High throughput cryptocurrency routing in payment channel networks

Vibhaalakshmi Sivaraman, Shaileshh Bojja Venkatakrishnan, Kathleen Ruan, Parimarjan Negi, Lei Yang, Radhika Mittal, Giulia Fanti, Mohammad Alizadeh

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Despite growing adoption of cryptocurrencies, making fast payments at scale remains a challenge. Payment channel networks (PCNs) such as the Lightning Network have emerged as a viable scaling solution. However, completing payments on PCNs is challenging: payments must be routed on paths with sufficient funds. As payments flow over a single channel (link) in the same direction, the channel eventually becomes depleted and cannot support further payments in that direction; hence, naive routing schemes like shortest-path routing can deplete key payment channels and paralyze the system. Today's PCNs also route payments atomically, worsening the problem. In this paper, we present Spider, a routing solution that “packetizes” transactions and uses a multi-path transport protocol to achieve high-throughput routing in PCNs. Packetization allows Spider to complete even large transactions on low-capacity payment channels over time, while the multi-path congestion control protocol ensures balanced utilization of channels and fairness across flows. Extensive simulations comparing Spider with state-of-the-art approaches shows that Spider requires less than 25% of the funds to successfully route over 95% of transactions on balanced traffic demands, and offloads 4x more transactions onto the PCN on imbalanced demands.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, NSDI 2020
PublisherUSENIX Association
Pages777-796
Number of pages20
ISBN (Electronic)9781939133137
StatePublished - 2020
Event17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, NSDI 2020 - Santa Clara, United States
Duration: Feb 25 2020Feb 27 2020

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, NSDI 2020

Conference

Conference17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, NSDI 2020
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySanta Clara
Period2/25/202/27/20

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Control and Systems Engineering

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