WARNING: If you try to use the Lightning Network (LN) you are at HIGH RISK of losing funds and it is not recommended or safe to do at this time or for the foreseeable future.
Below is a chronological list which shows that Lightning Network has been drowning in technical issues, bugs, flaws, critiques, and exploits. It's over-promised tech that doesn't deliver on decentralization and a long ways from being functional and safe for users.
February 28, 2015: Lightning Network whitepaper is officially released
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150228162703/https://lightning.network/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150301065655/http://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper-DRAFT-0.5.pdf
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150301190111/http://lightning.network/lightning-network.pdf
May 26, 2015: Joseph Poon and Tadge Dryja address scalability issues and the Lightning Network
February 28, 2016: One of the first looks and deep dives into theoretical issues with Lightning Network, exploring various subjects such as network semi-decentralized topography, routing problems, liquidity issues, privacy, fees, channel balancing, and DDoS attacks. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2016/02/28/lightnings-balancing-act-challenges-face-bitcoins-scalability-savior/
June 26, 2017: Mathematical Proof That the Lightning Network Cannot Be a Decentralized Bitcoin Scaling Solution https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/mathematical-proof-that-the-lightning-network-cannot-be-a-decentralized-bitcoin-scaling-solution-1b8147650800
December 15, 2017: How The Banks Bought Bitcoin (The truth about the lightning network) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g
January 20, 2018: Lightning Network May Not Solve Bitcoin’s Scaling ‘Trilemma’ https://www.coindesk.com/lightning-network-may-not-solve-bitcoins-scaling-trilemma
February 18, 2018: Rick Falkvinge reacts to the Lightning Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFZOrtlQXWc
February 21, 2018: Bitcoin Lightning Fraud? Laolu Is Building a ‘Watchtower’ to Fight It https://www.coindesk.com/laolu-building-watchtower-fight-bitcoin-lightning-fraud
March 13, 2018: New form of 51% attack via lightning's revocation system possible? https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2018-March/001080.html
March 21, 2018: Lightning Network DDoS Sends 20% of Nodes Down https://www.trustnodes.com/2018/03/21/lightning-network-ddos-sends-20-nodes
May 29, 2018: Why The Lightning Network Does not Scale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGrUOLsC9cw
April 11, 2018: How Bitcoin Lightning Channels Work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOZaLbUUZUs
June 21, 2018: The 3 biggest LN flaws plus further critiques https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-biggest-flaw-of-the-Bitcoin-Lightning-network/answer/Marius-Kramer
June 25, 2018: Study finds that the probability of routing $200 on LN between any two nodes is 1% https://diar.co/volume-2-issue-25/
October 10, 2018: Watchtowers (third party services) are introduced as a way to monitor your funds when you can't be online 24/7 so they aren't stolen https://medium.com/@akumaigorodski/watchtower-support-is-coming-to-bitcoin-lightning-wallet-8f969ac206b2
January 17, 2019: 18 Months Away? Latest Lightning Network Study Calls System a 'Small Central Clique' https://news.bitcoin.com/18-months-away-latest-lightning-network-study-calls-system-a-small-central-clique/
February 20, 2019: The current state of Bitcoin companies & dealing with Lightning Network ⚡Highlights: Hard to implement, takes a ton of man hours, with no return on investment. LN adds zero utility. The only reason some companies support it is for marketing reasons.
- https://old.reddit.com/r/lightningnetwork/comments/asuoyy/the_current_state_of_bitcoin_companies_dealing/
- https://twitter.com/DavidShares/status/1095469511283785733
February 20, 2019: Current requirements to run BTC/LN: 2 hard drives + zfs mirrors, need to run a BTC full node, LN full node + satellite, Watchtower and use a VPN service. And BTC fees are expensive, slow, unreliable.
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/aspkj2/current_requirements_to_run_btcln_2_hard_drives/
- https://twitter.com/DavidShares/status/1098239529050349568
February 22, 2019: Listen to this great talk on the problems and complexities of using HTLC's on the Lightning Network ⚡️, and possible alternatives.
