  Nodes in the Lightning Network synchronise routing information through a
gossip protocol that makes use of a staggered broadcast mechanism. In this
work, we show that the convergence delay in the network is larger than what
would be expected from the protocol's specification and that payment attempt
failures caused by the delay are more frequent, the larger the delay is. To
this end, we measure the convergence delay incurred in the network and analyse
what its primary causes are. Moreover, we further investigate and confirm our
findings through a time-discrete simulation of the Lightning Network gossip
protocol. We explore the use of alternative gossip protocols as well as
parameter variations of the current protocol and evaluate them by the resulting
bandwidth usage and convergence delay. Our research shows that there are
multiple ways of lowering the convergence delay, ranging from simple parameter
changes to overhauling the entire protocol.
