Lightning Network is one of the key upcoming technologies that will change Bitcoin for the better, it’s a network of nodes with channels between these nodes that process payments and transactions “off-chain”, to keep only the few important transactions on-chain and decrease the load on the blockchain and the time it takes to send a transaction.

However there is a potential for node centrality in the lightning network, the main issue being that some nodes might end up functioning like banks, processing the bulk of these transactions. Developer Kulpreet Singh set out to measure the centrality of nodes in the Lightning network.

I have been visiting Berlin to attend the second lightninghackday and want to give a brief wrap up about the event. This article will basically cover two topics. 1st as promised within my bar camp session on “Building an automated topology for autopilot features of the lightning network nodes” I will give an extensive protocol / summary of the session itself. 2nd I will talk about an already well known technique called splicing which I realized during the event might be one of the more important yet unimplemented features of lightning nodes.