BOLT12 Offers: A Technical Deep Dive

The Context

BOLT12 Offers fix a problem that has plagued Lightning since day one: reusable payment endpoints.

The old way - BOLT11 invoices - required generating a new invoice for every payment. Fine for one-off transactions. Terrible for subscriptions, donations, or any recurring payment flow.

Why This Matters

This isn't just a UX improvement. It's infrastructure-level capability unlocking. With Offers, Lightning can finally compete with card-on-file payment patterns.

The technical implications for Strike's merchant products were significant - and this post walks through exactly how we approached the integration.