Lightning invoice (BOLT11)
Also · Invoice · BOLT11 · BOLT12 offer
A Lightning invoice is a payment request created by the recipient. It encodes the destination, an optional amount, a payment hash and an expiry, in the BOLT11 format.
Unlike a Bitcoin address, which anyone can pay at any time, a Lightning payment usually starts with the recipient. Their wallet generates an invoice, a long string starting with lnbc that encodes who to pay, how much if fixed, a description, a payment hash tied to a secret only they know, routing hints and an expiry time. The payer scans it and the HTLCs do the rest.
Invoices are single use and expire, which protects privacy but makes recurring payments awkward. BOLT12 offers, now supported by several implementations, let a recipient publish a reusable, static request from which fresh invoices are fetched over Lightning itself. LNURL solved a similar problem earlier through web servers.
In French · Facture Lightning (BOLT11)
