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Point Time-Locked Contracts blog

Point Time-Locked Contracts

Hash Time-Locked Contract Issues The Lightning Network as it is today enables payment routing by using the Hash Time-Locked contract, the HTLC. In simple terms, this contract enables...

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Lightning Node Management – Handling High On-Chain Fees blog

Lightning Node Management – Handling High On-Chain Fees

As Bitcoin adoption increases, demand for block space will also rise, which inevitably results in higher on-chain fees. In this scenario, users will lean more on Lightning for...

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How do Lightning Network Fees Work? blog

How do Lightning Network Fees Work?

Routing The lightning network achieves high-frequency payments by taking payments off-chain. This means that information about a transaction is not broadcasted to the whole network as with Bitcoin...

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Submarine Swaps – How do they work and where they are used? blog

Submarine Swaps – How do they work and where they are used?

Interaction Between Protocols Imagine a scenario where Alice wants to buy a book from Bob’s e-commerce, but Alice only has on-chain funds and Bob only accepts payments through...

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Watchtowers on Lightning Network blog

Watchtowers on Lightning Network

Lightning Network payment channels work by enforcing a “fairness protocol” – a set of rules that incentivize honest collaboration between channel partners. After funding a channel, payments flow...

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Lightning Payments: Pre-Images & Hashes blog

Lightning Payments: Pre-Images & Hashes

The Lightning Network uses payment pre-images and payment hashes as essential components of its Hash-Time-Locked Contract (HTLC). The HTLC is a smart contract that enforces a fairness protocol...

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What are the differences between “public” and “private” channels? blog

What are the differences between “public” and “private” channels?

A payment channel is a mechanism that enables the establishment of a financial relationship between two nodes on the Lightning Network. These nodes are referred to as channel...

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What is Onion Routing & How does it work? blog

What is Onion Routing & How does it work?

Onion routing is a technology that precedes the invention of the Lightning Network by 25 years. It’s also used in Tor, hence its name: “The Onion Router”....

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The Ultimate Lightning Network Privacy Explainer blog

The Ultimate Lightning Network Privacy Explainer

In this piece, we’ll go through how private the lighting network is and what kind of heuristics or attacks can be put to use to de-anonymize users....

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What are Blinded Paths and How do they Work? blog

What are Blinded Paths and How do they Work?

Learn how blinded paths operate within the context of the lightning network. This breakdown makes it simple to understand how privacy on Lightning is advancing....

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What do Open-Channel Transactions Look Like On-Chain? blog

What do Open-Channel Transactions Look Like On-Chain?

Lightning Network FAQ

A lightning channel funding transaction, commonly called an “open-channel transaction”, is a transaction that is used to open a payment channel on the lightning network. It anchors the...

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What are Negative Fees and how Does it Affect the Lightning Network? blog

What are Negative Fees and how Does it Affect the Lightning Network?

Learn about negative fees and how they impact the lightning network. Negative fees allow a node to pay to forward a payment instead of charging to forward a...

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