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L402: The Missing Piece in the Internet's Payment Infrastructure
- byteknight 2y agoCan anyone tell me why this is any better than just logging in? This seems like its solving a problem that doesnt exist.
- actionfromafar 2y agoBecause it's "perfect for AI applications"! :)
- mito88 2y agois it an alternative?
- RustyRussell 2y agoDifferent problem? Having created a micropayment network, you quickly discover that infrastructure does not exist where you want to use it. Web APIs are kind of the obvious use case, but because there was no micropayment system they trended to an account and batch payment method by necessity. This aims to fill that infrastructure gap. Of course, there's a huge chicken-and-egg bootstrap problem, but you have to start somewhere!
- DINKDINK 2y agoThe cryptographic properties of an L402's HMAC provide stateless authentication/verification which sub services can then be provisioned with payments to compose API calls in novel ways. E.g. Prior to L402, services needed to conglomerate into siloed ecosystems because there's the need for statefull authentication (Backend: Is this user who is requesting inferences allowed to run this query? How much credit account balance do they have remaining? You third party app have to integrate with me if you want to my users to be able to make calls to your module) Post L402: A stateless service can compose a list of service calls (which all operate independently -- without the lack of competition, costs of integration, and politics of service<>module app ecosystem -- Read OpenAI etc) to potentially 100s of services to produce the broad number of API results needed fulfill the users request. Detailed explanation and examples are provided by the company who published the FOSS L402 spec here: https://youtu.be/6u1G8QIDuNU?t=206 https://youtu.be/6u1G8QIDuNU?t=206
- byteknight 2y agoThis answers and solves nothing new. SSL exists.
- mdouglass 2y agoI'm not seeing anything in the protocol that stops the first human from paying for the resource and then sharing their macaroon+preimage with everyone else. Normally, I'd account for that by associating the preimage with a specific human (account) but this seems to be intended for use without accounts?
- RustyRussell 2y agoPresumably the macaroon itself contains a shortish timeout. You can rate-limit (runes do this, which are simplified macaroons) but then the server is no longer stateless. Pretty sure I've ranted about this in HN comments before, could dig it out if you're interested?
- Bluestein 2y agoWould appreciate it if you did, be so kind ...
- RustyRussell 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39210946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39210946 Heres the inline: See https://github.com/rustyrussell/runes https://github.com/rustyrussell/runes for a simpler alternative and implementation (this has C and Python, but there's also a Rust implementation because why not?) However, the "no db access" property has proven to be untenable in practice. Users end up wanting to see what runes are issued, blacklist them, know when they were last used, and have rate limits. The last two are a killer, requiring some state to be kept (unless your system allows you to return a modified rune to the user, which is a different workflow from normal bearer creds).
- Animats 2y agoIf it's just for one request, the capability ("macaroon" is just their word for a capability) could be tied to a source IP address, so that only one client can use the service. That's the least of the problems. The concept is that each user has a pre-purchased local store of some cryptocurrency. For some reason, they don't actually say that. Servers send an "invoice", with just enough info to get paid but not enough to identify what they're selling or who the seller is. An unconditional "pay invoice" function in the example charges however much the service wants to take. Bad idea. Automated irrevocable transactions with anonymous parties. What could possibly go wrong? There's a lot that's not mentioned. - The server must have a connection to the payment network, and it has to get a success reply back before the transaction can proceed. This is happening within an HTTP transaction, so there's a time limit. - This lacks atomic transactions. If the connection is broken after the payment is sent but before it is acknowledged, the money has been transferred but nothing was returned. The client doesn't know if the payment was made. This problem is common to all payment systems, and unwinding failed transactions is a part of payment systems that get used.
- dinobones 2y agoLightning network is mostly dead. Someone should do this but for the thriving L2 ETH ecosystem.
- RustyRussell 2y agoThis does not seem accurate, but perhaps I'm too close to see it? Do you have a source for this?
- dinobones 2y agoUhh.. how about the fact that almost no wallets/exchanges/no one uses it? https://www.reddit.com/r/lightningnetwork/comments/190orn6/comment/kgs56on/ https://www.reddit.com/r/lightningnetwork/comments/190orn6/c... There are a ton of outstanding technical issues that lightning has had that have just kind of been glossed over for the past half-decade because people start companies, raise funding, build small fortunes and their success is predicated on pretending those fundamental technical issues don't exist. Don't get me wrong, L2 has its own set of technical issues. The complexity of L2 is high, and some of the currently popular L2 chains are not decentralized at all. But it has much higher usage and popularity than Lightning, and is being pushed forward strongly by the Ethereum Foundation itself.
