Let's try some lightning addresses in the decoder:
Starting with the most basic to the most complex ⬇️
Alby Lightning Addresses - Simple
Starting simple, here's an Alby lightning address from one of our dedicated liquidity sellers,
HodlmeTight1337: https://amboss.space/lightning-decoder?request=hakuna%40getalby.com
The response now includes specific lightning address details like the user, the domain, and callback info.
In the LNURL section, there's even more information, including the min & max spendable, a Nostr npub belonging to Alby Zapper, and additional Metadata.
Obviously, any payments made to this custodial wallet will go to the http://getalby.com node, as confirmed in the Payee pubkey field. https://amboss.space/node/030a58b8653d32b99200a2334cfe913e51dc7d155aa0116c176657a4f1722677a3
Lightning Tip Bot Addresses - Intermediate
Now more advanced: LightningTipB0t !
https://amboss.space/lightning-decoder?request=LightningTipBot%40ln.tips
This Lightning Address includes an image, which is the user telegram profile pic. That's all included in the metadata field.
Lightning address makes it easy to pack in lots of extra data outside the invoice.
Similar to Alby, there's a Nostr npub included, which provides zap receipts.
Thanks @calle for your help understanding these functions!
In addition to the image metadata and the Nostr zap receipts, the LightningTipB0t includes a route hint that goes through Boltzhq.
Despite the tipbot being a public node, the route hint exposes a private channel.
According to @calle, this is fine; it's just for routing.
Ghost Addresses - Advanced
More complex: Ghost addresses!
These are special addresses that allow payments to be intercepted by a node operator, bypassing the need for them to run an LNURL server.
https://amboss.space/lightning-decoder?request=jesse%40ghst.to
To enable this, the Payee pubkey field looks just like a private node. In reality, it's a randomly generated pubkey that's non-existent.
Instead, the actual payment destination is included in the route hints.
In this design, the route hint is intercepting the lightning payment, actually arriving at the Satbase node.
https://amboss.space/node/0390cc12f782259427bdc45a283705f4c20ccbdff064ed43f6b74fefcafe9eb1f7
When Satbase sees the payment attempting a route to a predefined, nonexistent channel, it will request the preimage, enabling an intercept.
To find out more about ghost addresses, you can check out http://ghst.to and get your own via Thunderhub.
Thanks for reading!
What other lightning addresses have interesting setups?
What other innovations should we dive deeper into?
Who is next to add lightning addresses?