Gossip Observer: New project to monitor the Lightning P2P network

The enhancement of the gossip protocol within the Lightning Network has garnered significant attention, prompting various contributions from the community, including empirical data derived from recent projects and tools designed to monitor and analyze the network's communication patterns. During the Summer-of-Bitcoin 2025 event, a collaboration with René Pickhardt led to the development of a tool (ln-history.info) aimed at persistently monitoring, analyzing, and storing gossip messages communicated across the Lightning Network. This tool was instrumental in gathering insights from two Core Lightning nodes named Alice and Bob, both configured to interact with approximately ten peers for gossip message reception.

A detailed examination of the collected data revealed several noteworthy observations regarding the behavior and characteristics of gossip message propagation within the network. An initial finding highlighted the delay encountered between the internal timestamps of messages and their actual arrival time at the collector node. This discrepancy offers valuable insights into the latency inherent in the network's message dissemination processes. Additionally, an analysis comparing the unique sets of messages received by each node was conducted to determine the extent of network visibility and overlap in information disseminated among different nodes. Such comparisons are crucial for understanding the diversity and reachability of information spread across the network.

Furthermore, the study delved into the dynamics of peer interactions by tracking the duration of sessions established between the collector node and its peers, which were autonomously selected by Core Lightning's algorithms. This aspect of the research sheds light on the stability and reliability of connections within the network, providing a foundation for assessing the effectiveness of current node selection mechanisms employed by Core Lightning.

The platform, as indicated by the researcher, has achieved a state of relative stability, making it a valuable resource for those involved in the ongoing development and refinement of gossip protocols, particularly with regards to version 2 and synchronization enhancements. The researcher expressed openness to assisting with further analysis or queries related to this data, highlighting a collaborative spirit aimed at improving the understanding and functionality of the Lightning Network's gossip mechanisms.