Awesome information. A deep read, but not too technical and a good reference to bookmark if you're like me and didn't get it all the first time.

Thanks Lord @DarthCoin!

Thanks Darth.

Good article.

When a public payment channel is created, the node sends a channel_announcement message to other nodes in the network through the gossip protocol. To avoid spam, the node sending the message must prove that the payment channel exists in the blockchain. This is done by sending the location of the funding transaction along with some other data that can be used by third parties to validate the ownership of the funding transaction.