pull down to refresh

What are the basic aspects of privacy when dealing with Lightning transactions?
The are many aspects of privacy on the Lightning Network and they are more complex compared to transactions happening on the base layer (on-chain transactions).
The first important aspect to understand is the use of onion routing. This mechanism is designed to provide different levels of information to the participants in a payment route. In fact each payment is routed from the source to the destination through the channels network and onion is used to perform such an action.
178 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 9 Jun
Intermediary nodes see the payment amount for the specific HTLC traversing their channel, as well as Timelock deltas. This is necessary for them to create the outgoing HTLC to the next hop (on the chosen path).
afaik most payments are not multi-path so intermediate nodes in most cases do know the payment amount roughly. I suspect multi-path payments to increase a lot though which should help this some.
reply
Correct. Wallets could be modified to favor multi-path payments. But single path is somewhat cheaper. Probably faster and more reliable for small payments too. But that's a complex topic that I don't 100% understand.
reply
A CLN node have by default MPP activated. Zeus and Blixt also have a specific option to activate MPP for all payments. MPP are good not only for more privacy but also to a proper liquidity management.
reply
33 sats \ 3 replies \ @anon 9 Jun
Nice article - If you have an on chain UTXO of say $1000 and you wanted to send a payment on chain of say $100 to person B without them being able to trace the payment back to the original on chain payment address - would swapping to lightning and splitting the $100 up between multiple lightning addresses either custodial or non custodial maybe even sending across cashu wallets and back to lightning would this have a similar effect to using on chain mixers or would it be any better? It’s basically so the person you are sending to doesn’t see how much Bitcoin you have on chain?
reply
Your best option is coinjoining before you send the UTXO. JoinMarket may help in this situation.
If you're going to use Lightning... you can open a channel with the entire UTXO (to a large/well connected node) and then send all of it (or nearly all of it) because as long as there are intermediate hops between you and the receiver your sender privacy is excellent. The receiver FWIU won't be able to see your pubkey much less any other channels you have open.
That's my understanding at least.
reply
If you have an on chain UTXO of say $1000
LOL fiat mindset... In Bitcoin we use sats not $ dollars. YNGMI
reply
Not sure if it's the best, but it looks like a good way to keep your privacy.
reply
11 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 9 Jun
Great timing! Now to read it...