How are LN node pubkeys generated?
10 sats \ 2 comments \ @nullcount 14 Jun 2022 bitcoin
I read thru the BOLTs but there's a lot of pubkeys used in LN. I'm looking for any documentation that describes how to generate a pubkey used for identifying nodes on the network.
I'm interested in generating vanity addresses if its even possible.
Thanks
write
preview
related posts
67 sats \ 0 replies \ @lnvisualizer 14 Jun 2022
LND specific answer
Basically the server has this identityKeyLoc property: https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/9c97d26cfb505081732cb457b513a356879ad57e/server.go#L160
that is used whenever your node announces itself to the network: https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/9c97d26cfb505081732cb457b513a356879ad57e/server.go#L2766
According to this comment here about key locators https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/7106ea59db9ade78d65bb46605f94637900c0e3f/keychain/derivation.go#L140
It seems to generate ECDSA public keys using a BIP43 like keychain system commonly used for wallets.
So ultimately it is derived from a BIP43 like key derivation mechanism based on the comments. Like what you would see in a wallet.
I don't think there would be anything stopping you from modifying this and just hardcoding a custom vanity key.
Or somehow generating a path/keyindex that derives your vanity key.
However, most node public keys are commonly displayed in base16 so you don't have a ton of options other than making a vanity like DEADBEEF1234567890...
Given the limitation, I'm not sure if that would be worth doing. Probably better to just define yourself through an alias.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 14 Jun 2022
AFAIK a node_id is a compressed ECDSA pubkey.
reply