Lloyd Fournier [ARCHIVE] on Nostr: 📅 Original date posted:2023-01-04 📝 Original message: Dear Jesse & Z, I believe ...

📅 Original date posted:2023-01-04
📝 Original message:
Dear Jesse & Z,

I believe this kind of scheme is of crucial importance. I think if we're
serious about bridging layer-1 and layer-2 systems transparently for users,
wallets must be able to give out addresses that are covert channel openings
without the sender's knowledge. e.g. I should be able to withdraw coins
from an exchange straight into a channel by submitting an address without
knowing precisely how much money I will receive to that address. I hadn't
considered this particular design before -- it's very practical and works
today. My own minor effort on this topic was to suggest that researchers
designing sophisticated covenant proposals should make sure that they
achieve this functionality cleanly [1]. The advantage of using a covenant
is that the channel would not have an expiry date and therefore be a first
class citizen among channels.

[1]
https://github.com/ariard/bitcoin-contracting-primitives-wg/issues/19#issue-1492942389

Cheers,

LL


On Wed, 4 Jan 2023 at 00:58, ZmnSCPxj via Lightning-dev <
lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Subject: Swap-in-Potentiam: Moving Onchain Funds "Instantly" To Lightning
>
> by Jesse Posner, ZmnSCPxj
>
> Introduction
> ============
>
> Moving funds from an onchain-only address to Lightning Network is slow,
> especially if you desire trust-minimization (which removes solutions
> relying on 0-conf).
>
> Basically, to reduce trust requirements in all onchain transactions,
> onchain receivers *MUST* ensure confirmation of the onchain transaction
> that creates their UTXO.
> In practice, the minimum should be at least 3 blocks, since reorgs of
> up to 2 blocks are common occurences, but even 1 confirmation can
> take an inordinately long time in the real world due to the random
> nature of mining.
>
> This is particularly acute for mobile phone use-cases.
> As mobile phones run on a battery, mobile phone OSs often greatly
> restrict CPU and other resource consumption when an app is not
> currently open by the user.
>
> Now consider this user story, for a wallet app that supports both
> Bitcoin blockchain and Lightning Network operations:
>
> * The user wants to be paid over the Bitcoin blockchain.
> * The user gets an address from their wallet and provides it to
> some other party to receive their payment.
> * The user closes their wallet app, which causes the mobile phone
> OS to kill all its threads.
> * The other party sends their payment over blockchain while the
> user is asleep.
> * The blockchain transaction confirms and time passes.
> * The user wakes up and checks their favorite blockchain explorer,
> and sees they received funds on their wallet address.
> * The user opens their wallet app and decides they need a coffee,
> so they buy coffee over Lightning.
>
> For current solutions to move funds from the blockchain layer to
> Lightning, however, the above user story would need to complete
> over a long time, possibly measurable in dozens of minutes or
> even hours in the worst case, due to the need for confirmation:
>
> * Channel open: Requires confirmation, many nodes require 6 or
> more confirmations.
> * Submarine swap/peerswap: Requires confirmation before the swap
> service will send out the HTLC on Lightning.
> * Splice-in: Channel remains operational, but until the splice
> transaction confirms, the channel operates in "dual mode"
> where both pre-splice and post-splice state is valid, and
> that means only the lower amount of the pre-splice and
> post-splice can be used in the mean time.
> For splice-in, the pre-splice amount will be lower, thus
> the amount being spliced in will not be credited until
> the splice transaction is confirmed.
>
> In this writeup, we present a novel protocol, swap-in-potentiam,
> that can be used for immediate transfer from the blockchain
> layer to the Lightning layer, in the above user story.
>
> Advantages And Limitations
> --------------------------
>
> To whet your appetite, here are the advantages:
>
> * Immediate transfer of already-confirmed-received onchain
> funds to Lightning.
> * Onchain funds can also be transferred to another onchain
> address (subject to normal onchain confirmation rules).
> * This can be "immediate" if sending to a receiver that
> accepts the risk of 0-conf onchain transactions.
> * Minimized trust requirement.
>
> The disadvantages, to help convince you that yes, this is
> technology and not magic beans (and to not oversell this
> tech, Bitcoin media reporting often tend to oversell
> new technologies because the disadvantages are often
> hidden away behind technical minutae):
>
> * Requires a cooperating LSP.
> If LSP is down or refuses to cooperate, onchain funds
> are locked for some time.
