The x402 protocol as defined uses purely out of band payment verification. This trait makes the "one line of code" to add integration not entirely accurate, as there's still a substantial amount of code needed at both the client and server to verify payment receipt.
L402 is more opinionated as utilizes the Lightning Network (LN) directly within the protocol. The server presents the client with a SHA 256 payment hash embedded within an LN invoice. The server requires the client to present the pre-image for said payment hash. The only way the client can obtain said pre-image is by paying the invoice on the Lightning Network (all payments are conditional payments where a pre-image needs to be revealed to complete a payment).
L402 also adds a layer of macaroons, enabling the protocol handle both payment and fine-grained authentication.
The advantages of LN over something like Coinbase's Base chain include:
* Privacy: Coinbase and the entire world sees all your transactions.
* Decentralization & Reliability: Base is a singleton instance, if it goes down, you can't make any transactions. LN is decentralized, just like the internet, you can always route around failures.
* Settlement Speed: Base blocks happen every 2 seconds, until that period your transaction isn't finalized. However that's only committing to Base, and not the underlying ETH chain, which has 12 second block time. Latency on LN is primarily a function of e2e network delay, so it can be as little as 100 ms.
Lightning Labs is hiring! We’re looking to expand our team to build technology that'll bring Bitcoin to the next billion people. Our current focus is the development and deployment of the Lightning Network, an open blockchain scalability protocol. We push the edge of innovation with regard to blockchain scalability, privacy-preserving smart contracts, and cryptocurrency UX. If you’re interested in one of the positions below, please apply using our careers page: https://lightning.engineering/join-us. And if you know someone who might be a good fit, we'd very much appreciate any referrals.
{Lightning Infrastructure Engineer}:
We're looking for a systems-oriented engineer who will design and build out key components to support the growth of the Lightning Network. These tools will lower the barrier to entry for operating Lightning nodes and enable existing node operators to more effectively manage their infrastructure. You'll work on products such as Lightning Pool (https://lightning.engineering/pool/), as well as other Bitcoin-based backend systems to make Lightning more useable, and secure.
{Protocol Engineer}:
Experienced systems software engineer versed in applied cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, open source software, and cryptocurrency protocols to design and implement core protocol and algorithmic components of the Lightning Network as well as the Bitcoin Network. Solid programming skills, experience with Go, C, or C++. Prior contributions to crypto protocols and open source software collaboration preferred.
Lightning Labs is hiring! We’re looking to expand our team to build technology that'll bring Bitcoin to the next billion people. Our current focus is the development and deployment of the Lightning Network, an open blockchain scalability protocol. We push the edge of innovation with regard to blockchain scalability, privacy-preserving smart contracts, and cryptocurrency UX. If you’re interested in one of the positions below, please apply using our careers page: https://lightning.engineering/join-us. And if you know someone who might be a good fit, we'd very much appreciate any referrals.
{Protocol Engineer}:
Experienced systems software engineer versed in applied cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, open source software, and cryptocurrency protocols to design and implement core protocol and algorithmic components of the Lightning Network as well as the Bitcoin Network. Solid programming skills, experience with Go, C, or C++. Prior contributions to crypto protocols and open source software collaboration preferred.
{Platform Engineer}:
Seeking a pragmatic senior software engineer who embraces the DevOps mindset to improve our developer experience. Improve the robustness and security of our internal platform by managing the underlying cloud and cluster technologies, observability tooling, stateful services, and enhancements such as operators and overlay networks.
{Senior Engineering Manager}:
Seeking to hire a Senior Engineering Manager to help scale our growing engineering organization. The ideal candidate has experience managing remote teams across several time zones, has managed their own open source projects or actively contributed to such projects in the past, and has high level working knowledge of Bitcoin. Due to the nature of our software, our ideal candidate is also highly technical as we regularly face novel and challenging decisions that require nuanced and comprehensive analysis of related tradeoffs. In addition, the ideal candidate should have a passion for our mission, as well as for Bitcoin as a whole. Candidates in this position will work directly with the CTO to scale our engineering organization, as well as work across functional team boundaries to ensure proper resource allocation, product quality, and team agility.
