MultiChannel and MultiPTLC: Towards A Global High-Availability Consistent/Partition-Tolerant Database For Bitcoin Payments

Sep 17 - Sep 24, 2025

  • The discourse initiates with a reflection on the evolution of Bitcoin and a detailed exploration into an innovative approach for Lightning Service Providers (LSPs) to conduct transactions without necessitating mutual trust.

This method employs a pseudo-Spilman scheme, allowing participants like Ursula to offer transactions to any other participant using a unique "single-use-seal" mechanism. This seal is designed to prevent the reuse of specific transaction outputs by fixing a constant in the script, which could lead to private key leakage if re-attempted, thereby risking monetary loss. The inclusion of an OP_CAT operation facilitates the combination of elements required for a complete signature, enhancing transaction security through a novel cryptographic approach.

Furthermore, the concept of MultiPTLC (Multipath Payment Time-Locked Contract) is introduced, emphasizing its potential to revolutionize payment routing within blockchain networks. By enabling LSPs to probe multiple paths simultaneously, MultiPTLC significantly increases the probability of identifying successful transaction routes, improving upon traditional HTLC or PTLC mechanisms. This system incorporates a nonce-based consensus mechanism among LSPs, employing proof-of-work to ensure fair participation and prevent dominance by any single provider. This secures transaction integrity and promotes a democratic process in transaction authorization, underpinning the core innovation of MultiPTLC in optimizing payment efficiency and network resilience.

Additionally, the challenges and limitations of existing Spilman channels are highlighted, acknowledging their unidirectional nature and the complications arising from failed transactions. The proposed solution suggests preemptive probing by LSPs to enhance transaction success rates, thereby circumventing the need for trampoline forwarding. This strategy aims to streamline the transaction process, making it more efficient and user-friendly.

The discussion also ventures into the realm of lattice-based cryptography, drawing parallels with Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) for achieving functionalities similar to PTLCs. It points out the complexity inherent in this field, necessitating specialized knowledge for advancement. Moreover, the resilience of Lightning Network forwarding nodes is discussed, with particular attention to the use of YugabyteDB for ensuring high availability and strong consistency in distributed databases, thus supporting advanced network functionalities.

The narrative concludes with an examination of the proposed MultiPTLC scheme's efficiency, highlighting its capacity to reduce communication overhead and complete transactions with minimal roundtrips. This is achieved through a strategic selection of receiver-can-claim scalars post-commitment, streamlining the transaction process. This approach exemplifies a significant leap towards simplifying payment transmissions across blockchain networks, potentially revolutionizing how transactions are conducted in decentralized systems.

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