Related papers: Digging into Browser-based Crypto Mining
Many of today's crypto currencies use blockchains as decentralized ledgers and secure them with proof of work. In case of a fork of the chain, Bitcoin's rule for achieving consensus is selecting the longest chain and discarding the other…
A Blockchain is a global shared infrastructure where cryptocurrency transactions among addresses are recorded, validated and made publicly available in a peer- to-peer network. To date the best known and important cryptocurrency is the…
Selfish mining is a well known vulnerability in blockchains exploited by miners to steal block rewards. In this paper, we explore a new form of selfish mining attack that guarantees high rewards with low cost. We show the feasibility of…
We model and analyze blockchain miners who seek to maximize the compound return of their mining businesses. The analysis of the optimal strategies finds a new equilibrium point among the miners and the mining pools, which predicts the…
Browser fingerprinting is a relatively new method of uniquely identifying browsers that can be used to track web users. In some ways it is more privacy-threatening than tracking via cookies, as users have no direct control over it. A number…
Proof of work blockchain protocols using multiple hash types are considered. It is proven that the security region of such a protocol cannot be the AND of a 51\% attack on all the hash types. Nevertheless, a protocol called Merged Bitcoin…
With the surge in blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, illegal mining for cryptocurrency has become a popular cyberthreat. Host-based cryptojacking, where malicious actors exploit victims systems to mine cryptocurrency without their…
A blockchain, such as Bitcoin, is an append-only, secure, transparent, distributed ledger. A fair blockchain is expected to have healthy metrics; high honest mining power, low processing latency, i.e., low wait times for transactions and…
The blockchain initially gained traction in 2008 as the technology underlying bitcoin, but now has been employed in a diverse range of applications and created a global market worth over $150B as of 2017. What distinguishes blockchains from…
Bitcoin is a decentralized, pseudonymous cryptocurrency that is one of the most used digital assets to date. Its unregulated nature and inherent anonymity of users have led to a dramatic increase in its use for illicit activities. This…
How crypto flows among Bitcoin users is an important question for understanding the structure and dynamics of the cryptoasset at a global scale. We compiled all the blockchain data of Bitcoin from its genesis to the year 2020, identified…
An open distributed system can be secured by requiring participants to present proof of work and rewarding them for participation. The Bitcoin digital currency introduced this mechanism, which is adopted by almost all contemporary digital…
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…
Mining blocks on a blockchain equipped with a proof of work consensus protocol is well-known to be resource-consuming. A miner bears the operational cost, mainly electricity consumption and IT gear, of mining, and is compensated by a…
Ransomware can prevent a user from accessing a device and its files until a ransom is paid to the attacker, most frequently in Bitcoin. With over 500 known ransomware families, it has become one of the dominant cybercrime threats for law…
We calculate the probability of success of block-hiding mining strategies in Bitcoin-like networks. These strategies involve building a secret branch of the block-tree and publishing it opportunistically, aiming to replace the top of the…
Dark web marketplaces have been a significant outlet for illicit trade, serving millions of users worldwide for over a decade. However, not all users are the same. This paper aims to identify the key players in Bitcoin transaction networks…
Bitcoin, a decentralized cryptocurrency, has attracted a lot of attention from academia, financial service industry and enthusiasts. The trade-off between transaction confirmation throughput and centralization of hash power do not allow…
Bitcoin is a digital currency which relies on a distributed set of miners to mint coins and on a peer-to-peer network to broadcast transactions. The identities of Bitcoin users are hidden behind pseudonyms (public keys) which are…
The Bitcoin digital currency appeared in 2009. Since this time, researchers and practitioners have looked under the hood of the open source Bitcoin currency, and discovered that Bitcoins Blockchain software architecture is useful for…