This document serves as an introductory point for users interested in reducing their hot-wallet risks, allowing them to maintain on-chain funds outside of lnd
but still be able to manage them within lnd
. As of v0.13.0-beta
, lnd
is able to import BIP-0049 and BIP-0084 extended public keys either at the account path (m/purpose'/coin_type'/account'
) or at the address index path (m/purpose'/coin_type'/account'/change/address_index
) as watch-only through the WalletKit
APIs.
Note that in order to follow the rest of this document and/or use the WalletKit
APIs, users will need to obtain a lnd
build compiled with the walletrpc
tag. Our release builds already include this tag by default, so this would only be necessary when compiling from source.
Upon initializing lnd
, a wallet is created with four default accounts:
-
A custom BIP-0049 account (more on this later) to generate NP2WKH external
addresses.
-
A BIP-0084 account to generate P2WKH external and change addresses.
-
A catch-all BIP-0049 account where all imported BIP-0049 address keys (NP2WKH
addresses) exist within.
-
A catch-all BIP-0084 account where all imported BIP-0049 address keys (P2WKH
addresses) exist within.
Prior to v0.13.0-beta
, these accounts were abstracted away from users. As part of the key import feature, they are now exposed through the new WalletKit
RPCs (ListAccounts
, ImportAccount
, ImportPublicKey
) and the lncli wallet accounts
command.
$ lncli wallet accounts
NAME:
lncli wallet accounts - Interact with wallet accounts.
USAGE:
lncli wallet accounts command [command options] [arguments...]
COMMANDS:
list Retrieve information of existing on-chain wallet accounts.
import Import an on-chain account into the wallet through its extended public key.
import-pubkey Import a public key as watch-only into the wallet.
OPTIONS:
--help, -h show help
Before interacting with the new set of APIs, users will want to become familiar with how wallet accounts are represented within lnd
. The WalletKit.ListAccounts
RPC or lncli wallet accounts list
command can be used to retrieve the details of accounts.
$ lncli wallet accounts list
{
"accounts": [
{
"name": "default",
"address_type": "HYBRID_NESTED_WITNESS_PUBKEY_HASH",
"extended_public_key": "upub5EbJZz2tYCpPFgDAMDnXpTeLs5EMNJAfyzRKQuUiTugSaJDjnDdk9vNcENzpw1FnxkerNW7jLuBeoxmcGMtopGExmaWqrMB7wRgU8tExTMz",
"master_key_fingerprint": null,
"derivation_path": "m/49'/0'/0'",
"external_key_count": 0,
"internal_key_count": 0,
"watch_only": false
},
{
"name": "default",
"address_type": "WITNESS_PUBKEY_HASH",
"extended_public_key": "vpub5Z9beF6NYCrHeDmKC38tM3xXMDFFSARa9sdHRPChEMGqtxiELfZB8hm6FwBpBvfPpX2HGG8edYVV9Wupe43PEJJhhfnz1egtQNNaDXyYExn",
"master_key_fingerprint": null,
"derivation_path": "m/84'/0'/0'",
"external_key_count": 0,
"internal_key_count": 0,
"watch_only": false
}
]
}
There's a lot to unpack in the response above, so let's cover each account field in detail. As mentioned above, four default accounts should exist, though only two are shown in the output. The catch-all imported accounts are hidden by default until a key has been imported into them.
-
name
: Each account has a name it can be identified by.lnd
's defaultspendable accounts have the name "default". The default catch-all imported
accounts have the name "imported".
-
extended_public_key
: The BIP-0044 extended public key for the account. Anyaddresses generated for the account are derived from this key. Each key has a
version prefix that identifies the chain and derivation scheme being used. At
the time of writing,
lnd
supports the following versions:-
xpub/tpub
: The commonly used version prefix originally intended forBIP-0032 mainnet/testnet extended keys. Since
lnd
does not supportBIP-0032 extended keys, this version serves as a catch-all for the other
versions.
-
ypub/upub
: The version prefix for BIP-0049 mainnet/testnet extended keys. -
zpub/vpub
: The version prefix for BIP-0084 mainnet/testnet extended keys.
-
-
address_type
: The type of addresses the account can derive. There are threesupported address types:
-
WITNESS_PUBKEY_HASH
: The standard derivation scheme for BIP-0084 withP2WKH for external and change addresses.
-
NESTED_WITNESS_PUBKEY_HASH
: The standard derivation scheme for BIP-0049with P2WKH for external and change addresses.
