⚡
⚡
⚡
⚡
ION Lightning Network Wiki
Search…
⚡
⚡
⚡
⚡
ION Lightning Network Wiki
⚡Welcome to our Lightning Wiki⚡
Wiki Basics
How To Contribute
Platform & Content License
Events
Boltathon LN Hackathon
Tutorials
Bootstrapping Liquidity
Nodes To Connect To
Lightning Exchanges
Lightning Stores
Lightning Apps
Lightning Wallets
Lightning Node Setup
Altcoin Lightning
Troubleshooting
Lightning Technology
Bitcoin Basics
Lightning Basics
What is the Lightning Network?
Basis of Lightning Technology (BOLT)
Onion Routing
Network Capacity
Node
Payment Channel
Payment Routing
Gossip
Hub
Lightning Invoice
Sphinx Packet
Lightning Channels
Research and Development
Lightning News Sources
Powered By GitBook
Basis of Lightning Technology (BOLT)

The Basis of Lightning Technology is a standardized technical specification for the implementation of the Lightning Network. The standards define how various implementations can interoperate to interact with and create the same network. The specifications are currently a work-in-progress, and are continually being iterated upon as projects like lnd and c-lightning are built in parallel.

The Basis of Lightning Technology (BOLT) documents describe a layer-2 protocol for off-chain bitcoin transfer by mutual cooperation, relying on on-chain transactions for enforcement if necessary.

See BOLT #2: Channel Establishment for more on channel establishment and BOLT #3: Funding Transaction Output for the format of the bitcoin transaction that creates the channel. See BOLT #5: Recommendations for On-chain Transaction Handling for the requirements when participants disagree or fail, and the cross-signed bitcoin transaction must be spent.

See BOLT #2: Adding an HTLC for the commands a participant uses to add a conditional payment, and BOLT #3: Commitment Transaction for the complete format of the bitcoin transaction.

See BOLT #2: Forwarding HTLCs for details on forwarding payments, BOLT #4: Packet Structure for how payment instructions are transported.

See BOLT #7: P2P Node and Channel Discovery for details on the communication protocol, and BOLT #10: DNS Bootstrap and Assisted Node Location for initial network bootstrap.

See BOLT #11: Invoice Protocol for Lightning Payments for the protocol describing the destination and purpose of a payment such that the payer can later prove successful payment.

Previous
What is the Lightning Network?
Next
Onion Routing
Last modified 3yr ago
Copy link
On this page
Overview
Details
Channels
Conditional Payments
Forwarding
Network Topology
Payment Invoicing
Resources
References