On the robustness of Lightning Network in Bitcoin

In this paper, we analyzed the network characteristics of the Lightning Network mainnet which was launched on March 15, 2018 and found that the Lightning Network topology shows strong scale-free network characteristics. This implies that Lightning Network can be vulnerable to DDoS attacks targeting some specific nodes in the network because there are a few highly connected “hub” nodes in a scale-free network. We experimentally analyze the robustness of Lightning Network via the simulation of network attack model. Our simulation results demonstrate that the connectivity of the existing Lightning Network cannot be maintained sufficiently against target attacks that repeatedly destroy a few nodes with high centrality.