Research

Analysis of selfish Bitcoin mining strategies

Year 2015
Author Joshua Elkington
Publisher SSRN: Harvard University, Students
Link View Research Paper
Categories

Bitcoin / Cryptocurrencies / Mining

Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer payment system that has the potential to disrupt the financial industry. In order for the Bitcoin network to function properly, people within the network need to follow the protocol and contribute computing power. However, selfish strategies can be used to disproportionately increase one’s payoff relative to their computational power. Three approaches are used to analyze selfish mining strategies in the Bitcoin network in order to determine when this strategy will dominate.