IT'S ALIVE!!!!

The new option to send Lightning to Hive is now live.

Click here: lnd.v4v.app search for a Hive account, verify the name and picture, fill in a memo and an amount then hit either Hive or HBD to send that value.

I just sent myself 10,000 sats for 4.357 HBD (4.600 - 0.243 change).

I immediately sent 10,000 sats back to myself and received 4.115 HBD.

The fees in each direction are 200 sats + 0.8%. So this cost me 0.242 HBD. Obviously if you move more reasonable sums the fees drop off quickly..

  "conversion": { 
    "conv_from": "HBD", 
    "sats": 571.6845878136199, 
    "HIVE": 0.24905601453595658, 
    "HBD": 0.242, 
    "USD": 0.24562999999999996 
  }

The rates are the spot rates from CoinGeko so the system is really not taking a cut on the rates.

This is NOT completely Trustless

For a few seconds, up to a minute or two (especially when paying from Hive into Lightning as has been done many many times over the last few months), it can take my system some time to either find a path to pay the Lightning invoice or fail. These failures have become increasingly rare. If there is a failure on the Lightning side I return all the Hive funds and that happens on Hive timescales: very fast.

When you send a Lightning payment (by scanning the invoice the system shows you), the Hive or HBD is usually sent within a second. My system only pays Hive or HBD if it receives Lightning and these transfers of Lightning are irreversible and can't even be refunded.

If for any reason the system can't make a Hive or HBD payment, it will scream at me via various back channels until I can either make sure there are enough funds to make the payment or figure out if something else has gone wrong.

Experimental Proof of Concept

I've been testing this a whole lot myself but these things are always a little bit experimental at the beginning. Transfers are capped at 100,000 sats so under $50. My reputation is behind this service right now.

Decentralisation

The next step, which I've always been clear about, is that I don't want to be the only person running this code. I need to package this up and make it available for others to run. Running this requires the skill of keeping a balanced, well connected Lightning node with a capital investment of Bitcoin. I believe I can make the mechanics of the Hive/Lightning interface easy to run, but the Lightning side is out of my hands.

Then the plan is to have Hive chose which gateway processes any given transfer and by this means we have a decentralised system linking two of the most viable ultra low fee value transfer systems on the planet.

Bugs?

I'm sure there will be a few things I haven't caught and I'm waiting to squash them!

Thank YOU!

And of course, this is all thanks to all of you and the amazing Hive DHF for sponsoring this work which I believe benefits all of Hive.

Lightning Payments to Hive Accounts are now LIVE!!!