Who Patches the Lightning Network? Evidence from Release Lines in Gossip, 2023-2026

Saurabh Kumar · 2026 · arXiv

DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2610.30350 · open-access PDF

Abstract

Every implementation of Bitcoin's Lightning payment network disclosed security vulnerabilities in 2026, and every advisory told operators to upgrade. Whether they do has never been measured, because Lightning gossip carries no software version. Matching the feature bits a node announces against the source of every LND, Core Lightning, Eclair and LDK release, we show that gossip reveals a node's release line after all. Where Core Lightning nodes state their version, the inferred line is exact for 132 of 136 node-line pairs. Across 814 daily snapshots of the public graph from 2023 to 2026, the n

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