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/atmlnp/listen_to_this_great_talk_on_the_problems_and/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUAyW4pdooA
February 23, 2019: 5 Things I Learned Getting Rekt on Lightning Network
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/atx8jq/psa_important_video_to_watch_if_you_use_lightning/
- https://medium.com/@mtidwell021/5-things-i-learned-un-rekting-myself-on-lightning-network-29016f175b61
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fMv8MpzLgQ
February 25, 2019: Lightning Network bank-wallet is "kind of centralized but it has to be this way if you want mass-adoption"
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/aup68s/lightning_network_bankwallet_is_kind_of/
- https://twitter.com/DavidShares/status/1100113132830232578
February 28, 2019: Decentralized path routing is still an unsolved problem for Lightning Network (currently "source routing" works at this scale)
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/avt6ow/do_people_agree_with_andreas_antonopoulos_that/
- https://archive.is/PKrIi
February 28, 2019: "Out of the 1,500 orders submitted on the first day using Lightning Network, only around 10 percent were successful" https://breakermag.com/i-ordered-lightning-pizza-and-lived-to-tell-the-tale/
March 1, 2019: Lightning Network has become a complete train wreck. Oh by the way, it's no longer 18 months but YEARS until it's ready for mass-consumption.
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/aw71q8/lightning_network_has_become_a_complete_train/
- https://twitter.com/DavidShares/status/1101524232033439744
March 4, 2019: Lightning users must be online to make a payment, funds must be locked to use, is a honey pot, completion rate deminishes with high value payments, and more https://medium.com/starkware/when-lightning-starks-a90819be37ba
March 17, 2019: TIL that Lightning Network conceptual design and focus to layer 2 scaling for BTC was introduced in February 2013, over 6 years ago (LN whitepaper released February 2015, 4 years ago)
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/b201kd/til_that_lightning_network_conceptual_design_and/
- https://archive.is/wgmEF
March 21, 2019: Understanding the cost of trapped liquidity in the Lightning Network https://medium.com/@peter_r/understanding-the-cost-of-trapped-liquidity-in-the-lightning-network-part-1-7179a24d5791
March 22, 2019: Lightning Fails to Strike (Again) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzaEd2RQuRw
March 28, 2019: Visualizing HTLCs and the Lightning Network’s Dirty Little Secret https://medium.com/@peter_r/visualizing-htlcs-and-the-lightning-networks-dirty-little-secret-cb9b5773a0
March 29, 2019: Analysis Shows Lightning Network Suffers From Trust Issues Exacerbated by Rising Fees https://news.bitcoin.com/analysis-shows-lightning-network-suffers-form-trust-issues-exacerbated-by-rising-fees/
April 24, 2019: Forget 18 months: it’s now 30-50 years until Lightning Network is ready
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/bh1gzw/forget_18_months_its_now_3050_years_until/
- https://archive.is/CCQXn
May 29, 2019: "PSA: The Lightning Network is being heavily data mined right now. Opening channels allows anyone to cluster your wallet and associate your keys with your IP address."
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/budmfh/on_twitter_psa_the_lightning_network_is_being/
- https://archive.is/9zaKc
August 30, 2019: Lightning Network security alert: Security issues have been found in various lightning projects which could cause loss of funds! https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2019-August/002130.html
September 10, 2019: Lightning Network dev: "We've confirmed instances of the CVE being exploited in the wild. If you’re not on the following versions of either of these implementations then you need to upgrade now to avoid risk of funds loss" https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2019-September/002148.html
September 27, 2019: Lightning Network Security Vulnerability Full Disclosure: CVE-2019-12998 / CVE-2019-12999 / CVE-2019-13000 https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2019-September/002174.html
September 28, 2019: Andreas Brekken: "I've been asked quite a bit why I took down the largest Lightning Network node, LN.shitcoin.com. Constant anxiety was the deciding factor. When a channel is created, the receiver of the channel was not required to verify the amount of the funding transaction"
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/dae1g0/andreas_brekken_ive_been_asked_quite_a_bit_why_i/
- https://archive.is/wip/yTCgt
October 21, 2019: Researchers Uncover Bitcoin ‘Attack’ That Could Slow or Stop Lightning Payments https://www.coindesk.com/researchers-uncover-bitcoin-attack-that-could-slow-or-stop-lightning-payments
October 23, 2019: 4 BTC stolen using Lightning Network
- https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/dlvokv/how_i_lost_4_btc_on_lightning_network/
- https://archive.is/B1lrI
January 1, 2020: The Final Word on the Lightning Network https://read.cash/@jonald_fyookball/the-final-word-on-the-lightning-network-de7e259c
January 7, 2020: New paper on Lightning Network simulates lower & higher txn rates and summarize the rates of failed txns in Fig 22….at 7,000 transactions per day one-third of them fail