> This has a timeout (so if the LSP never comes online
> again, you just wait out the timeout) and the timeout
> starts from when the receiving UTXO is confirmed in a
> blocks, so it will not cause loss of funds, only loss
> of opportunity (i.e. "involuntary HODLing").
> * If you have multiple LSPs, when you generate an address
> you *have to* select one of them at that point, you
> *cannot* commit to multiple LSPs and select one of them
> later when your phone wakes up again.
> This exacerbates the above disadvantage, since you have
> to select one of your LSPs and hope that when your
> phone wakes up the LSP you selected is also up and
> cooperative.
> * The onchain-received funds have to be confirmed first,
> otherwise we still need to wait for confirmation of the
> onchain-received funds.
> This is generally true for many blockchain-only wallets
> anyway and is thus not a worsening, but is also not an
> improvement.
> * If the timeout is too near, actions must be performed
> onchain that require confirmation.
>
> Swap-in-Potentiam
> =================
>
> All onchain fund movements, as noted, require confirmation.
> These include onchain fund movements to the Lightning network.
>
> If the onchain address that the wallet provides was controlled
> solely by that wallet, then any action that requires cooperation
> with a Lightning Network participant --- channel open, swap, or
> splice --- would require an onchain transaction that commits to
> that specific Lightning Network participant.
> Only when the new onchain transaction is confirmed, can that
> Lightning participant rely on the transaction output without
> having to trust the initiator.
>
> From there, we can consider: what if the wallet provides an
> address that *already* commits to that specific Lightning Network
> participant?
>
> If so, then the "timer for confirmation" starts as soon as
> the wallet receives on the blockchain, not as soon as the wallet
> decides to move funds from blockchain to Lightning.
>
> This is a significant difference for a mobile wallet: the mobile
> environment does not support the mobile wallet being online for
> long.
> Thus, the mobile wallet may not have any CPU to make the decision
> to move funds from blockchain to Lightning, until the actual user
> explicitly opens the mobile wallet app.
>
> It has already been generally accepted that due to the limitations
> of the mobile phone environment, a mobile phone wallet with
> Lightning support would need some LSP anyway.
> Thus, a mobile wallet that can receive on the blockchain layer
> and then send on the Lightning layer can commit to a specific,
> different, Lightning participant: the LSP it has channels with.
>
> Thus, the mobile wallet can provide an address that commits to
> one particular Lightning Network participant: its LSP.
>
> The mobile wallet can then initiate a single-hop swap with the
> LSP when the mobile wallet app is in the foreground and has CPU
> to think with.
> If it received funds into the address that have already been
> confirmed, then it can do this single-hop swap immediately with
> its LSP.
> The LSP can immediately resolve this swap, crediting funds to
> channel, while atomically ensuring it has sole claim to the
> onchain UTXO.
>
> The Contract
> ------------
>
> The contract has two participants: Alice the funds owner, and
> Bob its potential swap partner.
>
> Once *any* funds have been confirmed received into an address
> committing to this contract, Alice owns the funds and can
> dispose of them as it likes (with cooperation from Bob).
> The source of the funds need not be Alice, it could be a third
> party that has an obligation to pay Alice onchain.
>
> The contract has only 2 branches:
>
> * Onchain/channel branch: Alice and Bob.
> * Timelock branch: Alice plus a relative timelock (`OP_CSV`)
> measurable in weeks.
>
> Astute readers will realize that the above is really a variant
> of [CLTV-style unidirectional time-limited channels][1],
> themselves a variant of Spilman-style channels:
>
> * Uses an explicit opcode to simplify channel setup (no need
> to pre-sign a timeout transaction between Alice and Bob,
> can just send funds directly to the address).
> * Uses a relative locktime instead of an absolute one to
> allow funding of the channel address (= receive onchain
> funds ready to spend over Lightning) at any time.
>
> The use-cases this enables are:
>
> * If Alice wants to pay to another onchain address, and Bob
> is also online and cooperative, Alice can ask Bob to help
> sign the Onchain/channel branch to move the funds in any
> arbitrary onchain manner.
> * If Alice wants to pay to a Lightning invoice / keysend, and
> has insufficient Lightning outgoing capacity (but has
> sufficient *total* capacity), it can swap with Bob, by
> offerring a transaction that spends via the Onchain/channel
> branch and instantiates a fresh onchain HTLC that Bob can
> then forward over Lightning.
