Paper 2014/139
On the Phase Space of Block-Hiding Strategies
Assaf Shomer
Abstract
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 main branch and rip the reward associated with the secretly mined blocks. We identify two types of block-hiding strategies and chart the parameter space where those are more beneficial than the standard mining strategy described in Nakamoto's paper. Our analysis suggests a generalization of the notion of the relative hashing power as a measure for a miner's influence on the network. Block-hiding strategies are beneficial only when this measure of influence exceeds a certain threshold.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
- Category
- Implementation
- Publication info
- Published elsewhere. Arxiv
- Keywords
- bitcoincryptocurrency
- Contact author(s)
- assafshomer @ gmail com
- History
- 2014-02-25: received
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2014/139
- License
-
CC BY