Equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack: an evolutionary game perspective

With the development of blockchain technology, blockchain-based digital cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have received broad interest. Due to the permissionless environment, the blockchain is vulnerable to different kinds of attacks, including the block withholding (BWH) attack. BWH attack is one...

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Main Authors: Yukun Cheng, Zhanghao Yao, Zhiqi Xu, Xiaojing Ye
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: ELS Publishing (ELSP) 2022-12-01
Series:Blockchain
Subjects:
Online Access:https://elsp-homepage.oss-cn-hongkong.aliyuncs.compaper/journal/open/BC/2024/blockchain20230002.pdf
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author Yukun Cheng
Zhanghao Yao
Zhiqi Xu
Xiaojing Ye
author_facet Yukun Cheng
Zhanghao Yao
Zhiqi Xu
Xiaojing Ye
author_sort Yukun Cheng
collection DOAJ
description With the development of blockchain technology, blockchain-based digital cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have received broad interest. Due to the permissionless environment, the blockchain is vulnerable to different kinds of attacks, including the block withholding (BWH) attack. BWH attack is one of the common selfish mining attacks, by which the attacking pool infiltrates the attacked pool by sending some infiltrating miners. These infiltrating miners try to find (partial) proof-of-work solutions and share the reward of the attacked pool, but discard the solution that can actually create blocks. Therefore, the attacking pool benefits by withholding blocks from the infiltrating miners, while damaging the benefits of victim pools. In this paper, we introduce the reward reallocation mechanism by paying additional rewards to the miners who successfully mine blocks, and propose an evolutionary game model for BWH attack among pools to study the strategy selection of pools. By constructing the replicator dynamic equations, the evolutionary stable strategies of pools are explored based on different levels of additional rewards. Our results provide enlightening significance to mitigate the negative influence from BWH attacks in practice.
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institution DOAJ
issn 2959-1260
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language English
publishDate 2022-12-01
publisher ELS Publishing (ELSP)
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series Blockchain
spelling doaj-art-ab85520d77d14b77ba070d41e9b543eb2025-08-20T03:07:37ZengELS Publishing (ELSP)Blockchain2959-12602958-81382022-12-011110.55092/blockchain202300021583270634618396672Equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack: an evolutionary game perspectiveYukun Cheng0Zhanghao Yao1Zhiqi Xu2Xiaojing Ye3Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, ChinaSuzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, ChinaSuzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, ChinaSuzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, ChinaWith the development of blockchain technology, blockchain-based digital cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have received broad interest. Due to the permissionless environment, the blockchain is vulnerable to different kinds of attacks, including the block withholding (BWH) attack. BWH attack is one of the common selfish mining attacks, by which the attacking pool infiltrates the attacked pool by sending some infiltrating miners. These infiltrating miners try to find (partial) proof-of-work solutions and share the reward of the attacked pool, but discard the solution that can actually create blocks. Therefore, the attacking pool benefits by withholding blocks from the infiltrating miners, while damaging the benefits of victim pools. In this paper, we introduce the reward reallocation mechanism by paying additional rewards to the miners who successfully mine blocks, and propose an evolutionary game model for BWH attack among pools to study the strategy selection of pools. By constructing the replicator dynamic equations, the evolutionary stable strategies of pools are explored based on different levels of additional rewards. Our results provide enlightening significance to mitigate the negative influence from BWH attacks in practice.https://elsp-homepage.oss-cn-hongkong.aliyuncs.compaper/journal/open/BC/2024/blockchain20230002.pdfblock withholding attackevolutionary gamemitigation measureblockchain
spellingShingle Yukun Cheng
Zhanghao Yao
Zhiqi Xu
Xiaojing Ye
Equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack: an evolutionary game perspective
Blockchain
block withholding attack
evolutionary game
mitigation measure
blockchain
title Equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack: an evolutionary game perspective
title_full Equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack: an evolutionary game perspective
title_fullStr Equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack: an evolutionary game perspective
title_full_unstemmed Equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack: an evolutionary game perspective
title_short Equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack: an evolutionary game perspective
title_sort equilibrium analysis of block withholding attack an evolutionary game perspective
topic block withholding attack
evolutionary game
mitigation measure
blockchain
url https://elsp-homepage.oss-cn-hongkong.aliyuncs.compaper/journal/open/BC/2024/blockchain20230002.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT yukuncheng equilibriumanalysisofblockwithholdingattackanevolutionarygameperspective
AT zhanghaoyao equilibriumanalysisofblockwithholdingattackanevolutionarygameperspective
AT zhiqixu equilibriumanalysisofblockwithholdingattackanevolutionarygameperspective
AT xiaojingye equilibriumanalysisofblockwithholdingattackanevolutionarygameperspective