Related papers: An Axiomatic Approach to Block Rewards
This work proposes a novel proof-of-work blockchain incentive scheme such that, barring exogenous motivations, following the protocol is guaranteed to be the optimal strategy for miners. Our blockchain takes the form of a directed acyclic…
This paper proposes a conceptual framework for the analysis of reward sharing schemes in mining pools, such as those associated with Bitcoin. The framework is centered around the reported shares in a pool instead of agents and results in…
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…
In cryptocurrencies, the block reward is meant to serve as the incentive mechanism for miners to commit resources to create blocks and in effect secure the system. Existing systems primarily divide the reward in proportion to expended…
All public blockchains are secured by a proof of opportunity cost among block producers. For example, the security offered by proof-of-work (PoW) systems, like Bitcoin, is due to spent computation; it is work precisely because it cannot be…
Proof-of-stake (PoS) is a promising approach for designing efficient blockchains, where block proposers are randomly chosen with probability proportional to their stake. A primary concern with PoS systems is the "rich getting richer"…
Blockchain is rapidly emerging as an important class of network application, with a unique set of trust, security and transparency properties. In a blockchain system, participants record and update the `server-side' state of an application…
Blockchain systems often employ proof-of-work consensus protocols to validate and add transactions into hashchains. These protocols stimulate competition among miners in solving cryptopuzzles (e.g. SHA-256 hash computation in Bitcoin) in…
Bitcoin mining is a wasteful and resource-intensive process. To add a block of transactions to the blockchain, miners spend a considerable amount of energy. The Bitcoin protocol, named 'proof of work' (PoW), resembles a lottery and the…
Proof-of-Stake blockchains based on a longest-chain consensus protocol are an attractive energy-friendly alternative to the Proof-of-Work paradigm. However, formal barriers to "getting the incentives right" were recently discovered, driven…
Following the publication of Bitcoin's arguably most famous attack, selfish mining, various works have introduced mechanisms to enhance blockchain systems' game theoretic resilience. Some reward mechanisms, like FruitChains, have been shown…
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.…
Although Bitcoin was intended to be a decentralized digital currency, in practice, mining power is quite concentrated. This fact is a persistent source of concern for the Bitcoin community. We provide an explanation using a simple model 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…
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…
Committee-based blockchains are among the most popular alternatives of proof-of-work based blockchains, such as Bitcoin. They provide strong consistency (no fork) under classical assumptions, and avoid using energy-consuming mechanisms to…
Blockchains have witnessed widespread adoption in the past decade in various fields. The growing demand makes their scalability and sustainability challenges more evident than ever. As a result, more and more blockchains have begun to adopt…
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…
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…
Bitcoin mining presents a significant economic incentive for efficient hashing and broadcast of data, both parameters stemming from the Proofs of Work used to advance the network. This incentive has led to the development of Bitcoin…