-
HYBRID_NESTED_WITNESS_PUBKEY_HASH
A custom derivation scheme for BIP-0049used by
lnd
where NP2WKH is used for external addresses and P2WKH forchange addresses.
-
-
master_key_fingerprint
: The 4 byte fingerprint of the master keycorresponding to the account. This is usually required by hardware
wallet/external signers to identify the proper signing key.
-
derivation_path
: The BIP-0044 derivation path used on the master key toobtain the account key.
-
external_key_count
: The number of external addresses generated. -
internal_key_count
: The number of change addresses generated. -
watch_only
: Whether the wallet has private key information for the account.This is always true for
lnd
's default wallet accounts.
An existing limitation to the key import APIs is that events (deposits/spends) for imported keys, including those derived from an imported account, will only be detected by lnd if they happen after the import. Rescans to detect past events are currently not supported, but will come at a later time.
The WalletKit.ImportAccount
RPC and lncli wallet accounts import
command can be used to import an account. At the time of writing, importing an account has the following request parameters:
-
name
(required): A name to identify the imported account with. -
extended_public_key
(required): A public key that corresponds to a wallet accountrepresented as an extended key. It must conform to a derivation path of the
form
m/purpose'/coin_type'/account'
. -
master_key_fingerprint
(optional): The fingerprint of the root key (alsoknown as the key with derivation path m/) from which the account public key
was derived from. This may be required by some hardware wallets for proper
identification and signing.
-
address_type
(optional): An address type is only required when the extendedaccount public key has a legacy version (xpub, tpub, etc.), such that the
wallet cannot detect what address scheme it belongs to.
-
dry_run
(optional): Whether a dry run should be attempted when importing theaccount. This serves as a way to confirm whether the account is being imported
correctly by returning the first N addresses for the external and internal
branches of the account. If these addresses match as expected, then it should
be safe to import the account as is.
For the sake of simplicity, we'll present an example with two lnd
nodes Alice and Bob, where Alice acts as a signer only, and Bob manages Alice's on-chain BIP-0084 account by crafting transactions and watching/spending addresses. Since Alice will only act as a signer, we'll want to import her BIP-0084 account into Bob's node, which will require knowledge of Alice's extended public key.
Alice's BIP-0084 extended public key can be obtained as follows.
$ lncli-alice wallet accounts list --name=default --address_type=p2wkh
{
"accounts": [
{
"name": "default",
"address_type": "WITNESS_PUBKEY_HASH",
"extended_public_key": "vpub5Z9beF6NYCrHeDmKC38tM3xXMDFFSARa9sdHRPChEMGqtxiELfZB8hm6FwBpBvfPpX2HGG8edYVV9Wupe43PEJJhhfnz1egtQNNaDXyYExn",
"master_key_fingerprint": null,
"derivation_path": "m/84'/0'/0'",
"external_key_count": 0,
"internal_key_count": 0,
"watch_only": false
}
]
}
Bob can then import the account with the following command:
$ lncli-bob wallet accounts import vpub5Z9beF6NYCrHeDmKC38tM3xXMDFFSARa9sdHRPChEMGqtxiELfZB8hm6FwBpBvfPpX2HGG8edYVV9Wupe43PEJJhhfnz1egtQNNaDXyYExn alice
Before Bob imports the account, they may want to confirm the account is being imported using the correct derivation scheme. This can be done with the dry run request parameter. When a dry run is done, the response will include the usual account details, as well as the first 5 external and change addresses, which can be used to confirm they match with what the account owner expects.