> As soon as Alice offers its signature of that transaction,
> Bob can immediately offer an in-Lightning HTLC to Alice on
> their channel, and then Alice can immediately resolve it
> (thus immediately getting its funds into Lightning).
> * If Bob is offline or uncooperative, Alice can unilterally
> recover its funds after the timeout in the Timelock
> branch.
>
> Trust is required only to the extent that Alice trusts Bob to
> be cooperative so that Alice can dispose of its funds immediately.
> In case Bob turns out to be non-trustworthy, Alice can recover
> its funds via the timelock branch after the timeout period.
> There is no scope for Bob to steal funds (indeed, it is easier
> for Bob to steal Lightning funds than to steal swap-in-potentiam
> funds).
>
> The intent here is that the mobile wallet is Alice, while the
> LSP is Bob.
>
> ### Bob Security
>
> Bob *MUST* ensure that, for each UTXO, it is either asked to
> sign an arbitrary onchain transaction (i.e the first use-case
> above) *OR* it gets offered an onchain HTLC from that UTXO.
> Once Alice has asked Bob to cooperate in either case for a
> particular UTXO, Bob *MUST* ensure that it does not sign the other
> case (and Bob *MUST* refuse to cooperate in the other case once
> one case has been requested).
>
> In addition, Bob *MUST* ensure that, if it is used in the
> "channel" case (i.e. the second use-case above), the timeout of
> the Timelock branch is far enough in the future that it is likely
> that spends using the Onchain/channel branch have confirmed by
> then.
>
> With both invariants enforced by Bob, Bob can ensure that, if
> Alice requests a swap using the Onchain/channel branch, only Bob
> can spend the UTXO (at least before the timeout), and thus can
> safely offer a Lightning HTLC to Alice immediately without any
> additional waiting for onchain confirmations.
>
> As Bob needs to know the UTXO in the first use-case above, this
> requirement prevents the use of blind signing techniques when
> implementing the first use-case.
> Basically, when being asked to sign, Bob must generate the entire
> `SIGHASH` from data that Alice provides, so that Bob is able to
> keep track of UTXOs it is signing for.
>
> ### Remote Swap
>
> While Bob is generally considered "the" LSP of the mobile wallet
> Alice, nothing in the Lightning protocol actually requires that
> Bob be a direct peer of Alice.
> The only real requirement is that Bob is able to send funds to
> Alice over Lightning in exchange for possession of the equivalent
> onchain funds.
>
> Against this, we should note that the mobile wallet is already
> dependent on one or more LSPs anyway, so it may as well just use
> its direct peer LSPs instead of a remote node.
>
> ### Address Derivation
>
> Swap-in-potentiam addresses can be derived from a root public or
> private key.
>
> We only need one keypair each from Alice and Bob.
> Alice can use standard derivation paths for its keypair.
>
> As Bob is intended to be an LSP, we can just use its Lightning
> node ID as the public key.
> Bob needs to be in possession of the corresponding private key
> anyway in order to set up BOLT 8 encrypted transports.
>
> As LSPs are part of the public network, Alice can simply try to
> scan for all published nodes that advertise support for
> swap-in-potentiam.
> Alternately if the wallet has a short list of fixed LSPs it
> will use, it can simply refer to that list.
>
> Thus:
>
> * Alice uses a derived keypair.
> * Bob uses a fixed keypair (its Lightning node ID).
>
> The above is sufficient to derive swap-in-potentiam addresses
> from an `xprv` or `xpub` root key.
>
> Swap-in-potentiam For LSPs
> ==========================
>
> While the original design of swap-in-potentiam has the mobile
> wallet in the "Alice" role and its LSP in the "Bob" role, it
> turns out that LSPs can provide special service to improve
> receiving mobile wallets.
>
> Suppose that the LSP keeps track of statistics, and thus has
> an idea of which of its mobile wallet clients are likely to
> be net receivers.
>
> Net receivers will often have low inbound capacity (since the
> inbound capacity has been used up during previous LN receives).
>
> During times of low onchain fees, an LSP can check which of its
> offline mobile wallet clients have low inbound capacity, and are
> likely to come online in the future to receive.
> In those cases, the LSP can commit funds to a swap-in-potentiam
> with the mobile client, with the LSP as "Alice" and the mobile
> client as "Bob".
