SoK: Payment Channel Networks
Kartick Kolachala, Mohammed Ababneh, Roopa Vishwanathan

TL;DR
This survey paper reviews the fundamental aspects, recent advancements, and unresolved challenges of Payment Channel Networks, which are crucial for scalable, efficient, and private offchain blockchain transactions.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive overview of PCN research, highlighting key developments and identifying critical open problems for future exploration.
Findings
Survey of routing, virtual channels, and rebalancing protocols
Identification of key challenges in PCN infrastructure design
Guidance for future research directions in PCNs
Abstract
Payment Channel Networks (PCNs) have been proposed as an alternative solution to the scalability, throughput, and cost overhead problems associated with blockchain transactions. By facilitating offchain execution of transactions, PCNs significantly reduce the burden on the blockchain, leading to faster transaction processing, reduced transaction fees, and enhanced privacy. Despite these advantages, the current state-of-the-art in PCNs presents a variety of challenges that require further exploration. In this paper, we survey several fundamental aspects of PCNs, such as pathfinding and routing, virtual channels, state channels, payment channel hubs, and rebalancing protocols. We aim to provide the reader with a detailed understanding of the various aspects of PCN research, highlighting important advancements. Additionally, we highlight the various unresolved challenges in this area.…
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Taxonomy
TopicsCooperative Communication and Network Coding · Advanced Wireless Network Optimization · Error Correcting Code Techniques
