The Lightning Network meant to help Bitcoin and Litecoin scale to handle more payments has been under sustained DoS (Denial of Service) attack emanating from an friendly anonymous source or sources known as “BitPico.” The attack began March 22, 2018, and BitPico took credit publicly April 2nd. BitPico claims to have uncovered 22 attack vectors while stressing network nodes.
https://twitter.com/bitPico/status/980978688740163584
DoS attacks, in which networks are hit by an onslaught of service requests, are normally deterred by service fees. The fees are being paid by BitPico
“BitPico” is reported to have threatened to implement the Segwit 2x Bitcoin scaling upgrade proposed for implementation last November after even main supporters dropped the solution when it failed to achieve network-consensus support.
Lightning launched on March 15th and so far has much support among dedicated Bitcoiners. Alistair Milne tweeted;
“Having made some payments using Bitcoin’s Lightning network, I can conclude: – holy crap, its fast (faster than NFC?!) – waiting for confirmations will be only for large payments – Eclair wallet remarkably user-friendly (& only going to improve) – need more merchants!”
Bitcoin Magazine author Tuur Demeester tweeted;
“(In my opinion) Bitcoin’s Lightning Network could make altcoins dissolve, just like Google’s PageRank removed the need for most other search engines. Diversity is often lauded in the phase of deplorable user experience. Once past a threshold, strong network effects kick in.”
Shortly after the failure of Segwit 2x, an incident fraught with emotion for many Bitcoiners, BitPico retired from Twitter. Lightning Network implementation has evidently inspired BitPico’s return:
https://twitter.com/bitPico/status/975191758073159680
