From ZmnSCPxj at protonmail.com Sat Nov 10 13:46:24 2018 From: ZmnSCPxj at protonmail.com (ZmnSCPxj) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2018 13:46:24 +0000 Subject: [Lightning-dev] Towards a Market for Liquidity Providers -- Enforcing Minimum Channel Lifetime Message-ID: <-dAuhZrJt_eORhmTFurLSV8FOuJnZBp2wrh_R8K9Q3BTEsNr0A851vS5lZP4voNCGtmzZwdwuWOH6RbTVg9pimsLdvtOS_zqjxp1RiHz6sc=@protonmail.com> Good morning list, Introduction ============ This thread, effectively continues the discussion, regarding dual-funding and a liquidity market for requesting to provide incoming capacity. I and Rene Pickhardt, were discussing this a little while ago, and resulted to the solution below. The Service Being Bought ------------------------ First, let us focus on what is being bought and paid for in this liquidity market. We have been talking as if all that is being bought and paid for is simply "incoming capacity". However, I believe this is incomplete. In the "real world" that you humans appear to be excessively obsessed with, a contract for a service involves specifying, not only what is being purchased, but also for how long this service is to be rendered. Indeed, this is the basis for my suggestion, to add an `nLockTime` to the commitment transactions. Thus, the contract for purchasing liquidity, should specify not only the amount to be allocated for capacity, but also some duration for how long that capacity is to be allocated. Else, there is no reasonable condition for determining if the closure of a channel is improper or not. Thus, I propose a simple modification for channels that are opened via a dual-fund that responded to an advertisement for liquidity. A liquidity provider, providers the service as follows: for a fee, I shall provide incoming capacity to your node, and maintain this channel for a certain minimum duration. Let us introduce our cast of characters: * Mercy the Merchant, who wishes to receive payments by Lightning, * Licky the Liquidity Provider, who wishes to earn fees by on-boarding others on Lightning. * Randy the Random Node, who is simply on Lightning for no particular purpose. Mercy pays Licky some fee, in order for Licky to provide incoming capacity to Mercy, for at least some number of blocks. Minimum-lifetime Channels ========================= Let us now consider, how to impose a minimum lifetime to a channel. Naively, commitment transactions may have an `nLockTime` to impose this. However, this complicates HTLCs that appear as outputs of commitment transactions. An HTLC timelock that expires before the `nLockTime` of the commitment transaction cannot be enforced. This makes the channel particularly useless for incoming payments, as payments that terminate at Mercy, are most likely to have low timelocks and thus most likely to be unenforceable onchain. Licky will prefer not to forward such nonenforceable HTLCs, so Mercy will not receive payments by this channel, when the express purpose, is to receive payments. Separating Lifetime from HTLCs ------------------------------ However, we could instead consider, to enforce the locktime on the main output for Licky instead. This would allow the HTLC outputs to be unencumbered, allowing proper enforcement onchain. Thus, after Symmetric CSV, we could also add an additional CLTV constraint that determines the minimum channel lifetime. For instance, without minimum channel enforcement, Licky-side commitment transaction would have outputs below: 1. Mercy-side output: Mercy && CSV 2. Licky-side output: revocation || (Licky && CSV) But if we now use a CLTV to enforce channel lifetime, Licky-side commitment transaction would have outputs below: 1. Mercy-side output: Mercy && CSV 2. Licky-side output: revocation || (Licky && CSV && CLTV) The CLTV constraint is the block height at which the channel is created, plus the lifetime of the channel in blocks. Of note, is that only Licky has the CLTV encumberance. Unlike CSV, it is not symmetrical. Asymmetry must exist here, since Licky has an obligation (it must provide this service) that Mercy does not. The Mercy-side commitment transaction would have the outputs: 1. Licky-side output: Licky && CSV && CLTV 2. Mercy-side output: revocation || (Mercy && CSV) Now we might have the intuition, that perhaps if Mercy closes the channel by its commitment transaction, this implies releasing Licky from its obligation. But a sufficiently evil Licky could play this by misbehaving, in an attempt to make Mercy close the channel by its commitment transaction, to release it from its obligation. (This is the same argument we used, for symmetrical CSV). Of note, is that if the commitment transactions contain any HTLCs, then they appear simply on the commitment transaction outputs, with no particular change to support this feature. Also of note, is that CLTV and CSV can indeed combine. A transaction that satisfies both the CSV-imposed `nSequence` and CLTV, would have a `nLockTime` that is the higher of the two imposed constraints. If the channel lifetime (enforced by CLTV) has passed, then the CSV is the only constraint, which reduces to the same as the existing behavior where a unilateral close prevents the money from being claimed by the CSV value. If the channel lifetime has not passed then access to the coin, is constrained by this channel lifetime. CLTV