Also covering Multipart payments, Simplified multipath payments, and Base AMP

Simplified Multipath Payments (SMPs), also called Base AMP, are LN payments that are split into two or more parts all sharing the same hash and preimage, and which are sent using a different path for each part.

Although proposed after atomic multipath payments (AMP), simplified multipath payments required fewer changes to the LN protocol to implement and preserved the ability for spenders to receive a cryptographic proof of payment, so they were the first to be deployed on the production network.

The main downside of simplified multipath payments when using HTLCs is that third-parties who see multiple payments all using the same hash can infer that they’re part of a larger true payment.

Both AMP and SMP allow splitting higher value HTLCs into multiple lower value HTLCs that are more likely to individually succeed, so a spender with sufficient liquidity can use almost all of their funds at once no matter how many channels those funds are split across.

Primary code and documentation

Optech newsletter and website mentions

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

See also

Previous Topic:
Minisketch
Next Topic:
Multisignature

Edit page
Report Issue