Finding Possible Receivers of Lightning Transactions by Using Timing Information

Foremost among the challenges of the Bitcoin blockchain is the scalability bottleneck. To address this issue, the Lightning Network, a payment channel network, was created. Lightning is a payment channel network that is source-routed and uses onion routing, like Tor. However, unlike Tor, the routing path is determined by optimizing a cost...

The impact of reactionary behavior in channel creation games: How actions influence transaction routing in the bitcoin lightning network

Payment channels allow parties to utilize the blockchain to send transactions for a cheaper fee. Previous work has analyzed to which degree a party can profit by facilitating the transaction process. The aim is to increase the usability of the network and to be rewarded for providing this service. However, previous work focuses on maximizing the...

Improving the Anonymity of Blockchains: The Case of Payment Channel Networks with Length-bounded Random Walk Insertion

The LND is currently the most popular routing algorithm used in the Lightning Network, the second layer solution to Bitcoin’s scalability. Despite its popularity, recent studies demonstrate that its deterministic nature compromises the anonymity of the Lightning Network. In other words, threatening parties present in the transaction path can...

Improving Anonymity of the Lightning Network using Multiple Path Segment Routing

The Lightning Network (LN) is a second-layer solution built on top of the Bitcoin protocol, allowing faster and cheaper transactions without compromising on decentralization. LN is also designed to be more anonymous, since less information has to be shared with the entire network. This should, in theory, improve privacy as well. However, recent...

Improving the Anonymity of the Lightning Network using Sub-Optimal Routes

The Lightning Network is a second layer payment protocol built on top of Bitcoin, which is scalable and has reduced transaction fees. It does so by eliminating the need to broadcast every transaction to the whole network. When one user wants to send a payment to another, the routing protocol generates a path between them that is always fast and...

Coordinate Routing in the Lightning Network

Blockchains such as the Bitcoin facilitate the online transaction between users without an intermediate financial institution and can serve as a global currency. However, at the moment, blockchain solutions are suffering from low transaction throughput and high delays. For instance, the bitcoin network processes at most 7 transactions per second...