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Glossary

Lightning Invoice

1 min read

A Lightning invoice is similar to a normal invoice in that it serves as a request for payment. A Lightning invoice includes the amount to be paid, the destination of the payment, metadata, and a message.

Invoices are the Lightning equivalent of an address in that both are sent from the payee to the payer to facilitate a payment. Lightning invoices are usually represented as QR codes due to their length.

Related Terms
Lightning Network
The Lightning Network (LN) is a protocol designed to allow instant and cheap Bitcoin transactions. While it is still experimental, it shows great promise for Bitcoin’s ability to scale.
Learn more.
Address
An address is used to receive bitcoin and is represented as a string of letters and numbers. When you send bitcoin to an address, only the owner of the private key(s) corresponding with the address can spend that bitcoin.
Learn more.
QR Code
A QR code is a graphical representation of arbitrary data similar to a barcode. A QR code can represent a URL, a Bitcoin address, a Lightning Invoice, and much more.
Learn more.
Bech32
Bech32 is an encoding scheme used to encode SegWit addresses and lightning invoices. The Bech32 alphabet contains 32 characters.
Learn more.
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