> This at least lets the LSP set up half of a swap during a time of
> low fees.
>
> If the transfer to swap-in-potentiam addresses is confirmed by
> the time the mobile wallet client comes online, the LSP can
> immediately initiate a swap, giving inbound capacity towards the
> mobile client.
> This swap can be immediately resolved, and allows the mobile
> wallet client to immediately receive funds over Lightning.
>
> In particular, if "offline receive" as designed by TheBlueMatt
> is implemented, then the LSP already has indication of a pending
> payment towards an offline mobile wallet client.
> The LSP can check if the offline mobile wallet client has
> insufficient incoming capacity to receive the funds, and if so,
> arrange to fund a swap-in-potentiam with that client.
> Then, when the mobile wallet client comes online, the LSP can
> initiate the swap with them, and once the swap completes (and
> thus the mobile wallet client has sufficient incoming capacity)
> the LSP can contact the sender LSP to complete the payment.
>
> In particular, this use-case allows for *immediate* receives as
> soon as the mobile wallet client gets foregrounded and has CPU
> time, **without** requiring 0-conf trusted transactions and
> thus without requiring any kind of semi-custodial trust, even
> if the mobile wallet client had insufficient incoming capacity.
> A channel still has to be set up beforehand (without 0-conf, if
> trusting funds to the LSP is undesirable).
>
> Implementation Sketch
> =====================
>
> The intent is to use Taproot with Schnorr signatures, but
> **without** using the keyspend path (at least initially).
>
> The plan currently is to use a `MuSig(A, B)` as the internal
> pubkey, but with the branches still explicitly laid out as
> tapleaves.
> That is, there are two tapleaf SCRIPTs corresponding to the
> two branches described above:
>
> * `<A> OP_CHECKSIGVERIFY <B> OP_CHECKSIG`
> * `<timelock> OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY OP_DROP <A> OP_CHECKSIG`
>
> Using an explicit 2-of-2 branch rather than a MuSig allows
> for a simple protocol at least for initial deployment:
> we can have Alice send the signature using `A` in a single
> half-round without having to engage in a 2-round MuSig2 signing
> ritual.
>
> We intend to use Taproot since the mobile wallet client
> may need to use a 2-of-3 or 2-of-2 signing scheme, similar
> to Blockstream Green.
> This allows either Alice or Bob in the contract to secretly
> be a FROST 2-of-3 or MuSig 2-of-2 (or any FROST k-of-n or
> MuSig n-of-n).
> This is also another reason for avoiding a 2-of-2 MuSig
> keyspend path between Alice and Bob, as there is (to our
> knowledge) no publicly-reviewed security proof that
> FROST-in-MuSig and MuSig-in-MuSig are safe (or the
> corresponding variants using MuSig2 for the signing
> ritual).
>
> Later, when we are more confident of the use of MuSig2 and
> FROST inside a MuSig2, and with using MuSig2 with possibly
> untrusted outsiders (who might exploit any mis-implementation
> of the MuSig2 signing protocol if we are not careful with
> designing it), we can seamlessly upgrade the protocol
> to use the keyspend path later, to save witness bytes.
>
> For the Onchain use-case (i.e. Alice wants to spend the UTXO
> to an onchain address), the protocol betweeen Alice and Bob
> would be:
>
> * `request_arbitrary_signature` Alice->Bob: Requests Bob
> to sign a PSBT spending a swap-in-potentiam address
> using the Onchain branch.
> * `response_arbitrary_signature` Bob->Alice: Response to
> the above, returning the requested signature.
> * `reject_arbitrary_signature` Bob->Alice: Sent in
> response to `request_arbitary_signature` if Bob refuses
> to cooperate (e.g. the UTXO being spent has already
> been accepted by Bob in a Channel use-case below).
>
> For the Channel use-case (i.e. Alice wants to spend the UTXO
> to a Lightning receiver), we operate the swap-in-potentiam
> UTXO(s) as a Spilman-like channel over two states:
>
> * HTLC-offering: Offering an amount `N` HTLC from Alice to
> Bob, with any remaining amount to a change address to
> Alice.
> * Resolved: Giving the amount `N` outright to Bob, with any
> remaining amount to a change address to Alice.
>
> The intention is that the channel is initially put into
> the HTLC-offerring state.
> Then Bob offers a corresponding in-Lightning HTLC to Alice
> over their channel.
