Proof-of-Stake consensus protocols give rise to complex modeling challenges. We analyze the recently-updated Tezos Proof-of-Stake protocol and demonstrate that, under certain conditions, rational participants are incentivized to behave dishonestly. In doing so, we provide a theoretical analysis of the feasibility and profitability of a block stealing attack that we call selfish endorsing, a concrete instance of an attack previously only theoretically considered. We propose and analyze a simple change to the Tezos protocol which significantly reduces the (already small) profitability of this dishonest behavior, and introduce a new delay and reward scheme that is provably secure against length-1 and length-2 selfish endorsing attacks. Our framework provides a template for analyzing other Proof-of-Stake implementations for selfish behavior.
@article{arxiv.1912.02954,
title = {Selfish Behavior in the Tezos Proof-of-Stake Protocol},
author = {Michael Neuder and Daniel J. Moroz and Rithvik Rao and David C. Parkes},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.02954},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
Presented at Cryptoeconomic Systems Conference 2020. To appear in Cryptoeconomic Systems Journal Issue 0