Lightning Labs is hiring! We’re looking to expand our team to build technology that'll bring Bitcoin to the next billion people. Our current focus is the development and deployment of the Lightning Network, an open blockchain scalability protocol. We push the edge of innovation with regard to blockchain scalability, privacy-preserving smart contracts, and cryptocurrency UX. If you’re interested in one of the positions below, please apply using our careers page: https://lightning.engineering/join-us. And if you know someone who might be a good fit, we'd very much appreciate any referrals.
{Protocol Engineer}:
Experienced systems software engineer versed in applied cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, open source software, and cryptocurrency protocols to design and implement core protocol and algorithmic components of the Lightning Network as well as the Bitcoin Network. Solid programming skills, experience with Go, C, or C++. Prior contributions to crypto protocols and open source software collaboration preferred.
{Platform Engineer}:
Seeking a pragmatic senior software engineer who embraces the DevOps mindset to improve our developer experience. Improve the robustness and security of our internal platform by managing the underlying cloud and cluster technologies, observability tooling, stateful services, and enhancements such as operators and overlay networks.
{Senior Engineering Manager}:
Seeking to hire a Senior Engineering Manager to help scale our growing engineering organization. The ideal candidate has experience managing remote teams across several time zones, has managed their own open source projects or actively contributed to such projects in the past, and has high level working knowledge of Bitcoin. Due to the nature of our software, our ideal candidate is also highly technical as we regularly face novel and challenging decisions that require nuanced and comprehensive analysis of related tradeoffs. In addition, the ideal candidate should have a passion for our mission, as well as for Bitcoin as a whole. Candidates in this position will work directly with the CTO to scale our engineering organization, as well as work across functional team boundaries to ensure proper resource allocation, product quality, and team agility.
Lightning Labs is hiring! We’re looking to expand our team to build technology that'll bring Bitcoin to the next billion people. Our current focus is the development and deployment of the Lightning Network, an open blockchain scalability protocol. We push the edge of innovation with regard to blockchain scalability, privacy-preserving smart contracts, and cryptocurrency UX. If you’re interested in one of the positions below, please apply using our careers page: https://lightning.engineering/join-us. And if you know someone who might be a good fit, we'd very much appreciate any referrals.
{Protocol Engineer}:
Experienced systems software engineer versed in applied cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, open source software, and cryptocurrency protocols to design and implement core protocol and algorithmic components of the Lightning Network as well as the Bitcoin Network. Solid programming skills, experience with Go, C, or C++. Prior contributions to crypto protocols and open source software collaboration preferred.
{Platform Engineer}:
Seeking a pragmatic senior software engineer who embraces the DevOps mindset to improve our developer experience. Improve the robustness and security of our internal platform by managing the underlying cloud and cluster technologies, observability tooling, stateful services, and enhancements such as operators and overlay networks.
{Senior Engineering Manager}:
Seeking to hire a Senior Engineering Manager to help scale our growing engineering organization. The ideal candidate has experience managing remote teams across several time zones, has managed their own open source projects or actively contributed to such projects in the past, and has high level working knowledge of Bitcoin. Due to the nature of our software, our ideal candidate is also highly technical as we regularly face novel and challenging decisions that require nuanced and comprehensive analysis of related tradeoffs. In addition, the ideal candidate should have a passion for our mission, as well as for Bitcoin as a whole. Candidates in this position will work directly with the CTO to scale our engineering organization, as well as work across functional team boundaries to ensure proper resource allocation, product quality, and team agility.
Lightning Labs is hiring! We’re looking to expand our team to build technology that'll bring Bitcoin to the next billion people. Our current focus is the development and deployment of the Lightning Network, an open blockchain scalability protocol. We push the edge of innovation with regard to blockchain scalability, privacy-preserving smart contracts, and cryptocurrency UX. If you’re interested in one of the positions below, please apply using our careers page: https://lightning.engineering/join-us. And if you know someone who might be a good fit, we'd very much appreciate any referrals.
