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Hostile Blockchain Takeovers (Short Paper)

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Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 10958))

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Abstract

Most research modelling Bitcoin-style decentralised consensus protocols has assumed profit-motivated participants. Complementary to this analysis, we revisit the notion of attackers with an extrinsic motivation to disrupt the consensus process (Goldfinger attacks). We outline several routes for obtaining a majority of decision-making power in the consensus protocol (a hostile takeover). Our analysis suggests several fundamental differences between proof-of-work and proof-of-stake systems in the face of such an adversary.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are other potential attacks on proof-of-stake systems, such as purchasing keys from former stakeholders to induce a long fork (the “nothing-at-stake problem”). In this paper, we assume some solution exists for this problem and that a takeover requires obtaining a majority of the current stake in the system.

  2. 2.

    In addition to rendering graphics, GPUs are now commonly used for a variety of tasks including scientific computing and machine learning.

  3. 3.

    Our case studies are based on market data as of November 2017. We leave all values approximate to two significant figures. All values are in US dollars.

  4. 4.

    Note that we only consider bitcoin-denominated revenue. Many Bitcoin miners earn a small amount of additional revenue through merge-mining other currencies.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York University, New York, USA

    Joseph Bonneau

Authors
  1. Joseph Bonneau
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Correspondence to Joseph Bonneau .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

    Aviv Zohar

  2. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Ittay Eyal

  3. University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Vanessa Teague

  4. Concordia University, Beaconsfield, QC, Canada

    Jeremy Clark

  5. Computer Science and Mathematics, Stirling University, Stirling, UK

    Andrea Bracciali

  6. Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Federico Pintore

  7. Department of Mathematics, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Massimiliano Sala

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© 2019 International Financial Cryptography Association

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Bonneau, J. (2019). Hostile Blockchain Takeovers (Short Paper). In: Zohar, A., et al. Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10958. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-58820-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-58820-8_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-58819-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-58820-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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