Related papers: Diversification Across Mining Pools: Optimal Minin…
Miners play a key role in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin: they invest substantial computational resources in processing transactions and minting new currency units. It is well known that an attacker controlling more than half of the…
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…
Proof-of-Work (PoW) systems face critical challenges, including excessive energy consumption and the centralization of mining power among entities with expensive hardware. Static mining pools exacerbate these issues by reducing competition…
Cryptocurrencies that are based on Proof-of-Work (PoW) often rely on special purpose hardware to perform so-called mining operations that secure the system, with miners receiving freshly minted tokens as a reward for their work. A notable…
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…
Proof of work cryptocurrencies began with the promise of a more egalitarian future with a decentralized monetary system with no powerful entities in charge. While this vision is far from realized, these cryptocurrencies are still touted to…
Proof-of-Work (PoW) is a popular consensus protocol used by Bitcoin since its inception. PoW has the well-known flaw of assigning all the reward to the single miner (or pool) that inserts the new block. This has the consequence of making…
The consensus protocol named proof of work (PoW) is widely applied by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Although security of a PoW cryptocurrency is always the top priority, it is threatened by mining attacks like selfish mining. Researchers…
Does the proof-of-work protocol serve its intended purpose of supporting decentralized cryptocurrency mining? To address this question, we develop a game-theoretical model where miners first invest in hardware to improve the efficiency of…
Mining blocks in a blockchain using the \textit{Proof-of-Work} consensus protocol involves significant risk, as network participants face continuous operational costs while earning infrequent capital gains upon successfully mining a block.…
One of the most important features of blockchain protocols is decentralization, as their main contribution is that they formulate a distributed ledger that will be maintained and extended without the need of a trusted party. Bitcoin has…
Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus is traditionally analyzed under the assumption that all miners incur similar costs per unit of computational effort. In reality, costs vary due to factors such as regional electricity cost differences and…
Blockchain plays a crucial role in ensuring the security and integrity of decentralized systems, with the proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism being fundamental for achieving distributed consensus. As PoW blockchains see broader adoption, an…
Bitcoin uses blockchain technology and proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism where nodes spend computing resources and earn rewards in return for spending these resources. This incentive system has caused power to be significantly biased towards a…
Most cryptocurrencies rely on Proof-of-Work (PoW) "mining" for resistance to Sybil and double-spending attacks, as well as a mechanism for currency issuance. Hashcash PoW has successfully secured the Bitcoin network since its inception,…
Proof-of-Work is a consensus algorithm where miners solve cryptographic puzzles to mine blocks and obtain a reward through some Block Reward Mechanism (BRM). PoW blockchain faces the problem of centralization due to the formation of mining…
A soft control of the network activity through varying reward in a proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency is reported. Rewards are the necessity to incent the contributors activities (i.e., mining) in order to maintain the PoW network. Contrary…
Bitcoin's Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism, while central to achieving decentralized consensus, has long been criticized for excessive energy use and hardware inefficiencies \cite{devries2018bitcoin, truby2018decarbonizing}. This paper…
Mining attacks enable an adversary to procure a disproportionately large portion of mining rewards by deviating from honest mining practices within the PoW-based blockchain system. In this paper, we demonstrate that the security…
A key component of security in decentralized blockchains is proof of opportunity cost among block producers. In the case of proof-of-work (PoW), currently used by the most prominent systems, the cost is due to spent computation. In this…