Published on: 2020-10-08T16:17:29+00:00
The Lightning-dev mailing list is currently discussing the possibility of implementing an upfront payment system for relay nodes in the Lightning Network. One proposal that has been put forward is called "incremental routing," which involves using the route of pending HTLCs as an encrypted bidirectional tunnel. This would allow for the gradual building of a route until reaching the destination.In the proposed system, part of the fund value would be given forward to the next peer on the timelock branch. The direct peer would require an upfront payment before making an outgoing HTLC based on the incoming one. However, the maximum amount that can be stolen by the direct peer would be limited to the upfront fee of a single hop being built out next in the incremental routing.One advantage of incremental routing is that it offers a more manageable way to handle the time risk of money being locked up. Users can start with an HTLC with the minimum time and then increase the time of the first HTLC as they build up the incremental route towards the destination.However, there are some drawbacks to this system. It requires more communication rounds and cryptographic operations compared to traditional routing methods. Additionally, intermediate nodes may be able to guess the distance from the source by measuring the timing of a previous response to the next message from the payer.It is important to note that the idea of incremental routing is still in the conceptual stage and has not yet been peer-reviewed. Therefore, there may be potential cryptographic or practical issues with the implementation.Overall, incremental routing presents a potentially more secure approach to sending payments on the Lightning Network. However, further research and development are needed to address the challenges associated with this system.
Updated on: 2023-07-31T23:05:08.580681+00:00