As Lightning Labs reports on its website, finally here is the result of a worldwide effort in the form of lnd v0.10-beta.
Take a look with us at the improvements it brings:
- Multi-Path Payments
In the January release of lnd 0.9-beta, there was an obvious absence of the ability to send a multi-path payment. In the new version 0.10-beta, sending is already resolved, and it tracks all payment records throughout the lifecycle. The related change concerns the abolition of the maximum invoice size, which previously amounted to 4.2 million satoshi (0.042 BTC), and currently the maximum size is 16.7 million satoshi (0.167 BTC).
- Partially-Signed Bitcoin Transaction (PSBT) support
Thanks to the current version, it is possible to fund new channels with Partially-Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT). The biggest advantage is that they can be funded directly from hardware wallets or any external wallet.
- On-chain fees, new Anchor Commitment Format
In the area of fees, it is introducing the “Anchor Commitment Format”, which is also preparing for a possible future where fees will increase. “This new format uses“ anchor outputs ”which allow for fees to be specified (technically, bumped) after a channel close transaction has been broadcast. This new anchor commitment format should enable fee savings as well as more reliable channel closes.” However, Lighting Labs note that this feature is still in the experimental phase.
- Developer improvements
For developers, lnd 0.10 has made minor changes to RPC and lncli to make work easier and more convenient. The “Experimental Services” section has been added to the lnd gRPC API.
- Architectural improvements
As part of resilience to hardware and network failures, database changes have been made to allow multiple copies of channel databases, and resume transaction processing immediately in the event of a failure. The most important step was to add a new layer of database abstraction.
- Privacy and security
A team allows safer deployment of lnd and Tor, also added support for deploying Watchtowers via Tor hidden service.
- Bug fixes
Fixed bugs related to channel updates that are now more reliable on reboots, the REST gateway is more predictable, the “dust” edge case has been fixed and the protocol message has also been fixed.
In conclusion, Lighting Labs team would like to thank everyone who tests the code, runs the nodes or builds the services and contributes ideas. We do not yet know when we will see a real sharp version, but even this report on the release of a new version is proof that it will be worth it.