interacts badly with CSV only if CSV precedes it on an earlier output in a chain of transactions. Games Licky Can Play -------------------- It must be raised to attention, that the commitment transaction can be broadcast at any time, as it has no `nLockTime`. This may be necessary to enforce a HTLC timeout. Indeed, one thing Licky could try to do, would be to transmit the first commitment transaction as soon as it is signed. However, due to the CLTV constraint, Licky cannot reclaim its money immediately. Although the channel still closes before its purported minimum lifetime and leaves Mercy bereft of the service, Licky cannot gain an advantage in doing so. On the other hand, if Licky continues to keep the channel open, it has the possibility of earning routing fees. Thus, defection in this game has no benefit, while cooperation has benefit. The rational choice, is to cooperate and retain the channel open. The same game plays, if Licky pretends to sleep and does not respond. It gains no additional money or utility. If instead it did not pretend to sleep, it could potentially earn routing fees. The same game is playable today even without liquidity providers. At the same time, in case of emergency (an HTLC is about to time out and Mercy is unresponsive), Licky has the ability to enforce onchain. Games Mercy Can Play -------------------- Suppose Mercy broadcasts the commitment transaction as soon as it is signed. It thereby ties up Licky funds and Licky cannot thus earn routing fees. However, the same would be true, if Mercy simply pretended to sleep and did not respond to anything. The funds would still be locked to the channel, and Licky cannot escape this lock. It should be pointed out that Mercy has already paid for the locking of funds of Licky, from the liquidity provider advertisement. Thus, conceptually Mercy "owns" the lock-rights of the funds of Licky. Presumably, the intent is that Mercy wishes to be paid, and thus Mercy gains economic power from this. But suppose Mercy never receives payment via this channel. Then the effect is simply: Mercy borrows some money from Licky, and promises to pay it back with some interest (the liquidity provider fee). The difference is that this promise is enforceable onchain, and Mercy cannot escape this by any method: the extra interest will be paid to Licky inevitably, unlike normal bank-based financial instruments. (Thus, this is still not a debt-based instrument: the backing credit is held in escrow by the blockchain, and will always return to Licky after the borrowing period ends; there is no possibility of default) Thus, a rational Mercy would want to be able to utilize this encumbered borrowed funds, by actually providing some service or product and being paid via the channel. Otherwise, it ends up having simply donated money to Licky with no economic benefit to itself. Reduction of Licky Obligation ----------------------------- Of note, is that the cost of the obligation of Licky would decrease once Mercy actually receives payments. Thus, as Mercy receives more payment, the cost on Licky in defecting reduces. We should also note, that the entire point of Mercy performing this exercise is to receive money. We can consider, that Mercy receiving money should make Mercy satisfied with this service. Thus even if Licky obligation drops low enough that Licky could economically let some tiny amount be More Complex Games Licky Can Play --------------------------------- Suppose Mercy has some outgoing channel to a random node, Randy. Then Licky can move its encumbered funds through some circular route (if one exists) from Licky to Mercy to Randy back to Licky. This is normally not an issue, since the transfer means that the formerly-outgoing channel between Mercy and Randy is now an incoming channel to Mercy, Thus Mercy still has incoming capacity, as it wants. However, if this channel has no minimum channel lifetime, then Randy could close this channel. Licky would then have disposed of its obligation without having most of its money tied to the channel. Mercy can mitigate this attack, by only opening channels with similar minimum channel lifetimes (actually, similar dates of earliest termination). This means, Randy is not in fact random, but yet another liquidity provider. Then when Licky disposes of its obligation, the obligation is actually transferred to Randy. This ensures that Mercy can still have its service of incoming capacity. Acts of God =========== Rene pointed out, that if an actual physical bolt of Lightning (whatever this "physical realm" that humans apparently inhabit means), were to strike Licky, then Mercy gets no incoming capacity and the contract (liquidity fee for incoming liquidity for a specific time period) is effectively voided. This is simply the same as if a contract is voided by an "act of God" (a physical bolt of Lightning appears to be one). Of note, is that most service contracts in the "real world" have clauses where "act of God" may prevent proper execution of the service, and the service provider then becomes free of liability. In this case, this is exactly modeled, if Licky truly has been destroyed. On the other hand, if Licky only pretends to be destroyed, it is the same game as above in "Games Licky Can Play". Regards, ZmnSCPxj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: