Ant routing algorithm for the Lightning Network

We propose a decentralized routing algorithm that can be implemented in Bitcoin Lightning Network. All nodes in the network contribute equally to path searching. The algorithm is inspired from ant path searching algorithms.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Off-chain Transaction Routing in Payment Channel Networks: A Machine Learning Approach

Blockchain is a foundational technology that has the potential to create new prospects for our economic and social systems. However, the scalability problem limits the capability to deliver a target throughput and latency, compared to the traditional financial systems, with increasing workload. Layer-two is a collective term for solutions designed to help solve the scalability by handling transactions off the main chain, also known as layer one. These solutions have the capability to achieve high throughput, fast settlement, and cost efficiency without sacrificing network security. For example, bidirectional payment channels are utilized to allow the execution of fast transactions between two parties, thus forming the so-called payment channel networks (PCNs). Consequently, an efficient routing protocol is needed to find the payment path from the sender to the receiver, with the lowest transaction fees. This routing protocol needs to consider, among other factors, the unexpected online/offline behavior of the constituent payment nodes as well as payment channel imbalance. This study proposes a novel machine learning-based routing technique for fully distributed and efficient off-chain transactions to be used within the PCNs. For this purpose, the effect of the offline nodes and channel imbalance on the payment channels network are modeled. The simulation results demonstrate a good tradeoff among success ratio, transaction fees, routing efficiency, transaction overhead, and transaction maintenance overhead as compared to other techniques that have been previously proposed for the same purpose

Sensitivity of shortest distance search in the ant colony algorithm with varying normalized distance formulas

The ant colony algorithm is an algorithm adopted from the behavior of ants which naturally ants are able to find the shortest route on the way from the nest to places of food sources based on footprints on the track that has been passed. The ant colony algorithm helps a lot in solving several problems such as scheduling, traveling salesman problems (TSP) and vehicle routing problems (VRP). In addition, ant colony has been developed and has several variants. However, in its function to find the shortest distance is optimized by utilizing several normalized distance formulas with the data used in finding distances between merchants in the mercant ecosystem. Where in the test normalized distance is superior Hamming distance in finding the shortest distance of 0.2875, then followed by the same value, namely the normalized formula Manhattan distance and normalized Euclidean distance with a value of 0.4675 and without using the normalized distance formula or the original ant colony algorithm gets a value 0.6635. Given the sensitivity in distance search using merchant ecosystem data, the method works well on the ant colony Algorithm using normalized Hamming distance

CLoTH: A Lightning Network Simulator

3noPayment-channel networks are one of the most promising solution to the well-known issue of blockchain scalability. In this work we present CLoTH, a simulator of the Lightning Network — the mainstream payment-channel network, used in Bitcoin. CLoTH simulates the execution of payments in a payment-channel network and produces performance measures such as the probability of payment success and the average payment time. To the best of our knowledge, CLoTH is the only simulator that faithfully reproduces the Lightning Network code functions, and this ensures the reliability of simulation results. In this work we provide a detailed description of the new, refactored, publicly-usable version of CLoTH, and we show simulations on the multi-path-payment feature, a recent Lightning Network feature that aims to minimize payment failures.openopenConoscenti, Marco; Vetrò, Antonio; De Martin, Juan CarlosConoscenti, Marco; Vetrò, Antonio; De Martin, Juan Carlo