SPEC.md

Bolt card specification

The bolt card system is built on the technologies listed below.

• LUD-03: withdrawRequest base spec.
  • with the exception of maxWithdrawable which must be returned as higher than the actual maximum amount
• LUD-17: Protocol schemes and raw (non bech32-encoded) URLs.
• NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF)
• Replay protection
  • NXP Secure Unique NFC Message (SUN) technology as implemented in the NXP NTAG 424 DNA card

Bolt card systems should implement the best possible privacy.

• Privacy levels

Bolt card systems may optionally support these technogies.

• LUD-19: Pay link discoverable from withdraw link.
• LUD-21: pinLimit for withdrawRequest

Bolt card and POS interaction

the point-of-sale (POS) will read a NDEF message from the card, which changes with each use, for example

lnurlw://card.yourdomain.com?p=A2EF40F6D46F1BB36E6EBF0114D4A464&c=F509EEA788E37E32

the POS will then call your bolt card service here

https://card.yourdomain.com?p=A2EF40F6D46F1BB36E6EBF0114D4A464&c=F509EEA788E37E32

your bolt card service should verify the payment request as below and continue the standard LNURLw protocol as defined in LUD-03

Server side verification of the payment request

• for the p value and the SDM Meta Read Access Key value, decrypt the UID and counter with AES

• for the c value and the SDM File Read Access Key value, check with AES-CMAC

• the authenticated UID and counter is used on the bolt card service to verify that the request is valid

• the bolt card service must only accept an increasing counter value

• additional validation rules can be added at the bolt card service, for example

  • card enable flag
  • card payment limit per transaction
  • card payment limit per day
  • allowed merchant list
  • verification of your location from your phone

• the bolt card service can then make payment from a connected lightning node