Estimating the capacity of the ant routing algorithm for the Bitcoin lightning network
Channel: bitcoin fr
Date: 2019-05-27

https://bitcoin.fr/video-ant-routing-une-proposition-pour-le-lightning-network

The lightning network (LN) is a payment network laid on top of the bitcoin network. It consists in an aggregation of payment channels which allows its users to do off-chain micropayments in bitcoins. It was introduced in the hope of solving bitcoin's scalibility problem. Paying via the LN requires finding a route from the paying node to the payee, hence the need for a suitable routing algorithm. However, the current routing algorithm in use in the LN poses threats to decentralization. In one of their papers, Cyril Grunspan and Ricardo Pérez-Marco proposed a more decentralized routing algorithm, called the ant routing algorithm. In this talk, I will explain the protocol that nodes must follow to perform the ant routing task. I will then propose an implementation of this protocol. Finally, I will estimate the efficiency of this implementation. In particular, I will give an estimate of the number of transactions which the ant routing algorithm can handle. This is joint work with Cyril Grunspan and Ricardo Pérez-Marco.