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High 70 Bitcoin

Add inbound and outbound checks for zero reserve channels

Public commit record

What the developer wrote

Authored by Leo Nash

77/100 · Adequate
Add inbound and outbound checks for zero reserve channels

The goal is to prevent any commitments with no outputs, since these are
not broadcastable.
✓ Specific, descriptive subject✓ Names a concrete action or component✓ Provides an explanatory body✓ Explains rationale or failure mode
The short version

What changed, and why it matters

This commit fixes a bug in the Lightning Dev Kit where a payment channel could end up with a commitment transaction that has zero spendable outputs. In Bitcoin, a transaction with no outputs is invalid and cannot be broadcast, which would make it impossible to enforce or recover funds from the channel if something goes wrong. The patch adds checks during channel opening, fee updates, and HTLC handling to ensure that zero-reserve channels always keep at least one valid output.

Recommended action

Review and merge the patch, then run the updated test suite. Operators using zero-reserve channels should upgrade to a release containing this fix to avoid unenforceable channel states.

Security signals we found

01

Prevents non-broadcastable commitment transactions (zero outputs)

02

Adds explicit rejection of peer commitment txs with empty output set

03

Preserves zero-reserve policy across channel value renegotiation

04

Adds HTLC boundary checks to avoid dusting out all commitment outputs

05

Includes new/updated unit tests across channel open, payment, fee, and reserve test files

Risk score

Why this scored 70/100

Our methodology →
Potential impact 22/30
Exploitability 14/25
Stealth signal 10/15
Affected reach 12/15
Confidence 8/10
Evidence quality 4/5
Human-validated context

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