- RustyRussell 2y agoThat's a long stretch from "why aren't we seeing more adoption" to your assertion that "no wallets/exchanges/no one uses it"? Because payments happen been pairs, there's no easy count of activity. The best estimates I know of are things like https://blog.river.com/the-lightning-network-in-2023/ https://blog.river.com/the-lightning-network-in-2023/ which is almost 12 months old. As to "no wallets support it", that's a strange thing to say, since lightning wallets support it, obviously. I'm yet to see any comparable statistics in L2s on Ethereum? Was hoping you'd have something there, too :(
- kylebenzle 2y agoWhat a transparent attempt to promote a broken and dying project for your own benefit:(
- jrflowers 2y agoTLDR: This is a pitch for using Bitcoin
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoCalling this "the missing piece" oversells what it's a missing piece of. I'm not really interested in participating in something like this until other missing pieces are present also. Most notably, content should be able to cite its sources and I should be able to verify that payment is being split and sent to those sources directly. Sending it all to whoever maintains the server and trusting them to pass it on to the right people feels like a recreation of exactly the problems that crypto micropayments were supposed to solve. If I rehost some content, I should just be cutting into the server-owner's slice of the pie. Other contributors should get paid just the same. Otherwise you might as well just do paywalls like they currently do paywalls.
- fragmede 2y agoIn cryptocurrency, if you don't trust the person you're paying, you can check the program being called and its outputs and see the previous runs of the program distributing the currency to other accounts.
- nemomarx 2y agoHow do I know the accounts of all the people involved in creating it or etc? That feels like a lot of burden on the consumer of the media. Maybe if you had inspection tools that helped automate that lookup, or some sort of DNS esque catalog of addresses?
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoWhy not just put the addresses in the metadata of the content? Like credits at the end of a movie, except you can send money to it.
- fragmede 2y agoIt starts to get complicated with more than a single author. I'm not associated with L402, just mentioning properties of the system.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
- ElijahLynn 2y agoIs lightning network open source and a non-profit? How can we put our trust in L402? Can it go bankrupt? Can it be corrupted? Can it go down?
- kylebenzle 2y agoIt is a for profit company, software is closed source.
- firtoz 2y agoThen Can it go bankrupt? Yes Can it be corrupted? Yes Can it go down? Yes
- clarkmoody 2y agoThis is completely false.
- RustyRussell 2y agoThis I'd wrong. There are at least 4 independent, FOSS implementations and an open specification and spec process.
- thinkmassive 2y agoYes, the spec is open and contributed to by the main implementations, all open source. https://github.com/lightning/bolts https://github.com/lightning/bolts https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning https://github.com/ACINQ/eclair https://github.com/ACINQ/eclair https://github.com/lightningdevkit/rust-lightning https://github.com/lightningdevkit/rust-lightning
- Hizonner 2y agoBitcoin is not acceptable in 2024, and Lightning doesn't help. Nothing based on a PoW cryptocurrency should get any support from anybody.
- swagmoose 2y agoDo you think you're being reasonable in saying that? I think micropayments are desperately needed, and I don't see modern payment networks doing anything to get there
- Hizonner 2y agoYes, I do. If you really want micropayments, then use one of the newer, better base systems that do the same things better on every metric, including not ripping through half a percent of the electricity generated in the world. Even if Bitcoin were the only choice available, micropayments aren't needed desperately enough to justify the climate impact. But in fact it's not.
- kordlessagain 2y agoMicropayments, especially when coupled with authentication for APIs, are desperately needed for AI calls (think tokens). And, mining costs have nothing to do with validating payments, so it doesn't cost more to run transactions over Lightning.
- throw10920 2y ago> including not ripping through half a percent of the electricity generated in the world. Lightning network consumes half of the energy on the planet? Because L402 pretty clearly states that it uses Lightning and not plain Bitcoin. Using the power consumption of all Bitcoin would be deceptive and dishonest.
