Re: [w3c/webpayments] Should the WPWG develop a cryptocurrency payment method specification (#232)

Using crypto-currencies with the API is a matter of writing a payment method spec and getting implementations if that in wallets.

One of the challenges with crypto is there is now a proliferation of coins so support would be very fragmented.

One of the goals of the Interledger work is to provide a standard interaction that could overlay this and be currency agnostic.

The other benefit of using Interledger is that there is a built in concept of a "proof of payment" which works well with the PR API flow.

We foresee the flow working as follows:

1. PR is called with "interledger" as a supported method. (Note this is not a URL-type payment method identifier as there is no manifest allowing anyone to control the payment method. Support is already built into Chrome and we hope others will follow when the WG takes up the Payment Method spec)
2. An "interledger" capable wallet gets the ILP Address of the receiver, the amount that must be delivered and the condition to use from the PR.
3. It sends the ILP payment (source of funds being any account that can send to an ILP connector on the payment route)
4. It returns the fulfillment (from the completed payment) to the merchant website

This could be either a payment in a single currency or one where the sending currency is different to the receiving account.

My expectation is that even for single currency payments ILP is useful because it provides a standard interaction that wallets and websites can implement once and use for any currency.

We're busy doing some experiments with payment channels as this seems like the only viable way to do retail payments using crypto-currencies otherwise the payment takes too long to complete. Expect a few prototypes using Lightning and microRaiden over the coming months.

If you are interested in building an implementation or working with us on this we'd love to work together.

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