$ lncli-bob wallet accounts import vpub5Z9beF6NYCrHeDmKC38tM3xXMDFFSARa9sdHRPChEMGqtxiELfZB8hm6FwBpBvfPpX2HGG8edYVV9Wupe43PEJJhhfnz1egtQNNaDXyYExn alice --dry_run
{
"account": {
"name": "alice",
"address_type": "WITNESS_PUBKEY_HASH",
"extended_public_key": "vpub5Z9beF6NYCrHeDmKC38tM3xXMDFFSARa9sdHRPChEMGqtxiELfZB8hm6FwBpBvfPpX2HGG8edYVV9Wupe43PEJJhhfnz1egtQNNaDXyYExn",
"master_key_fingerprint": null,
"derivation_path": "m/84'/0'/0'",
"external_key_count": 0,
"internal_key_count": 0,
"watch_only": true
},
"dry_run_external_addrs": [
"bcrt1q8zdjz2q92eh7jw9ah3upf2u9553226gq79el5l",
"bcrt1qmx2m4ngd2el0rmmcu0mz453yzzl3aq9mag0l79",
"bcrt1q904yve7yvt2t3v0s5r7rueweh4jjr3enfgam8w",
"bcrt1qa7k20jwfvsep8x0dx4jfu9xm0tlwaa8wrrgl77",
"bcrt1qzypxx35cfsl24mslqextetuc5m8vvadlqp20d8"
],
"dry_run_internal_addrs": [
"bcrt1qlstwh8ecy7szfw7k6rllc4ajkg6922xjwj6a23",
"bcrt1qdrz9glz4ld7uyxwv3jz2anx4k9pe3zm86hpy9g",
"bcrt1qfdu6tfhs85q20tf48nhtx0kjgr0t2j25apm90t",
"bcrt1qkmysm9wlnhyyc4uhfaxyafj6q3e3ujcnh97cqc",
"bcrt1qw8hhmdg3atfp7dcwjtysq4kcmnh07kjy2rd2ay"
]
}
Once Bob has confirmed the correct account derivation scheme is being used, the account can be imported without the dry run parameter.
$ lncli-bob wallet accounts import vpub5Z9beF6NYCrHeDmKC38tM3xXMDFFSARa9sdHRPChEMGqtxiELfZB8hm6FwBpBvfPpX2HGG8edYVV9Wupe43PEJJhhfnz1egtQNNaDXyYExn alice
{
"account": {
"name": "alice",
"address_type": "WITNESS_PUBKEY_HASH",
"extended_public_key": "vpub5Z9beF6NYCrHeDmKC38tM3xXMDFFSARa9sdHRPChEMGqtxiELfZB8hm6FwBpBvfPpX2HGG8edYVV9Wupe43PEJJhhfnz1egtQNNaDXyYExn",
"master_key_fingerprint": null,
"derivation_path": "m/84'/0'/0'",
"external_key_count": 0,
"internal_key_count": 0,
"watch_only": true
}
}
External addresses from an imported account can be generated through the existing Lightning.NewAddress
RPC and lncli newaddress
command, as they now take an additional optional parameter to specify which account the address should be derived from.
Following the example above, Bob is able to generate an external address for an incoming deposit as follows:
$ lncli-bob newaddress p2wkh --account=alice
{
"address": "bcrt1q8zdjz2q92eh7jw9ah3upf2u9553226gq79el5l"
}
Change addresses cannot be generated on demand, they are generated automatically when a transaction is crafted that requires a change output.
Assuming a deposit of 1 tBTC was made to the address above (bcrt1q8zdjz2q92eh7jw9ah3upf2u9553226gq79el5l
), Bob should be able to craft a transaction spending their new UTXO. Since Bob is unable to sign the transaction themselves, they'll use PSBTs to craft the transaction, and provide it to Alice to sign.
$ lncli-bob wallet psbt fund --account=alice --outputs="{\"bcrt1qpjqr663tylcksysa4u76xvremee9k8af3pqd5h\": 500000}" --sat_per_vbyte=1
{
"psbt": "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",
"change_output_index": 1,
"locks": [
{
"id": "ede19a92ed321a4705f8a1cccc1d4f6182545d4bb4fae08bd5937831b7e38f98",
"outpoint": "c979fd1a72ffa441c577a6e91825558f6da416886c15e87f106e0d9c41ccc780:0",
"expiration": 1621632493
}
]
}
The PSBT can then be provided to Alice to sign:
$ lncli-alice wallet psbt finalize --funded_psbt="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"
{
"psbt": "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",
"final_tx": "0200000000010180c7cc419c0d6e107fe8156c8816a46d8f552518e9a677c541a4ff721afd79c90000000000ffffffff0220a10700000000001600140c803d6a2b27f168121daf3da33079de725b1fa95635fe2901000000160014fc16eb9f3827a024bbd6d0fffc57b2b2345528d202483045022100b64e4a1181f004e9b4d64543f47687eda1699568c8117b716f86169d3b65b50d0220735d8358779a92f012d0243844cd6dd583116183db9161e77284710ad4156cb7012102b6c24370b4793ad27ae1289168cdeedcb6e654b33718829592f7b676e69431ba00000000"
}