Author: Jérôme Legoupil 2016-03-07 12:17:55
Published on: 2016-03-07T12:17:55+00:00
Jerome has suggested the idea of multi-party channels, which he calls JoinChannels. These payment channels involve more than two participants and have not been previously discussed in literature. Jerome believes that JoinChannels are more efficient than 2-2 payment channels for the Lightning Network. He explains that JoinChannels take up less blockchain space as they only require one multisig(3/3) transaction to open, while 3 parties linked together with 2-2 channels require three channels and three multisig(2/2) transactions. The signature time for JoinChannels is also only two rounds, regardless of the number of participants. Jerome points out that JoinChannels allow for bigger transfers of value through LN due to their higher connectivity. In contrast, all intermediate 2-2 channels need to have at least X locked in the right direction when transferring from Alice to Bob via LN. However, an intermediate LN node can be more efficient with JoinChannels, as they can put the sum of their funds into a JoinChannel, and the threshold condition of a transfer to occur is consequently higher.However, the downside to JoinChannels is that all participants must be online to participate in an LN transfer. This may become problematic if the payment needs to go through multiple JoinChannels containing hundreds or thousands of participants. Jerome provides an example of how JoinChannels enable bigger transfers of value through LN by comparing it to a configuration where the sender cannot send "2" to receiver because B doesn't have enough funds in AB channel. If (A,B,C) had performed a (3/3) JoinChannel, sender could have sent "2" to receiver for the same value of funds locked in the previous example.
Updated on: 2023-05-23T22:53:01.720817+00:00