Spontaneous payments
Also covering Keysend
Spontaneous payments is the ability of one LN node to pay another node without receiving an invoice first. As of 2022, this is commonly accomplished using keysend payments.
The invoice used for regular LN payments contains a hash that the payer and each routing node uses as part of the Hash-Time-Locked-Contract. Spontaneous payments need to replicate this security mechanism but without the invoice mechanism for communication.
As of 2022, the commonly used method for accomplishing this is keysend: the person sending the payment chooses a hash pre-image, encrypts it to the receiver’s key, and appends it as extra data in the routing packet. When the payment arrives at the receiver, they can decrypt the data and use the pre-image to claim the payment. Keysend support was added to several popular LN nodes in 2022.
An alternative mechanism was proposed in 2019 but has not seen widespread implementation or use: the person sending the payment combines their key and the receiver’s key to create a shared secret. Then the spender uses a hash of this secret as the pre-image. The receiver can also generate a shared secret and can use it to accept the payment.
Primary code and documentation
Optech newsletter and website mentions
2024
2023
- LDK #2156 adds support for keysend payments that use simplified multipath payments
- LDK #2002 adds support for automatically resending spontaneous payments
- Eclair #2573 begins accepting keysend payments that don’t contain a payment secret
2022
2021
- LND #5803 allows multiple spontaneous payments to the same invoice
- Rust-Lightning #967 adds support for sending keysend-style spontaneous payments
- LND #5108 adds support for spontaneous multipath payments using AMP
- C-Lightning #4404 allows keysending to nodes that don’t advertise support
2020
- Eclair 0.4.2 adds support for keysend-style spontaneous payments
- Eclair #1485 adds support for keysend spontaneous payments
- Zap 0.7.0 Beta adds support for spontaneous payments
- C-Lightning #3792 adds support for sending keysend spontaneous payments
- LND #4167 allows spontaneous payments made using keysend to be held
- Juggernaut uses spontaneous payments for messaging and instant payments”
- Breez wallet adds support for spontaneous payments
- C-Lightning 0.8.2 released with a plugin for sending spontaneous payments
- C-Lightning #3611 adds a keysend plugin to support spontaneous payments
- Eclair 0.3.3 adds experimental support for trampoline payments
2019
Previous Topic:
Splicing
Next Topic:
Statechains