Avoiding Deadlocks in Payment Channel Networks

Shira Werman, Aviv Zohar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Payment transaction channels are one of the main proposed approaches to scaling cryptocurrency payment systems. Recent work by Malavolta et al. [7] has shown that the privacy of the protocol may conflict with its concurrent nature and may lead to deadlocks. In this paper we ask the natural question: Can payments in routing networks be routed so as to avoid deadlocks altogether? Our results show that it is in general NP-complete to determine whether a deadlock-free routing exists in a given payment graph. On the other hand, Given some fixed routing, we propose another way to resolve the problem of deadlocks. We offer a modification of the protocols in lightning network and in Fulgor [7] that pre-locks edges in an order that guarantees progress, while still maintaining the protocol’s privacy requirements.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationData Privacy Management, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology - ESORICS 2018 International Workshops, DPM 2018 and CBT 2018, Proceedings
EditorsJoaquin Garcia-Alfaro, Jordi Herrera-Joancomartí, Giovanni Livraga, Ruben Rios
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages175-187
Number of pages13
ISBN (Print)9783030003043
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
Event2nd International Workshop on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology, CBT 2018 held in conjunction with the 23rd European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, ESORICS 2018 - Barcelona, Spain
Duration: 6 Sep 20187 Sep 2018

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume11025 LNCS

Conference

Conference2nd International Workshop on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology, CBT 2018 held in conjunction with the 23rd European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, ESORICS 2018
Country/TerritorySpain
CityBarcelona
Period6/09/187/09/18

Keywords

  • Bitcoin
  • Lightning Network
  • Payment Channels
  • Payment Network
  • Payment Routing

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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