Analysis Shows Lightning Network Suffers From Trust Issues Exacerbated by Rising Fees

Over the last two years, the Lightning Network has been touted as the scaling solution for the Bitcoin Core (BTC) network. However, the solution has been heavily criticized for its lack of security, and on March 28, Bitcoin Unlimited’s chief scientist Peter Rizun wrote an interesting evaluation of the Lightning Network’s “dirty little secret.”

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Visualizing the Lightning Network from a Different Perspective

This week, Bitcoin Unlimited’s Peter Rizun wrote a critique concerning the often controversial Lightning Network (LN). In delving into the project, Rizun asks the reader to visualize the LN as a string of beads (Fig. 1) extended between two individuals, Alice and Bob. In essence, Alice can send Bob funds by pushing one of her beads to Bob, utilizing the string which represents an LN channel.