- snapplebobapple 2y agono, it's just that there is a subset of environmentalists that are totally unhinged and think they know better than everyone what should and shouldn't get an energy allotment. Rather than calmly advocating for raising the carbon tax until the externalities present in carbon emission are priced (and seeing what uses are actually cut in the face of proper pricing), they take to any social media they can to complain about a specific use of energy they don't like. I am just happy it has been kept to Karen level virtue signalling online and hasn't yet converted to [insert favorite authoritarian from history here] levels of repression on the populace because the thing that has made the last few hundred years of massive progress work is recognizing we are too dumb to make those decisions and letting individuals pursue their own ideas and spectacularly succeed (but mostly fail).
- raytopia 2y agoI was hoping this had to do with Sales Tax and VAT remittance because that's the hardest part.
- positiveblue 2y agoUnfortunately, that is so complex and changes so often that should not be implemented at protocol level, but around it. P.S: I feel you :)
- idle_zealot 2y agoJust what everyone wants, more paywalls and toll roads for the internet. What a "shame" this will never take off.
- positiveblue 2y agoWell, paywall her can also mean any subscription or even credits-based system like SaaS or Compute APIs (AI inference for example) not only for content.
- fewsats 2y ago[dead]
- positiveblue 2y agoDisclaimer: I am the founder of Fewsats, former Lightning Labs employee and owner of the L402.org domain I'd like to clarify a few points and add some context to the discussion. 1) Protocol: While the current implementation of the L402 flow uses macaroons for credentials and Lightning invoices for challenges, the protocol itself is agnostic to these specifics. As long as the challenge has a verifiable "proof of completion" and a way to identify the credentials, the L402 flow can work with other types of credentials and challenges. 2) Micropayments: While L402 supports micropayments, it's not limited to them. At Fewsats, we use L402 for subscription-based services with standard SaaS payment amounts, issuing macaroons with 1-month expiration dates. 3) Multi-currency support: The Lightning Network currently uses Bitcoin, but with the introduction of Taproot Assets (also from Lightning Labs), it will natively support other currencies like stablecoins (USDt?) 4) Open Protocols: The Lightning Network and L402 are open, decentralized protocols that anyone can use and integrate without depending on any specific third party. There's no native token, ICO, or controlling company, making comparisons to bankrupt entities irrelevant. 5) Network health: The Lightning Network has been operational for years and continues to grow and evolve, with developments like L402 and Taproot Assets enhancing its capabilities and utility I would say it's future looks better than ever. If I forgot anything feel free to as me in a comment.
- JohnFen 2y agoUnimportant side question: why are they called "macaroons"? I find that a bit offputting in its cutesiness, and the word doesn't even give a hint as to what they are (aside from being a flavor of cookie, I guess).
- giobox 2y ago> aside from being a flavor of cookie, I guess I suspect you have answered your own question - historically cookies in the browser have been one way to identify and control what a user can access, I'm guessing authors have continued the small baked goods theme in naming their own access token.
- JohnFen 2y ago
- danlugo92 2y agoFor 5 hundred what is Bitcoin
- nanomonkey 2y agoIt's too bad it's built upon the Lightning Network and not using GNU Taler for payment processing.
- ianburrell 2y agoDoes Taler uses local currency instead of its own coin? That is a better solution since I don't think creators or consumers want to use Bitcoin. I think using Bitcoin adds extra friction to process. It sounds like L402 requires buying Bitcoin in wallet. Creators want to get paid in local currency so they can pay their rent. They probably don't want to speculate in Bitcoin. They want their income to be stable and not vary based on Bitcoin prices. They can automatically convert Bitcoin but that adds an extra step. Consumers also want to pay in local currency. They don't want the prices to vary with Bitcoin, or their wallet to lose value.
- fewsats 2y ago> I don't think creators or consumers want to use Bitcoin. That's right. > Consumers also want to pay in local currency. Taproot Assets will bridge this. In Fewsats for example the user prices the services and gets the payouts in $ by default.
- nanomonkey 2y agoI believe the Merchant (Payee) and User (Payer) can choose whatever currency they want to put in their wallet, and it's up to the Exchange to do the conversion. The nice thing is that the payer is anonymous while the merchants account is visible, so it is likely to be accepted by nation states that still want to track taxable transactions.
- solarkraft 2y ago> Creators want to get paid in local currency > Consumers also want to pay in local currency ... which are often times different, so there has to be some kind of conversion step (not saying that it should be bitcoin).