Author: Olaoluwa Osuntokun 2017-11-25 19:05:08
Published on: 2017-11-25T19:05:08+00:00
The paper discusses the concept of coordinate embedding and how it can be used to provide sender+receiver privacy in a payment network using a distance-vector-like routing system. The protocol presents novel traits in designing a routing system for payment channel-based networks that lend better to closed-membership, credit networks, such as Ripple. In comparison, LN is an open-membership network that requires zero initial configuration by central administrators(s). Currently, the protocol utilizes a source-routed system which requires the sender to know "most" of the path to the destination. Plans are underway to achieve proper sender/receiver privacy by extending Sphinx usage to leverage HORNET. One countermeasure would be that the sender always sends more than necessary and gives the receiver a one-time payment identifier, requiring that they route the remainder of the funds back to them.Researchers from Purdue University have developed a routing algorithm for decentralized payment networks, such as the Lightning Network, called SpeedyMurmurs. The approach uses an embedding-based method to assign meaningful coordinates to nodes, which enables efficient and effective discovery of payment paths. It creates a spanning tree through a Breadth-First Search and then associates a coordinate to each node depending on its position in the tree. A path from the sender to the receiver is then calculated in a flexible manner, with each intermediate node choosing the next node in the path as a function of its neighbours' coordinates, available funds and closeness to the receiver. The simulation results show that SpeedyMurmurs is faster than other routing algorithms and reduces the communication overhead by at least a factor of 2 while maintaining a similar or higher payment success ratio. The researchers also showed that SpeedyMurmurs achieves the privacy notions of interest in the Lightning Network, such as value privacy and sender and receiver privacy. However, there are concerns over the possible fragility of the network due to the need for globally known landmarks, which could introduce vulnerabilities in the event of hardware issues, DoS attacks or exploited bugs.The Lightning Network team is actively working on finding better solutions to the problem of finding routes across a vast network of millions, if not billions, of nodes. They have a minimally viable routing protocol in the spec which pushes the entire network's topology to the edges, allowing them to locally compute routes. The network can currently scale to about 1 million channels even on very limited devices, and upgrading to another protocol at a later point in time is trivial since none of the routing information is consensus critical.Regarding rebalancing, Christian Decker, a core developer at Blockstream, suggested that nodes could open bypasses to grab some of the traffic and associated fees from the expensive hub. He also stated that disincentivizing the use of a channel until they have been rebalanced can be a good option for long-term imbalances, while opening another channel may be the best choice. Decker believes that the Lightning Network will reduce the load on the on-chain network sufficiently to allow timely on-chain settlements. By aggregating payments off-chain, the network can also aggregate the fees and then use them to pay on-chain fees. Decker added that automations are being built to improve the network topology, so users won't have to do anything themselves. The Lightning Network is a proposed off-chain scaling solution for Bitcoin transactions that aims to solve the problem of slow confirmation times and high transaction fees on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T16:13:50.573731+00:00