Website: lightningaddress.com
API Docs Demo: https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/9124017/UVByKqQt
Lightning Address is a simple standard that aims to provide improved UX for end-users of the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
In Bitcoin you can send payments to anyone that provides you with a BTC address bc1q..... On Lightning however, things are different. Whenever Alice wants to pay Bob over the Lightning Network, Bob needs to first create an invoice for a predetermined amount, and then send it to Alice who can decode its contents and attempt the payment.
Lightning Address builds upon LNURL, which is a set of standards that provide better interactions between Wallets and Services. Any service provider, exchange, fintech, online store, etc, can take advantage of LNURL and provide better UX for their customers/users. If you've ever scanned a Lightning QR code and received funds, that is one of the LNURL protocols.
https://github.com/andrerfneves/lightning-address
At its core, the Lightning Address is an email-like internet identifier address for receiving Bitcoin over the Lightning Network.
One of the core properties of Bitcoin is interoperability: any service/wallet that speaks Bitcoin, can send and receive to any other service/wallet that also speaks Bitcoin. This is true on both the Bitcoin blockchain (layer 1) and the Bitcoin Lightning Network (layer 2).
It is common practice for many services/exchanges/providers to consume the Bitcoin blockchain and Lightning Network nodes, and then in turn create APIs for their developers/users which leverages the capabilities of their platform. This is a great feat as it aims to abstract all of the complexities of these sytems away from the end-users. However, one major downside to this is that any platform or app that wishes to support multiple of these providers will have to implement each API separately → say hello to vendor lock-in.
Akin to how open networks tend to amass the most usage over time, open API standards also bring in a ton of benefits, and specifically as it relates to Bitcoin services, LNURL and Lightning Address provide the holy grail for true interoperability across service providers.
Lightning Address is abstracting away a set of API endpoints, but at its core it's solving two main problems:
The LNURL Documents encompasses a handful of sub-protocols that are used for various purposes. LNURL Pay (payRequest) is the one used for Lightning Address.