Author: Peter Todd 2013-11-05 17:14:45
Published on: 2013-11-05T17:14:45+00:00
Peter Todd, a Bitcoin developer, pointed out a vulnerability in the proposed solution for raising the selfish mining threshold. The proposed solution aimed to replace the arbitrary choice among equal-length chains with explicit randomness, which is under the control of the protocol. However, Gregory Maxwell identified that the random choice solution could create incentives for pools over a certain size to withhold blocks instead of immediately broadcasting them, leading to a split in the network when they eventually chose to reveal the block. This strategy can be profitable for large pools even without investing in a low-latency network. Peter Todd suggests proceeding with caution and conducting tests on the proposed attack and possible solutions on testnet to explore counter-measures. He also mentioned that there is no need to rush to fix the problem as there are counter-measures based on human intervention that can stop the attack in the short-term. The attack is easy to detect, and if it is launched, direct counter-measures can be taken immediately.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T19:22:36.029133+00:00