Questions tagged [selfish-mining]
31 questions
13
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2 answers
Colluding miners attack: Is the Bitcoin protocol compromised?
A very interesting academic paper has been recently published by two researches from the Cornell University (abstract, full PDF):
Abstract
The Bitcoin cryptocurrency records its transactions in a public log
called the blockchain. Its security…
Adam Matan
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9
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4 answers
String-along, is this possible and is it an attack?
I haven't seen this discussed before, if it has been please provide a link.
If I find a block while mining but then discover that another miner broadcast a block mere moments ago, I could begin mining the next block based on the network accepted…
Mocky
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8
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3 answers
Does selfish mining actually give an advantage in the absence of transaction fees, difficulty changes, and economic effects?
I am reading the Cornell selfish mining paper. In it, their main argument is that a selfish miner can increase the ratio of the blocks he mines relative to the honest miners. I do not dispute this. However, to my understanding, merely denying others…
Tony
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2 answers
Have bitcoin developers applied the solution for selfish miner attack?
The Majority is not enough paper proposed an academic and somehow practical attack to Bitcoin mining system based on creating hidden forks. The paper claims that if miners work on whichever fork they received first, the attack can be executed by…
Tail of Godzilla
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2 answers
Is selfish mining still an option with compact blocks and FIBRE?
The selfish mining strategy relies on withholding a block to build on it in private. When the honest chain publishes a block, the attacker immediately broadcasts its own withheld block in order to try to replace it.
Today, most miners are connected…
Murch
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5
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1 answer
Can Bitcoin Days Destroyed be a better resolution mechanism for competing blocks?
I've been looking at selfish mining and empty blocks. In all cases, the selfish miner profits by keeping block solutions private until their value to his own pool is maximized, rather than releasing them ASAP which is the honest way to do it.
If…
Dave Scotese
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4
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1 answer
Why isn't the block hash used to calculate accumulated work?
Why is this idea flawed? It doesn't seem to be a bad idea at first, because the miners should be incentivized to extend existing chain, instead of to "remine existing blocks", since such "remining" apparently requires more work to be done.
What's…
Chris Chen
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3 answers
Why should a miner choose the longest blockchain if another chain has a higher expected reward?
Why did miners/pools choose the longest chain for continuing it?
Because with this strategy they have the highest expected bitcoin reward.
The expected bitcoin reward is (new generated bitcoin (b) + transaction fees (t)) * probability (p) the block…
user599464
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4
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1 answer
Why is attacker revenue in the selfish mining disproportional to its hash-power?
It's not clear to me why attacker can gain more revenue if it does "selfish mining" attack than its revenue when it behaves honestly.
I'm aware of this paper.
user153465
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What verb best describes "causing another block to become stale"?
For example, suppose I'm selfish mining; you publish a block and then I immediately publish two, what did I do to your block?
Similarly, if I'm executing a double-spend attack, my goal is to ?___? the block containing the transaction standing in the…
MicahW
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2
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1 answer
How to prevent selfish mining?
I'm exploring the topic of selfish mining attacks and how to detect and stop them. I do not really understand any of given solutions. Can someone please explain in plain English, how selfish mining gets detected, how to stop it from happening and…
ddavi031
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1 answer
Is it possible to use Selfish Mining to steal bitcoins?
Is it possible to use the Selfish Mining algorithm to steal bitcoins?
Aliakbar Ahmadi
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2
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What is the difference between Selfish Mining and Block Withholding attacks?
I found contradicting information about these two attacks.
My understanding is roughly this:
Selfish mining is a strategy followed by a miner/pool, in which it doesn't publish new blocks in order to obtain a secret fork which is longer than the…
FedFranz
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2
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Selfish mining attack: Probability of block being mined - CS251 exam question
I am currently studying for the CS251 Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technologies exam. In a past exam, there is this question without an answer and I would really appreciate your help so that I can better understand it:
Recall that a selfish miner…
2
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2 answers
Known cases of block-withholding attacks
At the moment I am doing a course about Bitcoin. The topic of the last session was the block-withholding attack and the course (being from 2014) claimed that there are no known attacks so far.
Is block-withholding a strategy used by mining pools in…
lunskra
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