2018/11/30 by Georgia Avarikioti, Felix Laufenberg, Avarikioti, Georgia +7
Computer Science · #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #Computer Science and Game Theory (cs.GT) #Cryptography and Data Security #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1811.12740
openalex publication_date 2018/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Micropayment channels are the most prominent solution to the limitation on transaction throughput in current blockchain systems. However, in practice channels are risky because participants have to be online constantly to avoid fraud, and inefficient because participants have to open multiple channels and lock funds in them. To address the security issue, we propose a novel mechanism that involves watchtowers incentivized to watch the channels and reveal a fraud. Our protocol does not require participants to be online constantly watching the blockchain. The protocol is secure, incentive compatible and lightweight in communication. Furthermore, we present an adaptation of our protocol implementable on the Lightning protocol. Towards efficiency, we examine specific topological structures in the blockchain transaction graph and generalize the construction of channels to enable topologies better suited to specific real-world needs. In these cases, our construction reduces the required amount of signatures for a transaction and the total amount of locked funds in the system.