Bolt12 can't come fast enough. But LND continues to prioritize other things.
"The most common gripe people have with lnurl is the fact that an http server is required, and either a domain, or an extra tor hidden service.
With the introduction of bolt12, users can simply provide an offer that is served at their lightning address. This is a significant improvement in privacy, especially as bolt12 supports blinded paths.
Furthermore, bolt12 offers allow users to gain access to payment flows equivalent to lnurl-pay (without a lightning address) and lnurl-withdraw, without requiring any third party to host an http server, or provide a domain."
https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/issues/5594
#[0]
Seconded.
It’s incredible to me that such a significant barrier to casual users which is almost universally “solved” with a centralized third party needs to be argued for why it should be a standard part of the protocol.
This is the core of why the internet re-centralized, running servers, DNS, etc is a real pain in the ass. Bolt12 gets around a major hurdle of that. If we want sovereign nodes and users holding their own keys, Bolt12 is a huge piece of that puzzle, imo.
Any idea why has this taken so long to implement?
Debates over whether these functions should be in the protocol or whether they should be application layer (provided as services, done by individual clients, etc)
LND and Lightning Labs have argued pretty stubbornly that we shouldn’t put it in the protocol and if the goal is users holding their own keys and hosting their own wallets and running their own payment processing software in a sovereign way… then I think they are terribly wrong about it.
Begs the question, if they are partners with the WEF after all.
If that’s the case then they may never implement it. At least Core lightning is experimenting with it.
Might be worth supporting Core lightning instead
They run a business which sadly incentivizes them to be the rent-seeker and charge fees on selling their services. Adam Back and blockstream seem to be much better aligned. They don't do lightning for money. They have profit on other things like mining hosting
its almost as if they're avoiding the very big use case of self-sovereignty, running your own node, which is bitcoin ethos. Take back control of your money. It's super easy for average users to run today, not harder than installing a modem in your home.
Can you explain this to someone who is less technical? How would bolt12 change the experience for the user?
They can't.
