Yet another note on block withholding attack on bitcoin mining pools

Samiran Bag, Kouichi Sakurai

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

26 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this paper we provide a short quantitative analysis of Bit- coin Block Withholding (BWH) Attack. In this study, we investigate the incentive earned by a miner who either independently or at the diktat of a separate mining pool launches Block Withholding attack on a target mining pool. The victim pool shares its earned revenue with the rogue attacker. We investigate the property revenue function of the attacker and find parameters that could maximize the gain of the attacker. We then propose a new concept that we call “special reward”. This spe- cial rewarding scheme is aimed at discouraging the attackers by grant- ing additional incentive to a miner who actually finds a block. A BWH attacker who never submits a valid block to the pool will be deprived from this special reward and her gain will be less than her expectation. Depending upon the actual monetary value of the special reward a pool can significantly reduce the revenue of a BWH attacker and thus can even ward off the threat of an attack.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInformation Security - 19th International Conference, ISC 2016, Proceedings
EditorsMatt Bishop, Anderson C.A. Nascimento
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages167-180
Number of pages14
ISBN (Print)9783319458700
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Event19th Annual International Conference on Information Security, ISC 2016 - Honolulu, United States
Duration: Sept 3 2016Sept 6 2016

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9866 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Other

Other19th Annual International Conference on Information Security, ISC 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityHonolulu
Period9/3/169/6/16

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Computer Science(all)

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