---
_id: '9969'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: 'Payment channel networks are a promising approach to improve the scalability
    of cryptocurrencies: they allow to perform transactions in a peer-to-peer fashion,
    along multihop routes in the network, without requiring consensus on the blockchain.
    However, during the discovery of cost-efficient routes for the transaction, critical
    information may be revealed about the transacting entities. This paper initiates
    the study of privacy-preserving route discovery mechanisms for payment channel
    networks. In particular, we present LightPIR, an approach which allows a client
    to learn the shortest (or cheapest in terms of fees) path between two nodes without
    revealing any information about the endpoints of the transaction to the servers.
    The two main observations which allow for an efficient solution in LightPIR are
    that: (1) surprisingly, hub labelling algorithms – which were developed to preprocess
    “street network like” graphs so one can later efficiently compute shortest paths
    – also perform well for the graphs underlying payment channel networks, and that
    (2) hub labelling algorithms can be conveniently combined with private information
    retrieval. LightPIR relies on a simple hub labeling heuristic on top of existing
    hub labeling algorithms which leverages the specific topological features of cryptocurrency
    networks to further minimize storage and bandwidth overheads. In a case study
    considering the Lightning network, we show that our approach is an order of magnitude
    more efficient compared to a privacy-preserving baseline based on using private
    information retrieval on a database that stores all pairs shortest paths.'
article_processing_charge: No
arxiv: 1
author:
- first_name: Krzysztof Z
  full_name: Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z
  id: 3E04A7AA-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Pietrzak
  orcid: 0000-0002-9139-1654
- first_name: Iosif
  full_name: Salem, Iosif
  last_name: Salem
- first_name: Stefan
  full_name: Schmid, Stefan
  last_name: Schmid
- first_name: Michelle X
  full_name: Yeo, Michelle X
  id: 2D82B818-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
  last_name: Yeo
  orcid: 0009-0001-3676-4809
citation:
  ama: 'Pietrzak KZ, Salem I, Schmid S, Yeo MX. LightPIR: Privacy-preserving route
    discovery for payment channel networks. In: IEEE; 2021. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205">10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205</a>'
  apa: 'Pietrzak, K. Z., Salem, I., Schmid, S., &#38; Yeo, M. X. (2021). LightPIR:
    Privacy-preserving route discovery for payment channel networks. Presented at
    the 2021 IFIP Networking Conference (IFIP Networking), Espoo and Helsinki, Finland:
    IEEE. <a href="https://doi.org/10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205">https://doi.org/10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205</a>'
  chicago: 'Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z, Iosif Salem, Stefan Schmid, and Michelle X Yeo.
    “LightPIR: Privacy-Preserving Route Discovery for Payment Channel Networks.” IEEE,
    2021. <a href="https://doi.org/10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205">https://doi.org/10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205</a>.'
  ieee: 'K. Z. Pietrzak, I. Salem, S. Schmid, and M. X. Yeo, “LightPIR: Privacy-preserving
    route discovery for payment channel networks,” presented at the 2021 IFIP Networking
    Conference (IFIP Networking), Espoo and Helsinki, Finland, 2021.'
  ista: 'Pietrzak KZ, Salem I, Schmid S, Yeo MX. 2021. LightPIR: Privacy-preserving
    route discovery for payment channel networks. 2021 IFIP Networking Conference
    (IFIP Networking).'
  mla: 'Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z., et al. <i>LightPIR: Privacy-Preserving Route Discovery
    for Payment Channel Networks</i>. IEEE, 2021, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205">10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205</a>.'
  short: K.Z. Pietrzak, I. Salem, S. Schmid, M.X. Yeo, in:, IEEE, 2021.
conference:
  end_date: 2021-06-24
  location: Espoo and Helsinki, Finland
  name: 2021 IFIP Networking Conference (IFIP Networking)
  start_date: 2021-06-21
date_created: 2021-08-29T22:01:16Z
date_published: 2021-06-21T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-04-07T13:29:44Z
day: '21'
department:
- _id: KrPi
doi: 10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472205
ec_funded: 1
external_id:
  arxiv:
  - '2104.04293'
  isi:
  - '000853016800008'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.04293
month: '06'
oa: 1
oa_version: Submitted Version
project:
- _id: 258AA5B2-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425
  call_identifier: H2020
  grant_number: '682815'
  name: Teaching Old Crypto New Tricks
publication_identifier:
  eisbn:
  - 978-3-9031-7639-3
  eissn:
  - 1861-2288
  isbn:
  - 978-1-6654-4501-6
publication_status: published
publisher: IEEE
quality_controlled: '1'
related_material:
  record:
  - id: '14506'
    relation: dissertation_contains
    status: public
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: 'LightPIR: Privacy-preserving route discovery for payment channel networks'
type: conference
user_id: 4359f0d1-fa6c-11eb-b949-802e58b17ae8
year: '2021'
...