Pool Strategies Selection in PoW-Based Blockchain Networks: Game-Theoretic Analysis

Wang, Yue; Tang, Changbing; Lin, Feilong; Zheng, Zhonglong; Chen, Zhongyu

doi:10.1109/access.2018.2890391

Cited by 31 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…Game models include non-cooperative game, extensive-form game, stochastic game, coalition formation game and evolutionary game, which have found various applications in blockchain to address the security issues and mining management. For example, the non-cooperative game model was applied to inves-tigate the BWH attack [23,[27][28][29][30][31]. The stochastic game model was adopted to study the selection between honest mining and selfish mining [32].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mining Pool Selection under Block WithHolding Attack

et al. 2021

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In current Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain systems, miners usually form mining pools to compete with other pools/miners in the mining competition. Forming pools can give miners steady revenues but will introduce two critical issues. One is mining pool selection, where miners select the pools to join in order to maximize their revenues. The other is a Block WithHolding (BWH) attack, where pools can inject part of their hash/mining power into other pools to obtain additional revenues without contributing to the mining process of the attacked pools. Reasoning that the BWH attack will have significant impacts on the pool selection, we therefore investigate the mining pool selection issue in the presence of a BWH attack in this paper. In particular, we model the pool selection process of miners as an evolutionary game and find the Evolutionarily Stable States (ESSs) of the game (i.e., stable pool population states) as the solutions. Previous studies investigated this problem from the perspective of pool managers and neglected the revenues from attacked pools (attacking revenues), leading to less accurate and insightful findings. This paper, however, focuses on the payoffs of miners and carefully takes the attacking revenues into consideration. To demonstrate how the problem is solved, we consider the scenario with two mining pools and further investigate the case where one pool attacks the other and the case where the two pools attack each other. The results in this paper show that pools can attract more miners to join by launching a BWH attack and the attack power significantly affects the stable pool populations.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mining Pool Selection under Block WithHolding Attack

et al. 2021

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“…Considering the cooperation of two mining pools, W. Di et al [18] analyze the parameter value and corresponding mining strategy between the two mining pools according to the mining pools' computing amount. Y. Wang et al [19] propose a two-stage game model to consider whether the mining pool is open or not and whether it is attacked. It analyzes the Nash equilibrium condition of the game based on weight to obtain a strategy selection method of mining pool based on the game theory.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…S. Kim et al [24] establish a revenue model of mining pool, and analyze the impact of block withholding attack on the migration of mining pools and miners with evolutionary game theory. The works [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] mainly consider the situation of mutual attacks between two mining pools. But there are multiple mining pools attacking each other in practice.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time, MPPA_F is easy to fall into the optimal local solution during the iterative process, so the computing time of MPPA_F presents a ladder shape. We select the mining pool quantity 7,9,11,13,15,17,19 and other parameters in Table 1 to calculate the convergence values of average revenue of mining pool in WSFS, ALLC, ALLD, MPPA_F and MPPA_O. As shown in Fig.15, with the increase of mining pool quantity, the average revenues of the mining pool in WSFS, ALLC, ALLD, MPPA_F and MPPA_O gradually decrease.…”

Section: ) Influence Of Loss Interval Of Computing Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Novel Computing Power Allocation Algorithm for Blockchain System in Multiple Mining Pools Under Withholding Attack

Chen

Han

et al. 2020

IEEE Access

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To overcome the fast-changing block withholding attacks among multiple mining pools composed of miners in the blockchain system, this paper proposes a mining pool computing power allocation (MPPA) algorithm, which significantly improves the revenues of mining pools with block withholding attacks. MPPA first establishes the revenue optimization model of mining pools, which includes current adequate total computing power, the revenues of honest mining, and the revenues of block withholding attacks. Then MPPA calculates the revenue gain generated by block withholding attacks on other mining pools. To adjust the fixed computing power in each iteration, we have the mining pool computing power allocation algorithm with a fixed change of computing power (MPPA_F). To adjust the optimal recovery and attack computing power, we have the mining pool computing power allocation algorithm with an optimal change of computing power (MPPA_O). The simulation results demonstrate that MPPA_F and MPPA_O can find the optimized solutions of power computing allocation for each mining pool and outperform the state-of-arts such as WSFS, ALLC, and ALLD. INDEX TERMS Computing power allocation, block withholding attacks, multiple mining pools, revenue optimization model.

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“…Meanwhile, to prevent block withholding attack, a solution to model the mining process as a stochastic game has been investigated [5], which used the reinforcement learning method to simulate the mining pools how to launch the block withholding attacks. Wang et al [6] researched the mining process with a two-stage game model and analyzed the existence conditions of the Nash equilibrium and strategy choice stability. Tang et al [7] applied non-cooperative iterated game to analyze miners behaviors, and resorted Zero-Determinant (ZD) strategy to design strategy mechanism to solve the tragedy of the commons problem in mining pool.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Biform Game Approach to Preventing Block Withholding Attack of Blockchain Based on Semi-CIS Value

Du¹,

Li²,

Liang³

2019

IJCIS

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In proof-of-work (PoW)-based blockchain network, the blockchain miners publish blocks by contributing computing power to solve crypto-puzzles. Due to the weak computing power of single miner, miners tend to join a mining pool and share the profits from the mining pool according to the contribution proportions of the miners. However, some miners may initiate block withholding attack which may result in wasting computing power, even threatening the efficiency of the blockchain network. To address this problem, in this paper, we use the biform game model to optimize the miners' strategy choices. We firstly formulate the mining process as a non-cooperative-cooperative biform game model. We use the model to exhibit miners' strategy choices (non-cooperation stage) and the cooperation mining process (cooperation stage). Then we set the conditions to maintain the voluntary honest behavior of miners. After that, we employ the semi-CIS (semi-the center of imputation set value) value to compute the solutions of the cooperative games in the cooperation stage, and optimize miners' strategy choices to prevent the block withholding attack. Hence we can ensure the blockchain network is secure. Finally, the validity and applicability of the proposed model and method are verified by a numerical example.

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Pool Strategies Selection in PoW-Based Blockchain Networks: Game-Theoretic Analysis

Cited by 31 publications

References 38 publications

Mining Pool Selection under Block WithHolding Attack

Mining Pool Selection under Block WithHolding Attack

A Novel Computing Power Allocation Algorithm for Blockchain System in Multiple Mining Pools Under Withholding Attack

A Biform Game Approach to Preventing Block Withholding Attack of Blockchain Based on Semi-CIS Value

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