Antoine Riard, a Bitcoin core developer and security researcher, announced he is stepping away from Lightning Network development over concerns related to new replacement cycling attacks.
In a public mailing list post, Riard said the attacks represent a “hard dilemma” that puts Lightning in a perilous position. He believes addressing the threats requires fundamental changes at Bitcoin’s base layer.
Riard said sustainable fixes could involve adding transaction histories or consensus upgrades. Without transparency from Lightning developers, he is uncomfortable altering Bitcoin’s core protocol.
While mitigations exist against basic attacks, Riard worries they are insufficient versus advanced adversaries. He plans to focus on Bitcoin core work but warned of hard debates ahead on protocol changes to fix the Lightning issues.
Lightning Network aims to improve Bitcoin’s scalability as a payments layer atop its blockchain. But growth has lagged amidst user experience challenges and now security questions raised by Riard.
His withdrawal highlights lingering obstacles to mass adoption of the Lightning Network. It underscores dilemmas in altering Bitcoin’s decentralized architecture to support secondary layers.
#Bitcoin #LightningNetwork #crypto #developers #security
