Project Completion Report: Cardano Lightning Network (Phase 1) - Payment Gateways
Project Name: Cardano Lightning Network (Phase 1) - Payment Gateways Project Number: 1200060 Project Manager(s): paluh (aka Tomasz Rybarczyk) and waalge (aka Dominic Wallis) Project Start Date: Septemper 2024 Project Completion Date: October 2026
Deliverables
Implementations
- Two on-chain protocols:
- [Konduit/CLN node])(https://github.com/cardano-lightning/konduit/tree/main/packages/konduit/server (opens in a new tab)) which handles unidirectional L2 payments in both contexts: Cardano Lightnin to Cardano Lightning node and Cardano Lightning to Bitcoin Lightning node.
- Konduit project web page and two mobile apps (PWAs) which allow users to pay Bitcoin Lightning invoice using ADA:
- Konduit web page (opens in a new tab) which introduces cross-lightning architecture.
- And the apps: Konduit (opens in a new tab) and Ferret by KtorZ (opens in a new tab)
- TS-SDK (opens in a new tab) for the konduit server.
- All the above projects are hosted on our github org: https://github.com/cardano-lightning (opens in a new tab) and ferret is on @KtorZ personal github: https://github.com/KtorZ/ferret (opens in a new tab)
- Beside regular documentation We wrote a bunch of articles on our blog along the way: https://cardano-lightning.org (opens in a new tab)
Testing
- Our smart contracts were intensly tested using property based/fuzzy approach: https://github.com/cardano-lightning/cardano-lightning/tree/main/aik/lib/cl/tests (opens in a new tab)
- Our konduit TS-SDK contains packages with a good coverage. We have also integration testing of the client: https://github.com/cardano-lightning/konduit-js/tree/paluh/migrate-the-app/packages/konduit-consumer/test (opens in a new tab)
- We have comprehensive set of integration tests with e2e scenario over the whole infrasturcure (we use local process-compose which spins off testnet and runs all our infrastructure): https://github.com/cardano-lightning/konduit/tree/kupo-cln/packages/integration (opens in a new tab)
User feedback
Frederic the Cardano Foundation CEO was able to test our cross chain payments: https://x.com/F_Gregaard/status/2067506194516693243 (opens in a new tab) We had external contributors to the project which is also a positive feedback: * KtorZ, AndrewWestberg and SupernaviX: https://github.com/cardano-lightning/konduit/graphs/contributors?from=10%2F26%2F2024 (opens in a new tab) * A large PR by @AndrewWestberg still awaits a review: https://github.com/cardano-lightning/konduit/pull/185 (opens in a new tab)
Visual evidence
Let us link once again the webpage and the demo payment apps:
- Konduit web page (opens in a new tab) and cardano-lightning.org blog (opens in a new tab).
- Konduit App (opens in a new tab) and Ferret by KtorZ (opens in a new tab).
Usage
There are no comercial payment gateways yet on the chain so the usage is not real. As we already mentioned we did deamon the Konduit protocol (Carano -> BLN) on a mainnet during the last BTC Prague but it was only the demonstration.
We hope that together with multi-currency which will provide ability to use stable coin backed channels (the recent @AndrewWestberg's PR) our solutoin will have more potential for adoption with USDM/USDC -> BLN routing.
Impact
We believe that the project is valuable addition to the Cardano Ecosystem which is aslo supported by the interest from the Cardano Foundation side . Part of the @waalge work was founded by this organization. Given our rather in-depth knowledge of the nature of payment channels we are really sure that Hydra is not sufficient to be usable in the broader payment context as it lacks composition and the research behind that part seems to be staled.
Additionally our project provides seamless and trustless integration with the Bitcoin ecosystem. Our cross-chain routing should not be considered a bridge - there is no trust in this solution and the exchange and routing is done fully atomically and securely for both ends of the route - the payer and the recipient.
Sustainability
We hope to find future founding soon as we have further development plans which were already covered in the other proposals.