Author: Rusty Russell 2016-07-20 00:57:30
Published on: 2016-07-20T00:57:30+00:00
The lightning network has been under discussion and various points have been raised about it. It is understood that all bitcoin funds are "pending settlement to the blockchain" but immediately available to use on the lightning network. An extension protocol has been discussed where you would agree with your counterparty to split the funding transaction in order to pay some of it to a given bitcoin address. If Alice only has one channel, and it's to Bob, Bob can see all the amounts Alice spends although he gets an idea of the amounts. Traffic analysis is powerful even if the content is encrypted. This is specifically how Bletchley Park worked during WWII for at least half of the information it gleaned. LN with hubs (with routing) really only starts to gain major traffic optimization wins when it has a lot of channels and participants. A chicken and egg business problem is there. Lightning Network service is expected to bootstrap slowly along the same lines as bitcoin, possibly with a killer app to accelerate growth.
Updated on: 2023-05-23T23:51:25.561408+00:00