Life annuities may be able to be created on chain. There might need a BOLT to create the functionality for a Lightning Node to declare themselves alive to their channel.
The gossip protocol can tell the network that the operator is alive.
Being alive might also just make for a better Lightning channel partner.
I'm confused. My node knows when it's peers are online and that is the alive state
Or are you referring to an individual being alive? In which case, confirm with non auto activation of a dead man switch
Some thoughts on this in the case of the latter, ...
establish a channel that sends 1 sat per day to the remote.
if the local balance of the channel is depleted, consider the operator dead.
An operator can replenish the local side of the channel by a rebalance.
maybe this channel type makes sense to be an issued asset, unique to that channel. Value is still conveyed through sats, but there needs to be certainty that only authorized end nodes can push value to replenish the balance. Or perhaps a private channel would suffice if the remote side is involved in the annuity administration?
Ultimately the challenge is transforming the state of something that exists in the physical world (a specific person's life) to the digital in a provable way.
Right now proof of work is the only thing transcending physical to digital in this manner and it's an abstracted representation.
But I agree, there is huge value in having a means to project with certainty proof of life