BOLT 12

What is BOLT 12?

BOLT 12 is a proposed upgrade to the Lightning network. For users, it can enable things like reusable payment requests, increased receiver privacy, and increased censorship resistance.

Ever wondered what it’s like to live in the futuristic utopia of BOLT 12?

Let’s take a look!

Reusable Payment Requests

Now that I can slap a QR code on our tip jar, my band can seamlessly receive tips in bitcoin! No more creating a new QR code for every virtual fan who wants to tip us after a moon colony gig, and no more losing 75% of potential tippers due to the long wait for BOLT 11 invoices.

See Alice’s BOLT 12 Story

Receiver Privacy

As a shadowy super coder contributing to Bitcoin Core, I needed a way to accept donations that preserves anonymity while compartmentalizing my 784 digital identities. With BOLT 12’s route blinding, I can now accept payments discreetly and securely!

See Brijesh’s BOLT 12 Story

Social Integration

I’m a content creator on Nostr who has always wanted a self-custodial way to accept zaps for my VR artwork. By publishing my bitcoin wallet’s payment code to my Nostr profile, I can receive zaps directly, without custodians or middlemen. Viva la BOLT 12!

See Charlotte’s BOLT 12 Story

Auto-withdrawals

After hearing some cyborgs talk about bitcoin on XNBC Squawk Cube, I decided to buy in. Later, I learned that it's better to self-custody bitcoin rather than trust exchanges. So, I set my exchange account to automatically deposit bitcoin into a self-custodial wallet using BOLT 12 offers.

See Danh’s BOLT 12 Story

Censorship Resistance

As an activist living under an authoritarian robot regime, I needed a way to accept donations without payment services blocking my IP address. With onion messaging, my IP address remains hidden, ensuring I can receive support securely. Smash the autonomous patriarchy!

See Elaheh’s BOLT 12 Story

How to Integrate BOLT 12

Developer Docs

LND

While LND does not yet support BOLT 12, you can run LNDK alongside your LND node to start experimenting with BOLT 12.

Core Lightning

To use BOLT 12 with Core Lightning, run Core LN with the `--enable-experimental-features` or `--enable-experimental-offers` flag.

Eclair

With your Eclair node, you can use the `payoffer` RPC command to pay an offer or the Tip Jar plugin to generate an offer.

Lightning Dev Kit

LDK lets you create and pay offers. You can learn more about these methods in this blog post.

Now let’s see BOLT 12 in action!

Ocean

Ocean Mining announced in April 2024 that miners can submit BOLT 12 offers to receive pool payouts over Lightning. "BOLT 12 lets us know when someone made a payment, the size of the payment, which node received the payment, and that it was paid in the first place."

Website

Zeus

Zeus, a lightning wallet for the gods, has an alpha release that integrates with Twelve Cash, allowing Core Lightning users to create BOLT 12 offers and @twelve.cash usernames.

Website Code

Human Readable Address

This BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) lets you put bitcoin payment info into DNS records, allowing users to pay to something resembling an email address. These can include BOLT 12 offers and any other static bitcoin payment identifier.

Website Code

Twelve Cash

Twelve Cash is an implementation of the Human Readable Payments BIP. It includes an API to create @twelve.cash usernames in lightning apps and a website front-end for creating usernames and validating addresses.

Website Code

Clams

Clams Remote, a tool for managing your Core Lightning node, allows you to create and pay BOLT 12 offers.

Website Code

ROYGBIV

ROYGBIV is a prism plugin for Core Lightning, letting you create a BOLT 12 offer that, when paid to, automatically splits the payment into multiple receipts.

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Ride the Lightning

RTL, a lightning node management UI, allows Core Lightning node operators to create BOLT 12 offers.

Website Code

BOLT 12 Zapper

A Bitcoin++ 2024 hackathon project for zapping BOLT 12 offers in nostr profiles.

Code

Lampo

A fast and modular lightning network implementation for all usages, written in Rust. lampo (lightning in Italian) is a experimental implementation of a tiny lightning node

Website Code

payto

A Core Lightning (CLN) companion app that can pay to lightning address, LNURL, BIP 353 (DNS Payment Instructions) and BOLT 12 offers

Code

BOLT 12 Playground

The BOLT 12 Playground from Strike provides a docker stack that comprises of bitcoind, LND, LNDK, CLN, Eclair and LDK Node. It connects everything together, initializes wallets, and creates channels between the nodes.

Website Code

Phoenix

Phoenix is a self-custodial Bitcoin wallet using Lightning to send/receive payments.

Website Code

Get Involved

Interested in adopting BOLT 12 or helping make it the new standard for instant bitcoin payments? Start here:
DiscordGithub PR