Related papers: Congestion Attacks in Payment Channel Networks
Payment channel is a class of techniques designed to solve the scalability problem of blockchain. By establishing channels off the blockchain to form payment channel networks (PCNs), users can make instant payments without interacting with…
The Lightning Network (LN) is a second-layer protocol for Bitcoin designed to enable fast and cost-efficient off-chain transactions. Channels in the LN can be closed either by mutual agreement or unilaterally through a forced closure, which…
In this paper, we identify a new form of attack, called the Balance attack, against proof-of-work blockchain systems. The novelty of this attack consists of delaying network communications between multiple subgroups of nodes with balanced…
While being decentralized, secure, and reliable, Bitcoin and many other blockchain-based cryptocurrencies suffer from scalability issues. One of the promising proposals to address this problem is off-chain payment channels. Since, not all…
Today, payment paths in Bitcoin's Lightning Network are found by searching for shortest paths on the fee graph. We enhance this approach in two dimensions. Firstly, we take into account the probability of a payment actually being possible…
We study a random process over graphs inspired by the way payments are executed in the Lightning Network, the main layer-two solution on top of Bitcoin. We first prove almost tight upper and lower bounds on the time it takes for a payment…
It is now a whole year since Lightning Network (LN) has been launched on the Bitcoi's mainnet. LN has been claimed as the solution for several of Bitcoin's weaknesses such as its difficulty to scale in number of transactions per second and…
The Bitcoin Lightning Network is a Layer 2 payment protocol that addresses Bitcoin's scalability by facilitating quick and cost effective transactions through payment channels. This research explores the feasibility of using machine…
Payment Channel Networks (PCNs) are a method for improving the scaling and latency of cryptocurrency transactions. For a payment to be made between two peers in a PCN, a feasible low-fee path in the network must be planned. Many PCN path…
Payment networks, also known as channels, are a most promising solution to the throughput problem of cryptocurrencies. In this paper we study the design of capital-efficient payment networks, offline as well as online variants. We want to…
Payment channels networks drastically increase the throughput and hence scalability of blockchains by performing transactions \emph{off-chain}. In an off-chain payment, parties deposit coins in a channel and then perform transactions…
Public blockchains inherently offer low throughput and high latency, motivating off-chain scalability solutions such as Payment Channel Networks (PCNs). However, existing PCNs suffer from liquidity fragmentation-funds locked in one channel…
Conflicting transactions within blockchain networks not only pose performance challenges but also introduce security vulnerabilities, potentially facilitating malicious attacks. In this paper, we explore the impact of conflicting…
Payment channel networks (PCNs) have emerged as a scalability solution for blockchains built on the concept of a payment channel: a setting that allows two nodes to safely transact between themselves in high frequencies based on…
We present and validate a novel mathematical model of the blockchain mining process and use it to conduct an economic evaluation of the double-spend attack, which is fundamental to all blockchain systems. Our analysis focuses on the value…
The last decade has experienced a vast interest in Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies with a specific focus on the applications of this technology. However, slow confirmation times of transactions and unforeseeable high fees hamper their…
Blockchain protocols are inherently limited in transaction throughput and latency. Recent efforts to address performance and scale blockchains have focused on off-chain payment channels. While such channels can achieve low latency and high…
Bitcoin blockchain faces the bitcoin scalability problem, for which bitcoin's blocks contain the transactions on the bitcoin network. The on-chain transaction processing capacity of the bitcoin network is limited by the average block…
This paper presents a formal analysis of the Lightning Network as a monetary system structurally diverging from Bitcoin's base-layer settlement model. We demonstrate that under increasing transaction demand, BTC transaction fees rise…
Many prominent smart-contract applications such as payment channels, auctions, and voting systems often involve a mechanism in which some party must respond to a challenge or appeal some action within a fixed time limit. This pattern of…