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Related papers: On profitability of selfish mining

200 papers

Bitcoin mining hardware acquisition requires strategic timing due to volatile markets, rapid technological obsolescence, and protocol-driven revenue cycles. Despite mining's evolution into a capital-intensive industry, there is little…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Sithumi Wickramasinghe , Bikramjit Das , Dorien Herremans

Strategic mining attacks, such as selfish mining, exploit blockchain consensus protocols by deviating from honest behavior to maximize rewards. Markov Decision Process (MDP) analysis faces scalability challenges in modern digital economics,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-26 Jichen Li , Lijia Xie , Hanting Huang , Bo Zhou , Binfeng Song , Wanying Zeng , Xiaotie Deng , Xiao Zhang

In this paper, we explore the partitioning attacks on the Bitcoin network, which is shown to exhibit spatial bias, and temporal and logical diversity. Through data-driven study we highlight: 1) the centralization of Bitcoin nodes across…

Networking and Internet Architecture · Computer Science 2019-02-12 Muhammad Saad , Victor Cook , Lan Nguyen , My T. Thai , Aziz Mohaisen

The mining of bitcoin is modeled using system dynamics, showing that the past evolution of the network hash rate can be explained to a large extent by an efficient market hypothesis applied to the mining of blocks. The possibility of a…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2020-04-21 Davide Lasi , Lukas Saul

We study the strategic considerations of miners participating in the bitcoin's protocol. We formulate and study the stochastic game that underlies these strategic considerations. The miners collectively build a tree of blocks, and they are…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-07-11 Aggelos Kiayias , Elias Koutsoupias , Maria Kyropoulou , Yiannis Tselekounis

We study the incentives behind double-spend attacks on Nakamoto-style Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies. In these systems, miners are allowed to choose which transactions to reference with their block, and a common strategy for selecting…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-12-14 Yanni Georghiades , Rajesh Mishra , Karl Kreder , Sriram Vishwanath

We revisit the fundamental question of Bitcoin's security against double spending attacks. While previous work has bounded the probability that a transaction is reversed, we show that no such guarantee can be effectively given if the…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2016-06-01 Yonatan Sompolinsky , Aviv Zohar

In recent years, cryptocurrencies have attracted growing attention from both private investors and institutions. Among them, Bitcoin stands out for its impressive volatility and widespread influence. This paper explores the predictability…

Statistical Finance · Quantitative Finance 2025-04-29 Grégory Bournassenko

Cryptocurrencies have gained popularity due to their transparency, security, and accessibility compared to traditional financial systems, with Bitcoin, introduced in 2009, leading the market. Bitcoin's security relies on blockchain…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-11-12 Dinitha Wijewardhana , Sugandima Vidanagamachchi , Nalin Arachchilage

The security of Bitcoin protocols is deeply dependent on the incentives provided to miners, which come from a combination of block rewards and transaction fees. As Bitcoin experiences more halving events, the protocol reward converges to…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-09-12 Roozbeh Sarenche , Alireza Aghabagherloo , Svetla Nikova , Bart Preneel

Mining for Bitcoins is a high-risk high-reward activity. Miners, seeking to reduce their variance and earn steadier rewards, collaborate in pooling strategies where they jointly mine for Bitcoins. Whenever some pool participant is…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-03-14 Ben A. Fisch , Rafael Pass , Abhi Shelat

Mining in proof-of-work blockchains has become an expensive affair requiring specialized hardware capable of executing several megahashes per second at huge electricity costs. Miners earn a reward each time they mine a block within the…

Networking and Internet Architecture · Computer Science 2023-08-30 Arti Vedula , Abhishek Gupta , Shaileshh Bojja Venkatakrishnan

We survey recent results on the mathematical stability of Bitcoin protocol. Profitability and probability of a double spend are estimated in closed form with classical special functions. The stability of Bitcoin mining rules is analyzed and…

History and Overview · Mathematics 2020-03-03 Cyril Grunspan , Ricardo Pérez-Marco

Mining processes of Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are currently incentivized with voluntary transaction fees and fixed block rewards which will halve gradually to zero. In the setting where optional and arbitrary transaction fee…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2022-07-14 Tiantian Gong , Mohsen Minaei , Wenhai Sun , Aniket Kate

The aim of this work is to enhance blockchain security by deepening the understanding of selfish mining attacks in various consensus protocols, especially the ones that have the potential to mitigate selfish mining. Previous research was…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-01-07 Martin Perešíni , Tomáš Hladký , Jakub Kubík , Ivan Homoliak

The Bitcoin cryptocurrency records its transactions in a public log called the blockchain. Its security rests critically on the distributed protocol that maintains the blockchain, run by participants called miners. Conventional wisdom…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2013-11-18 Ittay Eyal , Emin Gun Sirer

In this paper, we address the critical challenges of double-spending and selfish mining attacks in blockchain-based digital currencies. Double-spending is a problem where the same tender is spent multiple times during a digital currency…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-03-11 Seyed Ardalan Ghoreishi , Mohammad Reza Meybodi

In the last few years several papers investigated selfish mine attacks, most of which assumed that every miner that is not part of the selfish mine pool will continue to mine honestly. However, in reality, remaining honest is not always…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-05-14 Jonathan Gal , Maytal B Szabo , Ori Rottenstreich

We analyze Bitcoin mining from the perspective of a game and propose an optimal mining model that maximizes profits of pools and miners. The model is a two-stage Stackelberg game in which each stage forms a sub-game. In stage I, pools are…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-07-22 David Lajeunesse , Hugo D. Scolnik

Blockchain security is threatened by selfish mining, where a miner (operator) deviates from the protocol to increase their revenue. Selfish mining is exacerbated by adverse conditions: rushing (network propagation advantage for the selfish…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-11-27 Roi Bar-Zur , Aviv Tamar , Ittay Eyal