RATE Group | Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Found More Centralized Than Expected by Researchers
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Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Found More Centralized Than Expected by Researchers

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Found More Centralized Than Expected by Researchers

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The Lightning Network’s (LN) configuration is becoming increasingly centralized, with multiple hubs being formed. This is the finding of a yet-to-be-reviewed research paper, released on pre-print site arXiv on Feb. 7.

A team of academics from Switzerland, France, Italy and Canada authored the paper. Jian Hong-Lin and Kevin Primicerio conducted the analysis, while others, including Blockstream Inc. researcher Christian Decker, designed the research.

Core-periphery model

The team gathered Lightning Network information for a period of 18 months from Jan. 18, 2018 to July 13, 2019. Researchers then analyzed the payment network in terms of its node and wealth distribution.

They discovered that the network showed high Gini coefficients both in terms of node centralization and wealth distribution. Notably, the values were found to rise as more nodes were added.

The distributions of Bitcoin (BTC) across every node in the network was found to be extremely uneven as well. The Gini index…

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