Author: Mark Friedenbach 2015-12-16 03:48:59
Published on: 2015-12-16T03:48:59+00:00
The Lightning network is designed to keep latency low for transactions while remaining decentralized. However, there will still be some centralization pressure due to the desire for low latency transactions. The average user can expect a 10-hop payment to take between 1-2 seconds, with the inner-hops being between Tier-1 datacenter nodes primarily with payment channels chosen based on network proximity. A 'near' payment to someone closer to them would be under a second. However, even a network consisting entirely of last-mile endpoints geographically distributed around the world would only have a worst-case transaction time of only about 10s or so. Rusty Russell provides an example of a "Consumer - Relay - Provider" (2 hops) and estimates that up to 10 hops in a large lightning network could take up to 30 RTTs, which translates to around 10 seconds of transaction time.
Updated on: 2023-05-23T21:57:46.989012+00:00