{Protocol Engineer}:
Experienced systems software engineer versed in applied cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, open source software, and cryptocurrency protocols to design and implement core protocol and algorithmic components of the Lightning Network as well as the Bitcoin Network. Solid programming skills, experience with Go, C, or C++. Prior contributions to crypto protocols and open source software collaboration preferred.
{Senior Security Engineer}:
Seeking to hire a Security Engineer for the ongoing scaling of our growing engineering organization. This is a hands-on role that consists of devising and implementing policies and procedures around best practices in systems security. The ideal candidate has experience in securing web, Bitcoin, and other public-facing network services, penetration testing, and both automated and manual source code security reviews. Due to the domain in which we work, experience with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network is extremely desirable as is knowledge of the cryptographic aspects involved in this area.
{Senior Engineering Manager}:
Seeking to hire a Senior Engineering Manager to help scale our growing engineering organization. The ideal candidate has experience managing remote teams across several time zones, has managed their own open source projects or actively contributed to such projects in the past, and has high level working knowledge of Bitcoin. Due to the nature of our software, our ideal candidate is also highly technical as we regularly face novel and challenging decisions that require nuanced and comprehensive analysis of related tradeoffs. In addition, the ideal candidate should have a passion for our mission, as well as for Bitcoin as a whole. Candidates in this position will work directly with the CTO to scale our engineering organization, as well as work across functional team boundaries to ensure proper resource allocation, product quality, and team agility.
Lightning Labs is hiring! We’re looking to expand our team to build technology that'll bring Bitcoin to the next billion people. Our current focus is the development and deployment of the Lightning Network, an open blockchain scalability protocol. We push the edge of innovation with regard to blockchain scalability, privacy-preserving smart contracts, and cryptocurrency UX. If you’re interested in one of the positions below, please apply using our careers page: https://lightning.engineering/join-us. And if you know someone who might be a good fit, we'd very much appreciate any referrals.
{Protocol Engineer}:
Experienced systems software engineer versed in applied cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, open source software, and cryptocurrency protocols to design and implement core protocol and algorithmic components of the Lightning Network as well as the Bitcoin Network. Solid programming skills, experience with Go, C, or C++. Prior contributions to crypto protocols and open source software collaboration preferred.
{Senior Security Engineer}:
Seeking to hire a Security Engineer for the ongoing scaling of our growing engineering organization. This is a hands-on role that consists of devising and implementing policies and procedures around best practices in systems security. The ideal candidate has experience in securing web, Bitcoin, and other public-facing network services, penetration testing, and both automated and manual source code security reviews. Due to the domain in which we work, experience with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network is extremely desirable as is knowledge of the cryptographic aspects involved in this area.
{Senior Engineering Manager}:
Seeking to hire a Senior Engineering Manager to help scale our growing engineering organization. The ideal candidate has experience managing remote teams across several time zones, has managed their own open source projects or actively contributed to such projects in the past, and has high level working knowledge of Bitcoin. Due to the nature of our software, our ideal candidate is also highly technical as we regularly face novel and challenging decisions that require nuanced and comprehensive analysis of related tradeoffs. In addition, the ideal candidate should have a passion for our mission, as well as for Bitcoin as a whole. Candidates in this position will work directly with the CTO to scale our engineering organization, as well as work across functional team boundaries to ensure proper resource allocation, product quality, and team agility.
Lightning Labs is hiring! We’re looking to expand our team to build technology that'll bring Bitcoin to the next billion people. Our current focus is the development and deployment of the Lightning Network, an open blockchain scalability protocol. We push the edge of innovation with regard to blockchain scalability, privacy-preserving smart contracts, and cryptocurrency UX. If you’re interested in one of the positions below, please apply using our careers page: https://lightning.engineering/join-us. And if you know someone who might be a good fit, we'd very much appreciate any referrals.
