lightning-dev

Hold fees: 402 Payment Required for Lightning itself

Hold fees: 402 Payment Required for Lightning itself

Original Postby ZmnSCPxj

Posted on: October 28, 2020 01:13 UTC

In a recent message, ZmnSCPxj highlights an issue with the bidirectional upfront/hold fees in trustless offchain-to-onchain swaps like Boltz and Lightning Loop.

The problem arises due to the slow claiming of the onchain side of the swap mechanism. As a result, the swap service is generally forced to pay up the hold fees. Even if a "reasonable" grace period is set at the swap service, the onchain side of the swap can delay the release of onchain. To combat this issue, the swap service would need to issue a separate invoice for the hold fee for the actual swap payment. Boltz protocol supports a separate mining-fee invoice that is issued after the invoice is "locked in" at the swap service. However, a combined mining-fee+hold-fee invoice would have to be issued at the same time as the "real" swap invoice to mitigate against the problem.