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Bitcoin has been stuck at $8,000 valuation in recent months but managed to push its price higher thanks to the continuous effort of the bulls. The leading cryptocurrency has bumped its value by three percent, prompting speculations that Bitcoin may be looking for another bullish run.
Bitcoin is currently exchanging hands at $8,237 as of this writing, with its value declining by 20 percent in the past 24 hours. However, it’s difficult to say if Bitcoin is indeed ready for a value upswing since the relative strength index (RSI) is currently sitting at 50.
But some analysts are convinced that the cryptocurrency will experience a spike in value in the coming days. Crypto analyst HornHairs are among those who are holding this sentiment, saying that as long as Bitcoin stays above $8,100, the bullish run would certainly occur, NEWS BTC reported.
Bitcoin lightning network is vulnerable
The bad news is that there are growing concerns out there regarding a possible attack on the lightning network as reported by the paper titled “Hijacking Routes in Payment Networks.” The researchers argue that bad actors can potentially slow down Bitcoin lightning payments by creating a node that will highly likely be selected by an app when a payment is being made, CoinDesk reported.
“We can open channels that offer short and low-cost routes in the network which then are selected. By doing this, they can capture a significant portion of the network’s payments at a given time. We find that just five new links are enough to draw the majority (65% – 75%) of the traffic regardless of the implementation being used,” the paper explains.
Bitcoin lightning network’s evolution can stop bad actors
However, the paper did say that launching such an attack wouldn’t be cheap. The researchers also cited the dynamic improvements of the system that will reduce the possibility of an attack, including the reputation of a certain Bitcoin node.
Although apps will indeed choose the cheapest node to conduct a payment, the system is ever-growing and is becoming more stringent when it comes to node reputation. Along with cheap services, the Bitcoin lightning network would also deem a node as trustworthy based on their previous actions. This means that bad actors need to accumulate enough positive reputation over time before launching an attack.
There’s also the fact that these potential attackers might get ban by the system, eliminating their investment and forcing them to create another trustworthy node that will take time. Whatever the case, Bitcoin is still biding its time and only time will tell if its value is going to rise to $10,000 or fall below $6,000.
