Author: Peter Vessenes 2012-06-04 01:43:42
Published on: 2012-06-04T01:43:42+00:00
In an email exchange from June 2012, members of the Bitcoin community discussed the potential for an attack on mining pools. The attack involves withholding valid blocks that could be submitted to the network in order to harm a pool's profitability. This attack is effective in proportion to the ratio of the attacker's hashrate to the rest of the pool. However, there was uncertainty regarding the economics of this attack and whether it would be more profitable for an attacker to spend their hashes attacking rather than just mining. It was suggested that this attack may not be a significant problem overall and should not warrant forking the blockchain until there is evidence of real pain. Furthermore, it was noted that the attack signature mentioned by one member was not a factor since only the pool that controls the merkle will benefit from block submission. Actual estimates of the potential impact of this attack were requested.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T04:53:07.837288+00:00