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Related papers: Competing (Semi)-Selfish Miners in Bitcoin

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We study the strategic implications that arise from adding one extra option to the miners participating in the bitcoin protocol. We propose that when adding a block, miners also have the ability to pay forward an amount to be collected by…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2019-05-21 Elias Koutsoupias , Philip Lazos , Paolo Serafino , Foluso Ogunlana

Traditionally, peer-to-peer systems have relied on altruism and reciprocity. Although incentive-based models have gained prominence in new-generation peer-to-peer systems, it is essential to recognize the continued importance of cooperative…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2023-08-15 Bulat Nasrulin , Rowdy Chotkan , Johan Pouwelse

The arisen of Bitcoin has led to much enthusiasm for blockchain research and block mining, and the extensive existence of mining pools helps its participants (i.e., miners) gain reward more frequently. Recently, the mining pools are proved…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-08-18 Zhihuai Chen , Bo Li , Xiaohan Shan , Xiaoming Sun , Jialin Zhang

In the area of blockchain, numerous methods have been proposed for suppressing intentional forks by attackers more effectively than the random rule. However, all of them, except for the random rule, require major updates, rely on a trusted…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-01-03 Akira Sakurai , Kazuyuki Shudo

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

In the Bitcoin system, participants are rewarded for solving cryptographic puzzles. In order to receive more consistent rewards over time, some participants organize mining pools and split the rewards from the pool in proportion to each…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-09-14 Yujin Kwon , Dohyun Kim , Yunmok Son , Eugene Vasserman , Yongdae Kim

We describe and analyze perishing mining, a novel block-withholding mining strategy that lures profit-driven miners away from doing useful work on the public chain by releasing block headers from a privately maintained chain. We then…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-02-10 Tong Cao , Jérémie Decouchant , Jiangshan Yu

Bitcoin is a representative decentralized currency system. For the security of Bitcoin, fairness in the distribution of mining rewards plays a crucial role in preventing the concentration of computational power in a few miners. Here,…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-06-17 Akira Sakurai , Kazuyuki Shudo

A proof of the security of the Bitcoin protocol is made rigorous, and simplified in certain parts. A computational model in which an adversary can delay transmission of blocks by time $\Delta$ is considered. The protocol is generalized to…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-04-17 Christopher Blake , Chen Feng , Xuechao Wang , Qianyu Yu

Selfish Mining is strategic rule-breaking to maximize rewards in proof-of-work protocols [3] and Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are the preferred tool for finding optimal strategies in Bitcoin [4, 10] and similar linear chain protocols…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-05-01 Patrik Keller

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…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2022-03-31 Sishan Long , Soumya Basu , Emin Gün Sirer

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

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 develop a dynamic model of the Bitcoin market where users set fees themselves and miners decide whether to operate and whom to validate based on those fees. Our analysis reveals how, in equilibrium, users adjust their bids in response to…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-02-24 Yuichiro Kamada , Shunya Noda

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

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

In this paper, we provide a novel dynamic decision method of blockchain selfish mining by applying the sensitivity-based optimization theory. Our aim is to find the optimal dynamic blockchain-pegged policy of the dishonest mining pool. To…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2021-11-16 Jing-Yu Ma , Quan-Lin Li

Permisionless decentralized ledgers ("blockchains") such as the one underlying the cryptocurrency Bitcoin allow anonymous participants to maintain the ledger, while avoiding control or "censorship" by any single entity. In contrast,…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2016-06-27 Maurice Herlihy , Mark Moir

Conventional double-spending attack models ignore the revenue losses stemming from the orphan blocks. On the other hand, selfish mining literature usually ignores the chance of the attacker to double-spend at no-cost in each attack cycle.…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-03-23 Mustafa Doger , Sennur Ulukus

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