# CLoTH: a Simulator for HTLC Payment Networks

## TL;DR

CLoTH is a simulator designed for HTLC payment networks like the Lightning Network, enabling performance prediction and optimization assessment before deployment.

## Contribution

Introduces CLoTH, a novel simulator for HTLC payment networks, facilitating performance analysis and optimization testing.

## Key findings

- Predicts payment completion times and failure probabilities.
- Helps identify potential issues in HTLC network development.
- Estimates effects of network optimizations.

## Abstract

The Lightning Network (LN) is one of the most promising off-chain scaling solutions for Bitcoin, as it enables off-chain payments which are not subject to the well-known blockchain scalability limit. In this work, we introduce CLoTH, a simulator for HTLC payment networks, of which LN is the best working example. It simulates input-defined payments on an input-defined HTLC network and produces performance measures in terms of payment-related statistics, such as time to complete payments and probability of payment failure. CLoTH helps to predict issues that might arise in the development of an HTLC payment network, and to estimate the effects of an optimisation before deploying it. In upcoming works we'll publish the results of CLoTH simulations.