Bitcoin Core Developer Backs Out of Lightning Network Due to “Hard Dilemma”
Security researcher and developer Antoine Riard is withdrawing from the development of the Lightning Network, citing security issues and fundamental challenges of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
According to a thread posted on the Linux Foundation's public mailing list, Riard believes the Bitcoin community faces a “serious problem” as the new cycle attacks put Lightning in a “dangerous situation.”
How does lightning replacement bicycle attack work?
There's a lot of discussion about this newly discovered vulnerability on the mailing lists, but the exact method is a little hard to follow.
So the primer described here…
1/n pic.twitter.com/mvvS8bEc5f
— mononaut (@mononautical) October 21, 2023
The Lightning Network is a second-layer solution built on the Bitcoin blockchain. It is designed to improve the efficiency of Bitcoin transactions by enabling off-chain, peer-to-peer transactions.
Through the Lightning Network, users can open payment channels, perform multiple transactions off-chain, and adjust the final results on the Bitcoin blockchain. A replacement cycling attack targets these payment channels. It is a new type of attack that allows an attacker to steal funds from a channel participant by exploiting conflicts between individual mempools. According to Riard:
“I think this new class of cycling attacks puts Lightning in a very dangerous position, which only permanent maintenance can happen at the base-layer, such as adding a memory history of all observed transactions or adding some consensus. Although as stated in the first full disclosure message I don't think they will stop advanced attackers but they are worth it even if they face simple attacks.
Riard noted that it may require changes to the underlying Bitcoin network to address the new type of attack.
“These kinds of changes require full transparency and buy-in from the community as we're changing the processing requirements of full nodes or the security architecture of the decentralized Bitcoin ecosystem.”
Lightning developers face challenges, including criticism of the network's complexity and questions about user experience. In the year Since its launch in 2018, the Layer-2 network has grown in popularity, with its total value locked at the time of writing reaching $159.5 million, according to data from Defillama. However, this figure is still very modest compared to Bitcoin's $587 billion market capitalization.
Riard now plans to focus on Bitcoin core development, but warns of challenges ahead for the mainstream cryptocurrency ecosystem.
“On the other hand, in order to shine and design them well, we may need to fully explain why such changes are warranted and outline fully functional and critical attacks on the ~5 355 public BTC ecosystem. A serious problem. It can be a lesson in terms of the distribution of the Bitcoin protocol.” […]”
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