{Protocol Engineer}:
Experienced systems software engineer versed in applied cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, open source software, and cryptocurrency protocols to design and implement core protocol and algorithmic components of the Lightning Network as well as the Bitcoin Network. Solid programming skills, experience with Go, C, or C++. Prior contributions to crypto protocols and open source software collaboration preferred.
{Senior Security Engineer}:
Seeking to hire a Security Engineer for the ongoing scaling of our growing engineering organization. This is a hands-on role that consists of devising and implementing policies and procedures around best practices in systems security. The ideal candidate has experience in securing web, Bitcoin, and other public-facing network services, penetration testing, and both automated and manual source code security reviews. Due to the domain in which we work, experience with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network is extremely desirable as is knowledge of the cryptographic aspects involved in this area.
{Senior Engineering Manager}:
Seeking to hire a Senior Engineering Manager to help scale our growing engineering organization. The ideal candidate has experience managing remote teams across several time zones, has managed their own open source projects or actively contributed to such projects in the past, and has high level working knowledge of Bitcoin. Due to the nature of our software, our ideal candidate is also highly technical as we regularly face novel and challenging decisions that require nuanced and comprehensive analysis of related tradeoffs. In addition, the ideal candidate should have a passion for our mission, as well as for Bitcoin as a whole. Candidates in this position will work directly with the CTO to scale our engineering organization, as well as work across functional team boundaries to ensure proper resource allocation, product quality, and team agility.
Lightning Labs is hiring! We’re looking to expand our team to build technology that'll bring Bitcoin to the next billion people. Our current focus is the development and deployment of the Lightning Network, an open blockchain scalability protocol. We push the edge of innovation with regard to blockchain scalability, privacy-preserving smart contracts, and cryptocurrency UX. If you’re interested in one of the positions below, please apply using our careers page: https://lightning.engineering/join-us. And if you know someone who might be a good fit, we'd very much appreciate any referrals.
{Protocol Engineer}:
Experienced systems software engineer versed in applied cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, distributed systems, open source software, and cryptocurrency protocols to design and implement core protocol and algorithmic components of the Lightning Network as well as the Bitcoin Network. Solid programming skills, experience with Go, C, or C++. Prior contributions to crypto protocols and open source software collaboration preferred.
{Senior Security Engineer}:
Seeking to hire a Security Engineer for the ongoing scaling of our growing engineering organization. This is a hands-on role that consists of devising and implementing policies and procedures around best practices in systems security. The ideal candidate has experience in securing web, Bitcoin, and other public-facing network services, penetration testing, and both automated and manual source code security reviews. Due to the domain in which we work, experience with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network is extremely desirable as is knowledge of the cryptographic aspects involved in this area.
{Senior Engineering Manager}:
Seeking to hire a Senior Engineering Manager to help scale our growing engineering organization. The ideal candidate has experience managing remote teams across several time zones, has managed their own open source projects or actively contributed to such projects in the past, and has high level working knowledge of Bitcoin. Due to the nature of our software, our ideal candidate is also highly technical as we regularly face novel and challenging decisions that require nuanced and comprehensive analysis of related tradeoffs. In addition, the ideal candidate should have a passion for our mission, as well as for Bitcoin as a whole. Candidates in this position will work directly with the CTO to scale our engineering organization, as well as work across functional team boundaries to ensure proper resource allocation, product quality, and team agility.
Agreed. Which is why 5 years ago, I developed L402 (formerly known as LSAT) to fill this very gap:
The x402 protocol as defined uses purely out of band payment verification. This trait makes the "one line of code" to add integration not entirely accurate, as there's still a substantial amount of code needed at both the client and server to verify payment receipt.L402 is more opinionated as utilizes the Lightning Network (LN) directly within the protocol. The server presents the client with a SHA 256 payment hash embedded within an LN invoice. The server requires the client to present the pre-image for said payment hash. The only way the client can obtain said pre-image is by paying the invoice on the Lightning Network (all payments are conditional payments where a pre-image needs to be revealed to complete a payment).
L402 also adds a layer of macaroons, enabling the protocol handle both payment and fine-grained authentication.
The advantages of LN over something like Coinbase's Base chain include: