Editing Braess's paradox (section)

=== Blockchain networks ===
Braess's paradox has been shown to appear in blockchain payment channel networks, also known as layer-2 networks.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kotzer |first1=Arad |last2=Rottenstreich |first2=Ori |chapter=Braess Paradox in Layer-2 Blockchain Payment Networks |year=2023 |title=2023 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC) |chapter-url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10174986 |pages=1–9 |doi=10.1109/ICBC56567.2023.10174986 |isbn=979-8-3503-1019-1 }}</ref> Payment channel networks implement a solution to the scalability problem of blockchain networks, allowing transactions of high rates without recording them on the blockchain. In such a network, users can establish a channel by locking funds on each side of the channel. Transactions are executed either through a channel connecting directly the payer and payee or through a path of channels with intermediate users that ask for some fees. 

While intuitively, opening new channels allows higher routing flexibility, adding a new channel might cause higher fees, and similarly closing existing channels might decrease fees. The paper presented a theoretical analysis with conditions for the paradox, methods for mitigating the paradox as well as an empirical analysis, showing the appearance in practice of the paradox and its effects on Bitcoin's Lightning network.