Account, node, and channel
These are separate pieces of state:
| Concept | What it is | Where it lives |
|---|
| CKB account | The on-chain identity and cells controlled through the Lit PKP. | Recoverable from the authenticated email identity. |
| Fiber node | The networking process that creates invoices, finds routes, and updates channels. | Runs as WASM in the browser. |
| Channel database | The latest off-chain state for the user’s Fiber channels. | IndexedDB in the browser profile. |
Relays are not channels
When KeyWay starts, it connects to public testnet relays. Relay connections provide network reachability and gossip; they do not lock funds and do not give the user payment capacity.
activateCkbChannel() separately negotiates and funds a channel with an available channel peer. That channel places capacity into the Fiber graph.
On-chain and Fiber balances
- On-chain balance is the sum of live CKB cells controlled by the account’s lock script.
- Fiber balance is the sum of
local_balance across ready channels.
- Opening a channel moves capacity from ordinary CKB cells into a channel funding cell.
- Fiber payments update channel states off-chain rather than broadcasting one CKB transaction per payment.
Routed payments
A payment can cross several public channels:
Every hop must have enough outbound liquidity. A route may exist for 1 CKB and fail for 999 CKB because route existence and route capacity are different questions.
Browser ownership
Version 0.0.1 uses a browser-local Fiber node. One user therefore has both an account identity and a node identity. Closing the tab stops the running node, while its channel database remains in that browser for the next session.
Do not treat IndexedDB as disposable cache. It contains the off-chain channel state needed to resume the node safely.
