Last week, Blockstream released c-lightning 0.9.0, the latest version of one of the popular Lightning Network protocol implementations. The release was titled "Rat poison squared on steroids" (a reference to Warren Buffett's comment on bitcoin, which he called "rat poison squared").
With the new release, the developers have completed the integration of the multi-part payments (MPP) feature. Sometimes relatively large sums on the network do not go through since they require a large amount of liquidity on all channels between the sender node and the recipient node. If there is not enough liquidity for the payment, it will not go through. MPP splits payments into smaller parts to make them easier to send over the network.
C-lightning may have been receiving MPP since last year, "but Blockstream developer Christian Decker finally found the time to implement this feature on the sender side," company developer Rusty Russell said in a comment for Coindesk.
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Also, the new release of c-lightning makes it easier to connect watchtower to c-lightning. Watchtower is a Lightning component that aims to combat online fraud. The tower "watches" the users' bitcoins on the Lightning Network. If someone tries to trick the participants in the network, the watchtower will signal this and fine the fraudster.
C-lightning 0.9.0 laid the foundation for a tool that tracks all movements of a user's coins. Support for this functionality has been added in this release, but it will become available to users a little later. According to Russell, the developers are now putting the final touches on the plugin, which "will record whatever your tax office wants to know about where the money came from and where."
Russell also suggested that the development team has significantly redesigned support for the PSBT format, which simplifies transactions from hardware wallets.