Routing refers to the process of finding and selecting a path for a Bitcoin payment to travel through a network of interconnected nodes and payment channels to reach its intended recipient.
It involves determining the optimal sequence of nodes to relay the payment, ensuring that each node can forward the payment to the next node until it reaches its final destination.
Routing is a crucial mechanism that enables the Lightning Network to facilitate fast, low-cost, and secure off-chain transactions by leveraging the network’s topology and cryptographic protocols.
Under the hood, routing in the Lightning Network is a bit like GPS navigation for Bitcoin transactions. When you send a payment, your node consults its routing table, which is like a map of all the possible paths through the network. Each path consists of interconnected payment channels, and nodes act as intersections.
Your node looks for the quickest route with available capacity in these channels. It creates a series of encrypted packets, like waypoints, that hop from node to node. Hash Time-Locked Contracts (HTLCs) ensure that each node can’t open the ‘waypoint’ unless it’s on the right path. This clever navigation guarantees secure, multi-hop transactions at unprecedented speed.
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