Due to security concerns and basic difficulties with the Bitcoin ecosystem, security researcher and developer Antoine Riard is leaving the development of the Lightning Network. Riard voiced his worries about a fresh class of replacement cycling attacks that put the Lightning Network in danger in a thread on the Linux Foundation’s public mailing list.
By enabling off-chain, peer-to-peer transactions, the Lightning Network, a second-layer solution built over the Bitcoin blockchain, aims to increase the scalability and efficiency of Bitcoin transactions. The Lightning Network’s payment channels are the focus of the replacement cycling attack, which lets attackers steal money from channel users by taking advantage of discrepancies between different mempools.
Riard thinks that countering this new kind of assault would need for modifications to the underlying Bitcoin network, which would demand openness and community support. Since its launch in 2018, the Lightning Network has had difficulties, such as complaints about its complexity and requirements for user experience. DefiLlama records show that the layer-2 network has grown in popularity despite these problems, with a total locked value of $159.5 million at the time of writing. Riard intends to concentrate on the development of the Bitcoin core, but he foresees impending difficulties for the main cryptocurrency ecosystem.
