Bitcoin and chains · 17 / 127 · 1 min

A lightning address

A lightning address looks like an email. A server behind the domain decides where the payment goes.

A worked case

A person pays an address they have paid before. The domain expired and was registered by someone else. The invoice now belongs to the new registrant. The name looked the same.

The name

The part after the @ is a domain. The domain answers with an invoice. You are trusting whoever runs that server today.

Who can change it

The domain can expire, be sold, or point somewhere new. The fast payment does not remove that person. A channel you do not hold is still their ledger.

The domain answers

Lightning can move a payment off the slow chain by updating a channel. A lightning address adds a name in front of that: a domain that returns an invoice when asked. Whoever runs the domain runs the answer.

Domains expire and are sold. A channel held by an app is a firm's ledger with a fast coat of paint. The name does not change either fact.

Read it yourself

• Lightning Network

These links are the record. They are not a recommendation, and they are not instructions. A news story or a court paper can still be wrong about a detail. The check does not change because a famous name is in the story.

Apply the check

Open a question. The line is about this topic. It is not a verdict that anything is safe.

Check yourself

Write it in your own words. The course's answer opens after that. Nothing is sent.