Topological and Temporal Stability Analysis of the Lightning Network

Abstract

The Lightning Network (LN) is the most prominent payment channel network built atop Bitcoin, designed to enable scalable, low-cost off-chain transactions. Understanding its structural evolution and temporal stability is critical for routing optimization, liquidity allocation, and infrastructure robustness. Leveraging a validated dataset of LN topology snapshots spanning 2019-2023, we compute a set of network-science metrics under directed, undirected, unweighted, capacity-weighted, and routing-aware graph representations. To our knowledge, this is the first longitudinal multi-representation temporal stability analysis of the Lightning Network combining topological, distributional, and routing-equivalent persistence metrics over a 5-year validated snapshot dataset. Developed analytical framework reveals a network undergoing gradual structural sparsification and increasing modularization: density, clustering, and global efficiency decline over time, while community fragmentation and centralization persist. However, distributional and observed operational characteristics remain remarkably stable.

25 pages, 15 figures

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