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Lightning Network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Lightning Network (LN) is a payment protocol built on the bitcoin blockchain.[1] It is intended to enable fast transactions among participating nodes (independently run members of the network) and has been proposed as a solution to the bitcoin scalability problem.[2][3][4]

History

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Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja published a Lightning Network white paper in February 2015.[5][6]

Lightning Labs launched the Lightning Network in 2018 with the goal of reducing the cost and time required for cryptocurrency transaction. Specifically, the bitcoin blockchain can only process around 7 transactions per second (compared to Visa Inc., which can process around 24,000 transactions per second). Despite initial enthusiasm for the Lightning Network, reports on social media of failed transactions, security vulnerabilities, and over-complication lead to a decline in interest.[7]

On January 19, 2019, pseudonymous Twitter user hodlonaut began a game-like promotional test of the Lightning Network by sending 100,000 satoshis (0.001 bitcoin) to a trusted recipient where each recipient added 10,000 satoshis ($0.34 at the time) to send to the next trusted recipient. The "lightning torch" payment reached notable personalities including former Twitter A.K.A X CEO Jack Dorsey, Litecoin Creator Charlie Lee, Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark, and Binance CEO "CZ" Changpeng Zhao, among others.[8][9]

Design

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Andreas Antonopoulos calls the Lightning Network a second layer routing network.[10] The payment channels allow participants to transfer money to each other without having to make all their transactions public on the blockchain.[11][12] This is secured by penalizing uncooperative participants. When opening a channel, participants must commit an amount on the blockchain (a funding transaction).[13] Time-based script extensions like CheckSequenceVerify and CheckLockTimeVerify make the penalties possible.

Transacting parties use the Lightning Network by opening a payment channel and transferring (committing) funds to the relevant layer-1 blockchain (e.g. bitcoin) under a smart contract. The parties then make any number of off-chain Lightning Network transactions that update the tentative distribution of the channel's funds, without broadcasting to the blockchain. Whenever the parties have finished their transaction session, they close the payment channel, and the smart contract distributes the committed funds according to the transaction record.[6]

To initiate closing, one node first broadcasts the current state of the transaction record to the network, including a proposed settlement, a distribution of the committed funds. If both parties confirm the proposal, the funds are immediately paid on-chain. The other option is uncooperative closure, for example if one node has dropped from the network, or if it is broadcasting an incorrect (possibly fraudulent) transaction state. In this case settlement is delayed during a dispute period, when nodes may contest the proposal. If the second node broadcasts a more up-to-date timestamped distribution, including some transactions omitted by the first proposal, then all committed funds are transferred to the second node: this punitive breach remedy transaction thwarts attempts to defraud the other node by broadcasting out-of-date transactions.[citation needed]

Implementations

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Benefits

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According to bitcoin advocate Andreas Antonopoulos, the Lightning Network provides several advantages over on-chain transactions:

  • Granularity – According to Andreas Antonopoulos, some implementations of the Lightning Network allow for payments that are smaller than a satoshi, the smallest unit on the base layer of bitcoin.[10]
  • Privacy – Lightning network payments may be routed through many sequential channels where each node operator will be able to see payments across their channels, but they will not be able to see the source nor destination of those funds if they are non-adjacent.[10]
  • Speed – Settlement time for lightning network transactions is under a minute and can occur in milliseconds.[10] Confirmation time on the bitcoin blockchain, for comparison, occurs every ten minutes, on average.
  • Transaction throughput – There are no fundamental limits to the amount of payments per second that can occur under the protocol. The amount of transactions are only limited by the capacity and speed of each node.[10]

Limitations

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The Lightning Network is made up of bidirectional payment channels between two nodes which combined create smart contracts. If at any time either party drops the channel, the channel will close and be settled on the blockchain.[14] The on-chain transactions required to open and close lightning channels limit the scaleability of the lightning network. This can be mitigated if multiple users that trust each other share a lightning node.[15]

Lightning Network's dispute mechanism requires all users to watch the blockchain constantly for fraud. This vigilance can be outsourced to watchtower nodes, trusted providers who are paid to monitor for fraud. A period of 24 hours is allotted to create a bidirectional channel after receiving a request.[citation needed]

Routing

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In the event that a bi-directional payment channel is no longer open between the transacting parties, the payment must be routed through network intermediaries via an onion routing technique similar to Tor. This requires that the sender and receiver of the payment have open channels with enough established peer nodes to find a path for the payment.[16]

Wallets

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Currently the LN is supported in Electrum,[17] Cash App,[18] ACINQ Phoenix, Blue Wallet and others.

