Aviv Zohar: A Close Look at the Lightning Network

Professor Aviv Zohar is a faculty member at the School of Computer Science and Engineering in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, A Member of the Federmann Cyber security center, and the Center for Rationality. His research revolves around the economics, security and scalability of blockchain systems and cryptocurrencies. He is also a Co-Founder and Chief scientist in QED-it, a startup that aims to help companies collaborate with their data.

 

This seminar will explore how the Lightning Network is considered to be Bitcoin's greatest hope of scaling up the number of transactions that can be done with the currency. In the talk Aviv Zohar will explain the principles underlying the operation of this network and discuss several vulnerabilities that we explored in our research (Flood & Loot, Hijacking, and Congestion attacks).  No prior knowledge of blockchains or the lightning network will be assumed.