[Lightning-dev] Proposal: Automated Inbound Liquidity With Invoices

[ecurrencyhodler]

Hey Rusty.  Thanks for your feedback.

>If you publish your node address, Bob can already get this from the
gossip network, or the DNS seed as a last resort (and I expect
implementations to start doing this: I did it manually to buy a
thelightningconference.com ticket recently, for example).

This is a good point and very cool you were able to do that for the
Lightning Conference (hopefully I'll see you there!).  Perhaps another
condition should be that if I am a public node and already connected to a
node, the URI is not embedded in the invoice but instead should be gathered
via the gossip network.

But keep in mind that the intended goal of this proposal is for the end
user to have a completely automated experience from invoice payment to
payment reception without having to manage any channels.

>So this proposal is mainly useful where you have no channels at all
(thus cannot advertize your node), or don't want to publish it
generally.  And in both those cases, Bob probably doesn't want a channel
with you because it wouldn't be useful for paying anyone else.

I'm not sure I agree.

All nodes who come online for the first time are not connected to any
channels.  And even if I hand Bob my URI, I still have to wait for the
channels to be established before I'm able to receive payment.  Bob could
open and push a payment to me but this doesn't have to be a requirement.
It could be pushed to a routing node Bob is connected to.

This would also be helpful for non-technical node managers.  Rather than
going through the process of finding out a URI and trying to manage their
channels constantly by checking for inbound liquidity, they could simply
create an invoice.  If inbound liquidity is lacking, the problem would be
automatically solved for them.  This wouldn't be the most efficient way to
obtain inbound liquidity, I think that would only really be more important
for more advanced LN users.  Especially because asking someone to open and
commit BTC to you is already a bit of a difficult relationship to negotiate
as expected amount of usage will vary.

Lastly, routing nodes are financially incentivized to do open a channel
with me because they could charge a premium.  Thor's instant channel is an
example of this.

On Tue, Aug 13, 2019 at 3:59 AM Rusty Russell <rusty at rustcorp.com.au> wrote:

> Ecurrencyhodler Blockchains <ecurrencyhodler at gmail.com> writes:
> >    1. Bob wants to send me 100,000 sats.
> >    2. My node just came online and has 0 inbound liquidity.
> >    3. I create an invoice for 100,000 sats.  My LN node recognizes I
> have 0
> >    inbound liquidity so my wallet also embeds my URI in the invoice.
> >    4. Bob’s wallet sees an invoice + uri.  Maybe even tries to route.
> When
> >    it doesn’t see anything, it auto opens a channel + pushes 100,000 sat
> >    payment.
> >    5. I now own and can spend 100,000 sats instantly.
>
> If you publish your node address, Bob can already get this from the
> gossip network, or the DNS seed as a last resort (and I expect
> implementations to start doing this: I did it manually to buy a
> thelightningconference.com ticket recently, for example).
>
> So this proposal is mainly useful where you have no channels at all
> (thus cannot advertize your node), or don't want to publish it
> generally.  And in both those cases, Bob probably doesn't want a channel
> with you because it wouldn't be useful for paying anyone else.
>
> Cheers,
> Rusty.
>
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