Gossip v2: Measurements to inform Minisketch-ing
The gossip network that exists between lightning nodes is a fundamental component of the lightning payment channel network; without it, payers could not easily build routes and attempt to send payments. However, the health and performance of this network is not being actively monitored. Anecdotally, serious issues are discovered intermittently, and patched over with fixes. There are also observed issues with lost messages, or high bandwidth consumption, that are fundamentally at odds, given how gossip works today. With the gossip v2 proposal underway, this talk explores: - The performance of the existing mainnet gossip network, by presenting analysis of observed gossip traffic - Historical changes in implementation behavior, and how may that impacts gossip performance - Brief introduction to Minisketch and Erlay as an alternative to batched flooding; differences between Bitcoin L1 gossip, and Lightning gossip - Discussion on how the current gossip v2 proposal impacts usage of Minisketch / set reconciliation - Call to Action / Call for Feedback