Lightning Network (LN), the solution of the second layer for the scalability of the blockchain of Bitcoin, shows an important growth since its launch more than 18 months ago. However, their promoters are also facing some challenges for which Lightning Network to become a most effective solution, such as, for example, raise the liquidity of the payment channels, which has presented the iniciaiva AMP or Atomic Multi-path Payments.AMP is a protocol developed by Conner Fromknecht and Olaoluwa Osuntokun, which was released in June of 2018. According to Breaking News the developer, Francisco Calderon, AMP is being discussed by the teams of the different implementations of Ligtning Network, with a view to becoming a standard specification.
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Limitations on the liquidity of the channels LN
The statistics of Lightning, according to the tracking page 1ml, reflect that currently, the routing capability of the network is located in 812,33 BTC, equivalent to about USD 6.6 million at the current price. The average capacity of the channels connected to the network, is 0,023 BTC (USD 187,63). However, these figures do not imply that all channels have enough capacity to support their operations.It should be noted that LN implies the establishment of channels of payment between two parties, with a specific capacity of bitcoins. If a user tries to submit a payment that exceeds the capacity of its channel, the operation will fail. Even when the sender has opened various channels of payment, the current design prevents you from combining the balances of several channels to complete a transaction, in case you do not have the necessary funds in a single channel.As explained, the creators of AMP, proposing the scheme last year, if a sender has five channels of USD 2 and is required to meet a payment of USD 6, currently I would have to make payments to multiple re-use of the hash of payment provided by the receiver. For its part, a receiver would have to wait to extract the payments when the amount matches your invoice. If one of the payments multiple fails, you run the risk of the receiver to extract the partial amounts and does not dispense the service.
Payments, atomic multi-path (AMP)
The design of the scheme, AMP is focused on achieving payments multiple more fluids, which do not require the re-use of the hash of payment and ensure that you will not be paid to the receiver until the completion of the partial payments. In addition, as explained Fromknecht and Osuntokun, the protocol is flexible enough in case of a failure of routing of the partial payments.Francisco Calderón, a venezuelan engineer who is defined as an evangelist of Lightning Network, explained some details about the operation of the protocol AMP (in Spanish Payments Atomic Multiple Routes). As stated, the use of AMP payments, divided in several segments, “iran by different routes to the same destination, this way you can make payments with the total balance of the user, regardless of how much there is in each channel.”This scheme could be a key specification to achieve greater liquidity in the channels of the Lightning Network. Calderon added that “today, a user with three channels of 100 thousand satoshis, you can make a maximum payment of 100 thousand satoshis, the user is limited by the maximum capacity of their channels. With AMP this user will be able to make a payment of 300 thousand satoshis, unless the commission, without having to worry about channels”.
Faster transactions
It might, however, think that the use of multiple channels to complete a payment in LN would increase the time in which to complete the transaction. This is because each partial payment must succeed in order for the final payment to be effective. In this regard, Calderon believes that, on the contrary, with AMP the transactions will be faster.
When you make a payment on LN, it tries to bring the money to the destination through multiple paths, the algorithm will test one after another until you find one that works, this means that to make a payment of LN probably in such second payment failed several times. With AMP some routes will also fail and the algorithm will try others until you find the proper path, all in a matter of seconds for the user to be instantaneous.Francisco Calderon, the creator of gaming site on LN, MicroBet
In the opinion of developer, the payments would be completed with fewer attempts, which would increase the speed of transaction and time of payment at a general level.
What the user must do AMP
In the email sent to the developers of Lightning by the creators of the AMP, point out that the scheme poses a “configuration non-interactive”. That is to say, the sender can determine the number of partial payments to use for an AMP in particular.” This would allow you to decide on the rates to pay for the use of this specification.However, Francisco Calderon explained that most of the changes will take place at the protocol level, so that the operator of a node of Lightning will not have to make significant changes, once implemented AMP. In fact, when asked about how to explain the benefits of this protocol, a trader, said that this would not be necessary. “For a merchant or end-user, LN should work as if you already AMP was implemented, although at the technical level there are going to develop step-by-step,” Calderon said.Next to AMP, there have been other proposals that focus on solving the liquidity of the payment channels at Lightning Network, such as the application Lightning Loop developed by Lightning Labs. These developments show an important development of LNS aimed at achieving greater efficiency in the processing of payments, and spread its adoption.