January 13, 2020: LN users are leaking their blockchain data by using centralized Lightning Network node operators and wallets. 90K LN non-cooperative channel closures were identified https://blog.bitmex.com/lightning-network-part-6-over-60000-non-cooperative-channel-closures/
February 13, 2020: 8 Criticisms of Lightning Network https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/f36wck/lightning/fhh2mav/
February 18, 2020: Lightning Network is Vulnerable to Congestion Attacks https://medium.com/blockchains-huji/congestion-attacks-in-payment-channel-networks-b7ac37208389
February 20, 2020: Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Is Growing ‘Increasingly Centralized,’ Researchers Find https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-lightning-network-is-growing-increasingly-centralized-researchers-find
August 27, 2020: Flood & Loot: A Systemic Attack On The Lightning Network https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.08513.pdf
September 2020: LN channels cannot hold more than 483 htlcs at a time, regardless of the channel capacity. Sending 483 micro-payments to yourself and holding on to the htlcs is enough to incapacitate a channel for up to two weeks https://archive.is/ldWRd
October 8, 2020: Lightning Vulnerability Discovered; LND Node Operators Urged to Upgrade ASAP https://www.coindesk.com/lightning-vulnerability-ind-node-operators-upgrade-asap
October 21, 2020: Two Lightning Network CVE's were made public:
- A malicious peer could force an lnd node to accept a high-S ECDSA signature when updating new off-chain states. https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2020-October/002858.html
- LND node could be coerced into revealing an invoice preimage for a forwarded HTLC with a colliding payment hash. https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2020-October/002857.html
October 29, 2020: PSA: High onchain BTC fees have impact for you Lightning Channels: Pre negotiated fees might not be sufficient for your commitment tx to be included in case of force close https://archive.is/ECr4p
February 18, 2021: The Lightning Network (LN) is semi-custodial banking https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/lml76q/the_lightning_network_ln_is_semicustodial_banking/gnwa42b/
February 28, 2021: Congestion Attacks in Payment Channel Networks
March 15, 2021: A recap of events over the last 6 years of Lightning Network https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1366411780633862147.html
March 26, 2021: Real-life example of a LN user trying to use Lightning but encounters various problems and errors:
- https://old.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/mdtl92/user_defends_the_lightning_network_never_found/
- https://colintalkscrypto.com/files/user_fails_to_use_lightningnetwork.png
March 28, 2021: Real-life example of a LN user trying to use various Lightning mobile wallets and none of them worked (multiple errors for each) https://archive.is/klS2X
April 13, 2021: Video discussion with LN engineer about pros and cons of LN. Tidbits include that LN transactions always require onchain transactions to be finalized/settled (problematic due to high fees), initial payment channels still an issue for new users, using LN service providers is a trust issue, not decentralized, using zero-conf to create channels is highly risky, must be online to use LN, constant backups needed so you don't lose funds, LN needs more forks to work (such as Taproot and El-Too) https://odysee.com/@DigitalCashNetwork:c/Lightning-Network:c
April 21, 2021: Popular Lightning wallet Phoenix had to shut down on-the-fly channel creations and other features due to high BTC transaction fees, which is another example of how poorly LN operates with a high fee base layer. https://archive.ph/RRzvU#high-mempool-size-impacts
September 13, 2021: CoinDesk research covers Lightning Network vulnerabilities and attack vectors such as griefing, eclipse attack, pinning, and floot & loot. https://downloads.coindesk.com/research/Lightning+Network+-+CoinDesk+Research+-+2021.09.pdf
September 20, 2021: Custodial Lightning Network Service Attack Discovered — Hacker Strikes 6 LN Custodians
- https://news.bitcoin.com/custodial-lightning-network-service-attack-discovered-by-ln-newbie-hacker-strikes-6-ln-custodians/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20210918093307/https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/pqjcvo/stealing_sats_from_the_lightning_network/
September 26, 2021: Why the Bitcoin Lightning Network is Satoshi Nakamoto’s Worst Nightmare
- https://cryptowhale.medium.com/why-the-bitcoin-lightning-network-is-satoshi-nakamotos-worst-nightmare-8402be4a4e73
- https://archive.ph/xjPfN
October 4, 2021: Three new Lightning Network vulnerabilities were disclosed affecting multiple LN implementations. These vulnerabilities can be exploited in a wide range of attacks, going from fee blackmailing of node operators, burning liquidity of your competing LSPs or even stealing your counterparty channel balance if you avail mining capabilities. Exercise of the vulnerability revealed that a majority of the balance funds can be at loss. CVE-2021-41591/ CVE-2021-41592 / CVE-2021-41593 "Dust HTLC Exposure Considered Harmful." https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/2021-October/003257.html
