Lockdown project, what a world I've discovered!

General Questions
#1

Hi there.
Over lock down a mate (I’m a back end dev, he’s more database minded) and I have been building a payment app using BTC. He loves BTC. I’m an XRP fanboy.

Then I got my head into iLP.
I am trying to convince him that iLP is the future, BUT I’ve gaps in my knowledge… anyone care to help dis-spell some myths in my head?

  1. Where the new PayID is a nice human readable address for sending Token to the same token ONLY (?) iLP is sending token X and receiver getting Token Y… is that correct?

  2. If I wanted to accept payments on a webpage or web app, can I share a single iLP address that anyone in the iLP world can send to, and ‘trust’ that it’ll find its way to to a wallet I have told iLP to deposit to?

  3. At what point in the payment chain, does iLP kick in so to speak.
    EG: I’ve got ETH on BitStamp. I want to send $100 worth of it to a mate who is an XLM fan.
    I don’t get how and when the iLP part kicks in and my ETH ‘becomes’ XLM. Is there a ‘iLP for dummies’ guide anywhere?

I think that’s it, I’ve loved learning what I have, though I think I HAVE to learn node.js pretty soon! (I’m a PHP dev… sorry!)

1 Like
#2

Hi @beertastic

Most basic use case for PayID is that payer and payee are using same currency, so they only need to exchange payment address, and PayID will map to correct underlying payment rail address like IBAN. ILP is built to accommodate cross ledger transactions, like you said from token x to token y so this is correct.

This is littlebit more complex process. ILP network is basically a credit network between ILSP (Interledger service provider) or ILP connectors, so you can setup your own moneyd instance to receive ILP packets but those are only for the record keeping, and settlement is separate process. With webmonetization standard you can add ILP payments for you website, check it out here http://webmonetization.org/

ILP happens in the beginning of the transaction. If we assume that BitStamp and Wallet service your friend uses, are both in ILP network. Then what happens is that BitStamp sends ILP ETH packets(payment) into your friend payment pointer, ILP network routes ILP ETH payment through connectors, one connector accepts both ETH and XML, This connector converts ILP ETH payment into ILP XML payment and sends that to your friends wallet service and they credit your friend XML account. Bitsamp, ILP connector and Wallet service then can settle their ILP accounts in ETH and XML when ever they want.

Hope this helps, interledger.org is good resources to learn more, I’m also writing blog post around ILP and soon payID stuff here https://medium.com/@otto_35626 these are more like non-technical but might answer some of your questions.

#3

OMG, this was great!
I guess now my mission is to get every one onto the iLP network!

So to just clarify a point in that last example. If I’m on bitStamp and my friends XLM wallet is NOT connected to iLP, the initial request from Bitstamp will fail, as it can’t ‘find’ my friends xLM details?

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#4

There can be a connector who will make payments to crypto accounts, but to make sure they really send the payment, we need to check it directly from the blockchain.