This loophole could potentially allow a malicious actor, referred to here as Mallory, to flood the network with these probes without financial consequence, thereby causing disruptions or extracting penalty payments from random endpoints within the network. The narrative suggests that unconditional fees might mitigate this issue by imposing a cost on every transaction attempt, regardless of its success.

Further examination reveals a quantitative perspective on the network's operational dynamics, citing that an average payment across the LN involves traversing 11 nodes with each Hashed Timelock Contract (HTLC) taking an estimated 600 milliseconds to resolve. With an assumption of random node failures occurring ten times daily, the suggested incremental increase in routing fees would theoretically cover the lost value from unresolved HTLCs due to such failures. However, this proposed solution highlights a significant increase in routing costs attributed to OPR accidental routing failures, which could potentially escalate costs far beyond current metrics, as illustrated by statistics from 1ml.com.

The document transitions into exploring alternative solutions to mitigate high transaction costs associated with on-chain settlements, especially for low-value payments. One innovative approach discussed is the use of probabilistic payments, where payments are wrapped in higher value outputs offering a chance-based outcome for settling transactions on-chain. This method aims to balance the risk and cost of on-chain settlements, making it financially viable even when the on-chain fees exceed the transaction value. The technique relies on OP_DETERMINISTIC_RANDOM available on Elements-based sidechains, suggesting a shift towards probabilistic payments could offer a scalable workaround to the challenges posed by HTLC settlement costs.

Despite recognizing the potential of probabilistic payments to address some of the systemic issues within the LN and OPR, the author notes the limited progress in this area. This observation is attributed to a lack of perceived urgency in resolving HTLC settlement cost griefing as a major problem within the current discourse on LN development. The document concludes by hinting at ongoing discussions around PTLC-based mechanisms as an alternative to HTLC, indicating a broader search for solutions within the LN community to enhance the efficiency and security of off-chain payment protocols.