November 3, 2021: Lightning Network channel jamming is when a malicious entity blocks up liquidity in the lightning network, by making a payment to themselves, via third party channels and then never revealing the secret, such that the payment never completes. The main idea behind jamming is occupying the capabilities of routing nodes to forward payments by making fake payments and never finalizing them. For the attack duration, it becomes impossible for routing nodes to forward other (honest) payments. To jam certain channels, an attacker pretends to make a payment to themself via those channels, and never releases the secret on the receiver side. https://blog.bitmex.com/preventing-channel-jamming/
January 9, 2022: A Critical Review of the Lightning Network
- https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoReality/comments/rzp2oq/a_critical_review_of_the_lightning_network/
- https://archive.ph/yNaBl
February 16, 2022: Lightning Network speed update - as a service, it is hard to choose reliable LN routing peers that forward payments quickly. Plenty of nodes have bad response times and do not maintain proper liquidity in their channels, which makes payments slow. https://blog.lnrouter.app/lightning-payment-speed-2022
February 19, 2022: Sharp-eyed Bitcoin community members discover that Lightning Network developers working for Lightning Labs are part of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF is well known for being a world government sanctioned and banker elite conglomerate that runs the global financial system in a centralized top-down authoritarian way. This discovery helps to shine light on the centralized goals of the Lightning Network.
- https://twitter.com/L0laL33tz/status/1495075411017048064
- https://twitter.com/L0laL33tz/status/1495381620668383234
February 19, 2022: Lightning Network user: "Of my node's last 100,000 forwarded payments, only 932 succeeded." https://twitter.com/fiatjaf/status/1495037429144825860
February 21, 2022: Lightning Network faces many challenges, such as 1) while technically two-party payment channels can exist off-chain forever, in practice they suffer from liquidity depletion bounding their lifetime, 2) two-party payment channels occupy significant block space per user when they get opened/closed, setting a bound on the number of LN users concurrently, and 3) multi-hop trust-minimized routing may cause even more channel closings (in-flight HTLCs leading to onchain claims).
- https://coinpool.dev/v0.1.pdf
- https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-February/019968.html
April 4, 2022: Lightning Network -- Fundamental Limitations. Basic arithmetic is used to derive limitations of the Lightning Network (LN) https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/lightning-limitations/
April 8, 2022: Lightning Network developer writes, "Lightning Network is - as of now - UNRELIABLE by design." https://twitter.com/renepickhardt/status/1512324320151977990
May 3, 2022: Short Paper: A Centrality Analysis of the Lightning Network - "Overall, we can deduce that the Lightning Network is highly centralized."
June 30, 2022: Over half of all Lightning Network capacity is controlled by a total of 4 entities. One of the key concerns with a network like Lightning is that it becomes more and more centralized over time, not less (unlike L1). https://twitter.com/sethforprivacy/status/1542477206672359424
August 5, 2022: Lightning Network Dev Confessions - LN does not scale, has bad privacy, large payments don't work, too complicated, liquidity one directional, hard to run a node, etc.
- https://twitter.com/sentosumosaba/status/1557328438536843265
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjFjK-f9ts0
August 10, 2022: University of Illinois researchers have discovered a critical vulnerability in Bitcoin’s most popular second layer scaling protocol, the Lightning Network https://protos.com/researchers-discover-critical-bitcoin-lightning-network-vulnerability/
October 10, 2022: Bug freezes bitcoin inside Lightning Network for hours after a critical validation bug was found https://protos.com/taproot-bug-freezes-bitcoin-inside-lightning-network-for-hours/
October 18, 2022: The Bitcoin Lightning Network SUCKS - Here's Why https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kvT0nu8z_4
November 1, 2022: Lightning Network releases emergency update after another critical bug on LND nodes is discovered https://cointelegraph.com/news/lightning-network-releases-emergency-update-after-critical-bug-on-lnd-nodes
Unfortunately, the Lightning Network has been a disappointment since its inception in 2015. It has been an utter failure and has not delivered, and instead has led to centralization and reliance on custodial services and third-party companies. We have decided to stop following the development of the Lightning Network in this repository, as we believe it is a waste of time and resources. We recommend using a more reliable, secure, functional, and decentralized cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which has been working just fine since the Genesis Block in 2009.
If you want to contribute to this list, please see CONTRIBUTING.md.