Author: Bastien TEINTURIER 2019-08-01 08:33:33
Published on: 2019-08-01T08:33:33+00:00
The email exchange discusses the challenges of routing in the Lightning Network, which is different from game path-finding algorithms due to paths being consumed by payments and the routing algorithm not knowing remote channel balance allocation. The cost of a path also depends on the value being sent, making optimal solutions difficult and encouraging fast and good enough solutions with retries. The email also touches on technicalities that might be problematic for suggestions like 'permuteroute' due to unreliable error reporting. The author also contemplates whether pre-computation and path caching can work, given that the cost depends on the amount being sent. The implementation of multi-part payments must be tightly integrated into the routing algorithm since each payment consumes a path and potentially steals it from other payments. The author suggests that the routing problem may be more similar to a circulation or network flow problem than path-finding. Finally, the email exchange emphasizes the need to focus on low hanging engineering fruits and incremental algorithmic updates rather than distant "pie in the sky" ideas.
Updated on: 2023-06-02T19:41:57.441848+00:00