Author: Antoine Riard 2020-05-06 08:27:45
Published on: 2020-05-06T08:27:45+00:00
In an email exchange between Antoine Riard and Andrés G. Aragoneses on May 5, 2020, Antoine raises concerns about the scalability of light client protocols for Bitcoin's Lightning Network (LN). While trust-minimization of Bitcoin security has always relied on running a full-node, LN may attract a lot of adoption without users running a full-node due to its fast, affordable, confidential, censorship-resistant payment services. However, designing a mobile-first LN experience poses challenges, particularly in terms of security and privacy. The problem can be "scoped as how to build a scalable, secure, private chain access backend for millions of LN clients?" Light client protocols for LN exist but their privacy and security guarantees with regards to implementation on the client-side may still be an object of concern. The number of full-nodes willing to dedicate resources to serve those clients is likely one of the bottlenecks. Assuming 10M light clients each consuming ~100MB/month for filters/headers means asking 1PB/month of traffic to the backbone network which is consequent with regards to the estimated cost of 350GB/month for running an actual public node. Widening full-node adoption means as much as possible to bound its operational cost. Antoine suggests introducing monetary compensation in exchange for servicing filters. Light clients not dedicating resources to maintain the network but free-riding on it may use their micro-payment capabilities to price chain access resources. This proposition may suit within the watchtower paradigm where another entity is delegated some part of the protocol execution, alleviating client loneliness requirement. However, how do you avoid such "chain access" market turning into an oligopoly is an open question. It maybe fine to rely on few thousands of full-node operators being nice and servicing friendly millions of LN mobiles clients. But just in case it may be good to consider a reasonable alternative.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T01:11:56.187119+00:00