning), it is possible, to still perform link-level
> payment splitting/re-routing.
>
> For instance, consider this below graph:
>
>       E<---D--->C<---B
>            ^  /
>            | /
>            |L
>            A
>
> In the above, B requests a route from B->C->D->E.
>
> However, C cannot send to D, since the channel direction is saturated in
> favor of D.
>
> Alternately, C can route to D via A instead.  It holds the (encrypted)
> route from D to E.  It can take that sub-route and treat it as a partial
> route-to-payee under rendez-vous routing, as long as node A supports
> rendez-vous routing.
>
> This can allow re-routing or payment splitting over multiple hops.
>
> Even though C does not know the number of remaining hops between D and the
> destination, its alternative is to earn nothing anyway as its only
> alternative is to fail the routing.  At least with this, there is a chance
> it can succeed to send the payment to the final destination.
>
> Regards,
> ZmnSCPxj
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