Ali lahko Bitcoinovo omrežje Lightning premaga ceno anarhije?

To je mnenjski uvodnik Shinobija, samouka, izobraževalca v Bitcoin prostoru in tehnološko usmerjenega voditelja podcasta Bitcoin.

The Lightning Network as a payment routing network has many similarities with the internet itself. You must be connected to the network, payments are routed from one source node on the network to a destination node just like data packets on the internet and it requires an unbroken connection from the source to destination. It also has one massive difference — the requirement for liquidity. On the internet, as long as bandwidth is available (i.e., the pipes are not “clogged”), you can pass an infinite amount of information along a route as long as you have enough time to wait for it to get through. Lightning channels, however, can be depleted, as they require actually moving money from one side of a channel to another in order to route a payment, and eventually they will run out of money on one side and push all of it to the other.

To ustvarja potrebno ravnotežje med sedanjo uporabo omrežja za posredovanje plačil za posamezne uporabnike in stanjem omrežja v prihodnosti glede njegove zmožnosti posredovanja plačil za druge uporabnike. Vsakič, ko nekdo preusmeri plačilo prek določenega kanala, se povečati verjetnost, da kanal, ki so ga uporabili, ne bo mogel obdelati plačil v isti smeri za druge uporabnike v prihodnosti.

In essence, users attempting to adopt strategies en masse to benefit themselves in terms of guaranteeing the delivery of their payment can have negative effects on the overall liquidity distribution of the network and actually lower the likelihood of individual users’ payments arriving successfully at the destination. Essentially, whatever strategy is dominantly used by end users to select routes for their payments is going to have systemic effects on the entire network. In the negative sense, — i.e., how individual behaviors have degrading effects on the system as a whole — this dynamic is known as the “cena anarhije«.

Rene Pickhardt se je ukvarjal z raziskavami za razvoj hevristike, uporabne za izboljšanje zanesljivosti dostave plačil v omrežju Lightning. Ena strategija za doseganje cilja, ki je izšla iz te raziskave, se imenuje "Pickhardtova plačila.” Trenutno najpogosteje uporabljena strategija v omrežju je prednostna izbira poti na podlagi najnižje pristojbine. To deluje precej dobro pri majhnih plačilih, vendar ne toliko pri večjih zneskih. Intuitivno bi moral biti razlog očiten: takšne poti z nizkimi provizijami se pogosto uporabljajo, kar ponavadi potisne likvidnost v eno smer, tako da je na voljo manj. Učinek, ki ga ima to pri drugih majhnih plačilih po isti poti, je majhen, dokler se ne približa izčrpanju, pri večjih zneskih pa so možnosti za uspeh nižje.

Plačila Pickhardt delujejo tako, da dajejo prednost zanesljivosti pred poceni, pri čemer se utemeljeno ugibajo o verjetnosti, da bo plačilo uspelo na različnih možnih poteh, ki bi jih lahko ubralo. Tako kot prevladujoča strategija določanja prednosti z nizkimi provizijami bo sčasoma, ko vozlišče poskuša izvesti plačila in opazi, da nekatera ne uspejo, posodobilo svoje predpostavke o verjetnosti uspeha plačila in sčasoma izboljšalo svojo natančnost. To bi moralo pomagati preprečiti, da bi vozlišča v rojih vedno izčrpavala iste kanale, ker se bo njihov pogled na omrežje v smislu zanesljivosti sčasoma edinstveno razvijal.

Pomemben del izbire poti je upoštevanje smeri, v katero teče likvidnost v kanalu. Ali je obojestransko uravnoteženo? Je pretežno enosmerna? V svoji najnovejši raziskavi, ki preučuje dinamiko cene anarhije, je Pickhardt opazil svoje spoznanje, da je na podlagi podatkov o javnih govoricah morda mogoče oceniti stopnjo odtoka v kanalih, kako uravnotežen ali neuravnotežen je tok skozi kanale, in dodatno izboljšati zanesljivost ocen o uspešnosti ali neuspehu plačila na določenih poteh. . Če to pravilno ocenite, lahko pogledate kanal in ugibate, v kateri smeri je verjetnost dokončanja plačila velika in v kateri smeri je verjetnost nizka.

Drugi vidik plačil Pickhardt je optimizirati za tako zanesljivost in nizke pristojbine. Pri modeliranju stvari za preučevanje cene anarhične dinamike omrežja Lightning Network je bilo ugotovljeno, da optimizacija tako za zanesljivost in pristojbine povzročijo enega najhujših zunanjih stroškov za omrežje ali najvišjo ceno anarhije. Zdi se, da to ustvari največjo stopnjo izčrpanosti kanalov v omrežju od vseh strategij izbire poti.

Now these effects don’t exist in a vacuum or without counter balances. Routing nodes on the network are also actors that have tools at their disposal and can adopt strategies to optimize the flow control and counterbalance this. Routing nodes can alter fees to disincentivize pushing liquidity to one side of a channel, i.e., if most payments are flowing one direction they can charge higher fees for that and lower fees for going the other way. Nodes can open or close channels, creating new connections to meet higher demand. Nodes can also rebalance channels, pushing liquidity from one channel of theirs out into the network and back into another channel of theirs to alter the liquidity distribution in that channel. Nodes sending payments can also select and utilize different path selection strategies when they observe the current one is leading to frequent payment failures.

I’m sure people reading right now are thinking something along the lines of, “Who cares, the market will sort it out, Lightning is a market-driven system.” Lightning is an almost entirely market-driven system, but it’s not that simple when analyzing dynamics like the price of anarchy. Users of the network are not going to be analyzing routing algorithms manually, picking and choosing what to use with each payment; They are going to be using tools and software that automates all of this and hides it in the background. This makes this kind of research important to the overall health of the network. A way needs to be found to enable end users to engage with the network selfishly, prioritizing their own interests, without degrading the performance of the network as a whole.

Modeliranje medsebojnega delovanja teh dveh dinamik, strategij za pošiljanje vozlišč in strategij ublažitve za usmerjevalna vozlišča je izjemno pomembno za razvoj strategij za oba razreda uporabnikov za uravnoteženje in optimizacijo splošnega zdravja omrežja in zanesljivosti plačil za posamezne uporabnike. Usmerjanje podatkov med različnimi napravami je dolgo rešen problem v računalništvu, na katerem močno gradi Lightning Network, vendar dinamika likvidnostnih omejitev dodaja novo plat celotnemu področju raziskav v zvezi z zanesljivim usmerjanjem informacij.

The Lightning Network has been a huge success so far in improving the speed and scalability of payments using Bitcoin, but to continue that success at larger scales and a larger load from more users, the interaction of these two different dynamics needs to be thoroughly understood and accounted for. In order for users of the network to adopt successful strategies, those strategies must first be developed, understood and verified.

To je gostujoča objava avtorja Shinobija. Izražena mnenja so v celoti njihova lastna in ne odražajo nujno mnenj BTC Inc ali Bitcoin Magazine.