Sindura Saraswathi

PhD Student
Department of Computer Science
University of Central Florida

Bitcoin & Lightning Network Researcher

Hi, I am a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Central Florida, advised by Dr. Christian Kümmerle . My research lies at the intersection of network optimization, routing, and distributed payment systems. I am broadly interested in designing scalable algorithms for routing and resource allocation in large networks, particularly when link capacities or other network states are uncertain or only partially observable.

On the network optimization side, I work on fixed-charge and minimum-cost network flow, multi-path routing, nonconvex optimization, and scalable numerical methods. My research explores how combinatorial routing and link-activation decisions can be handled using continuous optimization techniques such as iteratively reweighted least squares, semismooth Newton methods, and graph-Laplacian solvers. I am especially interested in applying these ideas to large-scale routing, traffic allocation, and network decision-making problems under uncertainty.

Bitcoin and the Lightning Network are a major application area of this work. I study Lightning pathfinding and multi-part payments, where a sender must choose routes and allocate traffic without knowing the exact liquidity available on each channel. This provides a practical setting for studying reliability-aware routing, uncertain network capacity, and cost-efficient multi-path allocation. I also work on Bitcoin custody and threshold-signature design, with the broader goal of making non-custodial Bitcoin systems more reliable, scalable, and usable.

More broadly, I am interested in problems where optimization, networking, and real-world systems meet: developing algorithms that are mathematically principled, computationally scalable, and useful in deployed networks. I am always happy to connect with researchers and practitioners working on network optimization, routing, Bitcoin, Lightning, or related systems problems.