{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,25]],"date-time":"2026-02-25T17:39:48Z","timestamp":1772041188180,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":21,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,3]],"date-time":"2018-09-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1535932800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Information"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The Lightning Network (LN) is one of the most promising off-chain scaling solutions for Bitcoin, as it enables off-chain payments which are not subject to the well-known blockchain scalability limit. In this work, we introduce CLoTH, a simulator for HTLC payment networks (of which LN is the best working example). It simulates input-defined payments on an input-defined HTLC network and produces performance measures in terms of payment-related statistics (such as time to complete payments and probability of payment failure). CLoTH helps to predict issues and obstacles that might emerge in the development stages of an HTLC payment network and to estimate the effects of an optimisation action before deploying it. We conducted simulations on a recent snapshot of the HTLC payment network of LN. These simulations allowed us to identify network and payments configurations for which a payment is more likely to fail than to succeed. We proposed viable solutions to avoid such configurations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/info9090223","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,3]],"date-time":"2018-09-03T10:50:51Z","timestamp":1535971851000},"page":"223","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":29,"title":["The CLoTH Simulator for HTLC Payment Networks with Introductory Lightning Network Performance Results"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2483-7692","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marco","family":"Conoscenti","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Nexa Center for Internet &amp; Society, Department of Control and Computer Engineering (DAUIN), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2027-3308","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Antonio","family":"Vetr\u00f2","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Nexa Center for Internet &amp; Society, Department of Control and Computer Engineering (DAUIN), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7867-1926","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Juan Carlos","family":"De Martin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Nexa Center for Internet &amp; Society, Department of Control and Computer Engineering (DAUIN), Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6355-5447","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Federico","family":"Spini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Engineering, Roma Tre University, 00154 Rome, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Nakamoto, S. (2018, August 31). Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. Available online: https:\/\/bitcoin.org\/bitcoin.pdf."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Sompolinsky, Y., and Zohar, A. (2018, August 31). Accelerating Bitcoin\u2019s Transaction Processing. Available online: http:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/download?doi=10.1.1.433.6590&rep=rep1&type=pdf."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gervais, A., Karame, G.O., W\u00fcst, K., Glykantzis, V., Ritzdorf, H., and Capkun, S. (2016, January 24\u201328). On the security and performance of proof of work blockchains. Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Vienna, Austria.","DOI":"10.1145\/2976749.2978341"},{"key":"ref_4","unstructured":"Poon, J., and Dryja, T. (2018, August 31). The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments. Available online: http:\/\/www.cva-blockchain.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/lightning-network-paper.pdf."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Decker, C., and Wattenhofer, R. (2015). A fast and scalable payment network with bitcoin duplex micropayment channels. Symposium on Self-Stabilizing Systems, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-21741-3_1"},{"key":"ref_6","unstructured":"Miller, A., Bentov, I., Kumaresan, R., and McCorry, P. (arXiv, 2017). Sprites: Payment Channels that Go Faster than Lightning, arXiv."},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"(2018, July 31). Raiden Network. Available online: https:\/\/raiden.network\/."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Burchert, C., Decker, C., and Wattnhofer, R. (2017). Scalable Funding of Bitcoin Micropayment Channel Networks. International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-69084-1_26"},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"Khalil, R., and Gervais, A. (November, January 30). Revive: Rebalancing Off-Blockchain Payment Networks. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Dallas, Texas, USA."},{"key":"ref_10","unstructured":"Prihodko, P., Zhigulin, S., Sahno, M., Ostrovskiy, A., and Osuntokun, O. (2018, August 31). Flare: An Approach to Routing in Lightning Network. Available online: https:\/\/bitfury.com\/content\/downloads\/whitepaper_flare_an_approach_to_routing_in_lightning_network_7_7_2016.pdf."},{"key":"ref_11","unstructured":"Vu, B. (2018, July 31). Exploring Lightning Network Routing. 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Available online: https:\/\/en.bitcoin.it\/wiki\/Maximum_transaction_rate."},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"(2018, August 04). Payment Channels. Available online: https:\/\/en.bitcoin.it\/wiki\/Payment_channels."},{"key":"ref_16","unstructured":"(2018, July 31). C-Lightning. Available online: https:\/\/github.com\/ElementsProject\/lightning."},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"(2018, July 31). Eclair. Available online: https:\/\/github.com\/ACINQ\/eclair."},{"key":"ref_18","unstructured":"(2018, July 31). Lightning Network Specifications. Available online: https:\/\/github.com\/lightningnetwork\/lightning-rfc."},{"key":"ref_19","unstructured":"Jain, R. (1990). The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis: Techniques for Experimental Design, Measurement, Simulation, and Modeling, John Wiley & Sons."},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"Vu, B. (2018, July 31). Lightning User Experience: A Day in the Life of Carol. 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Available online: https:\/\/lists.linuxfoundation.org\/pipermail\/lightning-dev\/2018-February\/000993.html."}],"container-title":["Information"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2078-2489\/9\/9\/223\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T15:18:31Z","timestamp":1760195911000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2078-2489\/9\/9\/223"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,3]]},"references-count":21,"journal-issue":{"issue":"9","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,9]]}},"alternative-id":["info9090223"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/info9090223","relation":{},"ISSN":["2078-2489"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2078-2489","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2018,9,3]]}}}