Bitfury ’s new payment routing algorithm (known as Flare) has been implemented on the Lightning Network following a successful test period by French startup ACINQ. The idea stems back to July of this year, when Bitfury released a white paper discussing the algorithm and what would be needed to grant it successful, “lightning-fast” integration. ACINQ then spent time testing the algorithm with approximately 2,500 AWS nodes, and discovered that payment methods were typically found roughly within .5 seconds about 80 percent of the time. The algorithm is slated to be fast, effective, and likely to serve as a major push for blockchain and digital currency services. CEO of Bitfury Valery Vavilov explained : “The Bitfury Group is committed to research and to supporting the implementation of Lightning Network. Our dedicated engineers as well as our fellow Blockchain companies are committed to the success of Lightning. This test of Flare, with small modifications made by the ACINQ team, shows that our solution is not only theoretically feasible, but successful. We are now one step closer to bringing the Lightning Network into reality and solving the scalability issue of the Bitcoin Blockchain.” Lightning Network engineer and co-author of the Flare paper Laolu Ostuntokun also had some words of encouragement: “With a live, large scale network test of Flare, ACINQ has taken the investigation of the algorithm to the next level supplementing our prior simulations. Their live network tests show that the scheme is indeed workable in practice, bolstering our theoretical investigation.” The algorithm works by moving as quickly as possible to secure data during transactions. Information is collected from random beacon nodes (typically found at further distances), as well as from local neighborhood nodes within low-hop distance. Additionally, the blockchain is used to verify the parties taking part in the transaction(s). […]
