Published on: 2021-03-18T09:36:23+00:00
A recent email exchange between Elias Rohrer and René Pickhardt focused on path finding in the Lightning Network. Pickhardt's research proposes using probabilistic path finding, which involves sorting paths by their descending success probability during the trial and error payment process. This approach is more beneficial than using heuristics like fees or route length. By updating probabilities from current failures, the number of average attempts decreases, resulting in faster payment delivery. The main reason for multiple attempts and longer processing times is the uncertainty of channel balance values.The study applies probability theory to define channel success and failure probabilities, as well as (multi)path success and failure probabilities. The success probability declines exponentially with the number of uncertain channels in a (multi)path. Splitting payments into smaller amounts increases success probabilities, and the decision to split payments is influenced by factors such as payment pair, amount, and splitting strategy. For small amounts, splitting is generally not recommended.In a separate email to the Lightning-dev mailing list, Pickhardt shared insights on optimizing the split of uncertain channel balances. He emphasized that an equally sized split is not preferable and provided an example to illustrate this point. Instead, a split that allocates funds proportionally based on channel capacity is more reasonable. Pickhardt mentioned that there is more math theory on solving the optimization problem in the general case, but those results are not yet available. However, he expressed confidence that updates on this topic will be released soon.To further explore the security and privacy of Lightning Network payments with uncertain channel balances, Pickhardt provided a link to an arXiv paper. He also shared additional resources, including a Lightning critique podcast by Peter Rizun, a Lightning RFC pull request, and a lightning-dev mailing list thread.Despite concerns surrounding security and privacy, Lightning Network developers, led by Pickhardt, are actively working on addressing these issues through ongoing updates and discussions. Their focus is on improving payment path finding and enhancing the reliability of the payment process. By adopting a probabilistic approach and utilizing the research findings, developers aim to route payments along high-capacity channels, making it more difficult to manipulate the system through fees. The ultimate goal is to establish a real routing fee market and provide a more secure and efficient Lightning Network experience.
Updated on: 2023-07-31T23:25:38.496756+00:00