Published on: 2018-01-30T17:23:11+00:00
The Lightning Network developers are prioritizing getting implementations to a state where they can be safely deployed on Bitcoin Mainnet. They plan to optimize further by adding features like RBF and multi-channel funding, as well as integrating Burchert-Decker-Wattenhofer channel factories and splicing. The support for altcoins is considered a low priority at the moment, with greater support planned for later.In terms of maintaining consensus during or after a fork, there is concern about safety despite BIP 50 scenarios and the potential for forks with more legitimate contention. The system stability is also a concern, especially considering the increasingly unsophisticated/gullible user base. Resilience against forks is seen as critical to safety, but it's important to not assume consensus in its design when there are entities financially motivated to fracture that consensus.The discussion also addresses the issue of adversarial forks that remove segwit or maliciously do not change their signature algorithm. These types of forks are impossible to defend against, and any nodes following such a fork would suffer. However, the incentives strongly motivate maintenance of consensus, so this scenario is automatically covered and not a major concern. The BOLTs explicitly require segwit2x, making BCH presently of no concern.The topic of unintentional forks and how existing channels handle them remains to be analyzed and designed. This is an area that requires further work. The short channel IDs contain the block height at which the funding transaction confirmed, which may be used to judge if a channel contains forked coins or not.Overall, the Lightning Network developers are focused on ensuring the safety, consensus, and resilience of the network during or after a fork of the underlying blockchain(s). The priority is to get implementations to a state where they can be safely deployed, with optimizations and integration of features planned for the future. The support for altcoins and the handling of intentional and unintentional forks are areas that will be addressed in due course.
Updated on: 2023-07-31T19:40:27.814828+00:00