> When Alice resolves the in-Lightning HTLC, it can then
> send a new signature for the Resolved state.
> Once the channel is in a Resolved state, Bob *SHOULD* sign
> the last state and broadcast it on the blockchain, thereby
> closing the Spilman-like channel.
>
> The protocol messages for the Channel use-case are:
>
> * `request_swap_in` Alice->Bob: Tell Bob the UTXOs with
> the same swap-in-potentiam address to spend, how
> much to put into the Alice->Bob channel direction,
> what channel to move into, and (optionally) a change
> address for Alice.
> * `reject_swap_in` Bob->Alice: Sent in response to
> `request_swap_in` if Bob refuses to cooperate (e.g.
> one of the UTXOs on offer was already signed with
> `response_arbitrary_signature`, or Bob cannot legally
> accept control of funds from one or more of the UTXOs
> offerred).
> * `accept_swap_in` Bob->Alice: Sent in response to
> `request_swap_in`, containing the Bob-side address to
> send funds to later once the state is Resolved.
> * `swap_in_signed` Alice->Bob: Response to
> `accept_swap_in`, containing the Alice-side signature
> for the HTLC-offering state transaction.
> Once Bob receives this, Bob can safely construct a
> new on-Lightning HTLC using BOLT1
> `update_offer_htlc`.
> * `swap_in_resolved` Alice->Bob: Sent after Alice has
> acquired the funds via `update_fulfill_htlc` of the
> corresponding on-Lightning HTLC, containing the
> Alice-side signature for the Resolved state
> transaction.
> The Resolved state transaction spends to the Bob-side
> address given in `accept_swap_in`, and any change to
> the Alice-side change address in `request_swap_in`.
>
> The plan is to reserve only one odd BOLT1 message ID,
> and to embed the actual swap-in-potentiam message ID
> as the first 2 bytes of the BOLT1 message, to reduce
> pollution of the limited BOLT1 message ID space and to
> allow more flexibility for swap-in-potentiam to expand
> to new messages inside its own message ID space.
>
> For a richer future protocol, we will want to consider
> how a swap-in can be combined with a splice-in.
> This is useful if the current total capacity of the
> channel is lower than the available onchain funds.
> The swap-in can be credited immediately (and is limited
> to the current total capacity) while additional funds
> can be added to the channel via splice-in (which is
> credited only once the splice-in is confirmed).
>
> As-is, a similar result can be obtained using openv1,
> wherein a swap-in is combined with a channel open,
> with the swap-in immediately credited while the channel
> open is awaiting confirmation:
>
> * Alice and Bob currently have one or more existing
> channels, and Alice has a UTXO in a swap-in-potentiam
> address whose value exceeds the incoming capacity of
> the existing channel(s).
> * Alice->Bob `open_channel`.
> * Bob->Alice `accept_channel`.
> * Alice->Bob `request_swap_in` with the "change address"
> being the funding address of the channel.
> * Bob->Alice `accept_swap_in` provides the TXID of the
> funding transaction (Alice now knows the "change
> address" and the Bob final Resolved address, letting it
> know the final Resolved state transaction TXID).
> * Alice->Bob `funding_created` with the TXID.
> * Bob->Alice `funding_signed`.
> * Alice->Bob `swap_in_signed` to provide the signature
> spending the swap-in-potentiam address to Bob.
> * Bob then constructs an HTLC over the existing channel,
> which Alice claims, revealing the preimage.
> * Alice->Bob `swap_in_resolved`.
> * Bob then broadcasts the Resolved state transaction,
> which is also the funding transaction of the new channel.
> * Both Alice and Bob await confirmation of the transaction
> in order to use the new channel.
> Alice can still use the existing channel, which has been
> topped-up with fresh outgoing capacity by the swap-in.
>
> (The above is not safe, as Bob can complete the protocol
> by using the HTLC-offerring state transaction; this can
> be fixed by having Alice open *2* channels with the same
> amount, one with the HTLC-offering state transaction as
> the funding tx, the other with the Resolved state
> transaction as the funding tx, and later `error`ing the
> channel corresponding to the transaction that is not
> confirmed; this is left as an exercise to the reader,
> though note that it requires two different change addresses
> for Alice for both HTLC-offerring and Resolved states,
> which can be arranged for the protocol)
>
> --
>
> [1]:
> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Payment_channels#CLTV-style_payment_channels
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lightning-dev mailing list
> Lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org
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