Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2020/1367
Costs of an Attack Against Proof-of-Work
Loïc Etienne
Abstract: Bitcoin is a blockchain whose immutability relies on Proof-of-Work: Before
appending a new block, some so-called miner has to solve a cryptographic
challenge by brute force. The blockchain is spread over a network of faithful
miners, whose cumulated computing power is assumed to be so large that, among
other things, it should be too expensive for an attacker to mine a secret fork
$n$ blocks longer than the main blockchain, provided that $n$ is big enough.
For a given targeted advance of $n$ blocks, we investigate the expected time
for the attacker to mine such a secret fork, the underlying cumulative
distribution function, and some related optimization problems.
Category / Keywords: cryptographic protocols / Bitcoin, Blockchain, Proof-of-Work, Double-spending
Date: received 30 Oct 2020
Contact author: loic etienne at pwc ch,loic jonas etienne@gmail com
Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation
Version: 20201102:104128 (All versions of this report)
Short URL: ia.cr/2020/1367
[ Cryptology ePrint archive ]