Author: David A. Harding 2022-09-23 04:39:55
Published on: 2022-09-23T04:39:55+00:00
In a recent discussion on the Lightning-dev mailing list, ZmnSCPxj suggests modeling a rate card as four separate channels between the same two nodes with different costs each. If the path at the lowest cost fails, one can try another route that may have more hops but lower effective cost or try the same channel at a higher cost. However, Dave raises concerns about pathfinding algorithms that depend on unscalable data collection, which could lead to centralized entities performing data collection to the detriment of the network's robustness and its participants' independence.Dave argues that try-and-try-another-path is problematic because high-frequency spenders gain more knowledge about which channels and amounts recently worked, leading to significant performance advantages over low-frequency spenders. He believes that a more idealized system would rarely have forwarding failures to prevent such discrepancies. Hence, he sees fee rate cards as a small step in the wrong direction towards centralized dependency, as it models one channel as four separate channels, further normalizing failure.However, Dave acknowledges that rate cards are still a better alternative than frequently issuing new channel updates with modified fees.
Updated on: 2023-06-03T09:46:22.281201+00:00