Author: ZmnSCPxj 2019-04-01 02:21:53
Published on: 2019-04-01T02:21:53+00:00
The conversation is about the "channel capacity" pruning heuristic in the Lightning network. This heuristic suggests keeping high-capacity channels in the routemap as they are more likely to successfully route payments than smaller channels. However, low-capacity channels may still be reliable and are neglected due to this heuristic. The heuristic is gameable at the cost of devoting more capacity to Lightning. It is also incentive-compatible to source nodes with limited storage but which may need to forward arbitrary amounts to arbitrary nodes. The idea of replacing "aggregate-channel" with "high-capacity-channel" is discussed and it is suggested that the high-capacity channel would still work as a good route. If it falls into a state where it is unable to route in one direction or another, intermediate nodes have other lower-capacity channels that it can use just-in-time routing (JIT-Routing) with to improve the directionality of the high-capacity channel. Nodes still need to track their direct channels, but payee nodes making BOLT1 invoices could also provide 'r' routes in the invoice with the given routes being from nodes with high-capacity channels so that even if the intermediate channels are pruned due to low capacity, it is possible to get paid.It is noted that without low-capacity channels, spontaneous payments would not work unless all channels are too small to be kept in memory by typical source nodes. It is suggested that asking for an invoice under the hood might be better for spontaneous payments. Finally, the need for someone with complete knowledge of the network is discussed.
Updated on: 2023-06-02T18:08:49.895548+00:00