FIPA-compliant micropayments using Bitcoin Lightning Network
Yrjölä, Juho (2022)
2022
Automaatiotekniikan DI-ohjelma - Master's Programme in Automation Engineering
Tekniikan ja luonnontieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2022-03-14
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202202222105
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202202222105
Tiivistelmä
Due to the growth of popularity in the fields of Internet of Things (IoT) and automation, multitude of use cases for Machine to Machine (M2M) payments is expected emerge. Some of these use cases require payments of very small value, called micropayments. In this thesis a proof-of-concept protocol for sending M2M micropayments is designed and implemented. The technologies that were chosen for the implementation are JADE-framework that is based on FIPA multiagent-system, and Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN).
The objective of the design and implementation of the system is to find out if it is possible to create this type of protocol to be affordable and fast enough to perform well in multitude of micropayment use cases. The protocol is designed in a way that the counterparties of a payment can denominate the value of the payment in a traditional currency such as euro. Also, the design and implementation are done in a way that they are easily adaptable to multitude of use cases.
The system is based on two types of JADE-agents: a payment sender agent and a payment receiver agent. The agents are linked to their respective LN nodes, via which the payment is conveyed. LN node is a software capable of storing, sending and receiving bitcoin on the LN. To denominate the value of the payment in traditional currency, each agent fetches the price of bitcoin independently from an external web resource.
A series of payments was made using the implementation to measure the speed and affordability of the payments. The fee for each payment was around 0.0005 euro, or 0.05 cents. The time to complete a payment using the protocol varied between 3 and 30 seconds. The time was longer than expected and was assumed to be mostly caused by the constrained hardware that was used to run the LN nodes. It was concluded that a similar protocol to the one that was designed could be a suitable infrastructure for M2M micropayments in the future.
The objective of the design and implementation of the system is to find out if it is possible to create this type of protocol to be affordable and fast enough to perform well in multitude of micropayment use cases. The protocol is designed in a way that the counterparties of a payment can denominate the value of the payment in a traditional currency such as euro. Also, the design and implementation are done in a way that they are easily adaptable to multitude of use cases.
The system is based on two types of JADE-agents: a payment sender agent and a payment receiver agent. The agents are linked to their respective LN nodes, via which the payment is conveyed. LN node is a software capable of storing, sending and receiving bitcoin on the LN. To denominate the value of the payment in traditional currency, each agent fetches the price of bitcoin independently from an external web resource.
A series of payments was made using the implementation to measure the speed and affordability of the payments. The fee for each payment was around 0.0005 euro, or 0.05 cents. The time to complete a payment using the protocol varied between 3 and 30 seconds. The time was longer than expected and was assumed to be mostly caused by the constrained hardware that was used to run the LN nodes. It was concluded that a similar protocol to the one that was designed could be a suitable infrastructure for M2M micropayments in the future.