Modeling Effective Lifespan of Payment Channels

Soheil Zibakhsh Shabgahi; Seyed Mahdi Hosseini; Seyed Pooya Shariatpanahi; Behnam Bahrak

Paper 2022/1376

Modeling Effective Lifespan of Payment Channels

Soheil Zibakhsh Shabgahi

, University of Tehran

Seyed Mahdi Hosseini, University of Tehran

Seyed Pooya Shariatpanahi

, University of Tehran

Behnam Bahrak, University of Tehran

Abstract

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 nodes are connected directly to each other, they can use a payment network to route their payments. Each node allocates a balance that is frozen during the channel's lifespan. Spending and receiving transactions will shift the balance to one side of the channel. A channel becomes unbalanced when there is not sufficient balance in one direction. In this case, we say the effective lifespan of the channel has ended. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model to predict the expected effective lifespan of a channel based on the network's topology. We investigate the impact of channel unbalancing on the payment network and individual channels. We also discuss the effect of certain characteristics of payment channels on their lifespan. Our case study on a snapshot of the Lightning Network shows how the effective lifespan is distributed, and how it is correlated with other network characteristics. Our results show that central unbalanced channels have a drastic effect on the network performance.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Applications
Publication info: Preprint.
Keywords: Bitcoin Lightning Network Payment Channel Lifespan Random Walk.
Contact author(s): soheil zibakhsh @ gmail com
smahdihosseini4 @ gmail com
p shariatpanahi @ ut ac ir
bahrak @ ut ac ir
History: 2022-10-14: approved; 2022-10-12: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2022/1376
License: CC0

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2022/1376,
      author = {Soheil Zibakhsh Shabgahi and Seyed Mahdi Hosseini and Seyed Pooya Shariatpanahi and Behnam Bahrak},
      title = {Modeling Effective Lifespan of Payment Channels},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2022/1376},
      year = {2022},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/1376}
}