Use cases

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Laszlo Hanyecz, famous for paying 10,000 BTC for two pizzas in 2010, bought two more pizzas in 2018 via Lightning Network for 0.00649 BTC.[19]

References

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  1. ^ "lightningnetwork/lnd". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2022-07-12. Retrieved 2021-05-04.
  2. ^ Russo, Camila (March 15, 2018). "Technology Meant to Make Bitcoin Money Again Is Now Live". www.bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 2018-03-31. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  3. ^ "MIT and Stanford Professors Are Designing a Cryptocurrency to Top Bitcoin: Unit-e". fortune.com. January 17, 2019. Archived from the original on 2021-10-06. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  4. ^ Popper, Nathaniel (August 15, 2017). "Bitcoin price surges after deal on software updates". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on December 13, 2019. Retrieved December 12, 2019.
  5. ^ "Lightning Network whitepaper 0.5 by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja". 28 February 2015. Archived from the original on 2015-02-28.
  6. ^ a b Lee, Timothy B. (2018-02-04). "Bitcoin has a huge scaling problem—Lightning could be the solution". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2021-09-01. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  7. ^ Xie, Teresa (16 October 2023). "Bitcoin's Lightning Network Scaling Solution Seeks Resurgence After Losing Way". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 13 May 2024. Retrieved 13 May 2024 – via Yahoo News.
  8. ^ Browne, Ryan (6 February 2019). "Jack Dorsey says the 'only' cryptocurrency he owns is bitcoin". CNBC. Archived from the original on 15 August 2021. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  9. ^ Hackett, Robert; Roberts, Jeff John; Wieczner, Jen. "The Ledger: Cryptocurrency Custody, QuadrigaCX Quagmire, CEOs Pass Bitcoin 'Torch'". Fortune. Fortune Magazine. Archived from the original on 1 June 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  10. ^ a b c d e Antonopoulos, Andreas (2017-07-21). Mastering Bitcoin (2nd ed.). O'Reilly. pp. 297–304. ISBN 978-1491954386.
  11. ^ "The Lightning Network Could Make Bitcoin Faster—and Cheaper". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on 2021-11-25. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  12. ^ "MIT, Stanford Academics Design Cryptocurrency to Better Bitcoin". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2021-10-06. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  13. ^ Burchert, Conrad; Decker, Christian; Wattenhofer, Roger (August 29, 2018). "Scalable Funding of Bitcoin Micropayment Channel Networks" (PDF). Royal Society Open Science. 5 (8): 180089. Bibcode:2018RSOS....580089B. doi:10.1098/rsos.180089. PMC 6124062. PMID 30225004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 June 2019. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  14. ^ Antonopoulos, Andreas; Osuntokun, Olaoluwa; Pickhardt, René (January 4, 2022). "How the Lightning Network Works". Mastering the Lightning Network: A Second Layer Blockchain Protocol for Instant Bitcoin Payments (1st ed.). O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1492054863. Archived from the original on July 1, 2022. Retrieved May 16, 2022.
  15. ^ Sztorc, Paul (April 4, 2022). "Lightning Network -- Fundamental Limitations". Truthcoin. Archived from the original on 2024-01-17. Retrieved 2024-01-17.
  16. ^ Antonopoulos, Andreas; Osuntokun, Olaoluwa; Pickhardt, René (January 4, 2022). "Chapter 8: Routing on a Network of Payment Channels". Mastering the Lightning Network: A Second Layer Blockchain Protocol for Instant Bitcoin Payments (1st ed.). O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1492054863. Archived from the original on June 4, 2022. Retrieved May 16, 2022.
  17. ^ "How to accept Bitcoin on a website using Electrum — Electrum 3.3 documentation". electrum.readthedocs.io. Retrieved 2025-02-28.
  18. ^ Perez, Sarah (2022-01-18). "Block's Cash App adopts Lightning Network for free bitcoin payments". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2022-10-15. Retrieved 2022-10-15.
  19. ^ Russo, Camila (February 27, 2018). "Crypto Legend Who Bought Pizza With 10,000 Bitcoin Is Back At It". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2022-02-23. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
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