Author: Greg Sanders 2018-01-30 16:55:58
Published on: 2018-01-30T16:55:58+00:00
The Lightning Network, a decentralized network for instant and high-volume Bitcoin transactions, has been discussed in recent emails among developers. One email discusses the possibility of adversarial forks that remove segwit or maliciously do not change their signature algorithm. The writer suggests focusing on forks that use strong replay protection in the form of FORKID instead. Another email discusses how Lightning nodes maintain consensus during or after a fork of the underlying blockchain(s). BTC is considered "the real BTC" and gets the Satoshi genesis hash while BCH is an altcoin that was forked off BTC and gets as hash the branching-off point. There is concern for safety despite BIP 50 scenarios, forks with more legitimate contention than so far seen, and also system stability in the face of increasingly unsophisticated/gullible user base. The work remains to analyze and design scenarios where existing channels handle intentional or unintentional forks. Altcoin support is considered a low priority until after optimization and integration of features like RBF and multi-channel funding.
Updated on: 2023-05-24T18:46:04.720636+00:00