Author: Sergio Lerner 2014-10-07 19:04:40
Published on: 2014-10-07T19:04:40+00:00
In an email exchange between Tom Harding and Sergio Lerner, the topic of rational self-interest in Bitcoin mining was discussed. Lerner argued that if all miners acted rationally, then competing for high-fee transactions would be the most profitable strategy, even if it led to network fragmentation. Harding pointed out that this strategy would only work if one miner had a fixed advantage, which is unlikely in a well-distributed network. Additionally, the existence of high-fee transactions delays decision-making and promotes selfishness and fragmentation. The solution to this problem is the DECOR+ protocol, which shares block-rewards by including "uncles" and splitting the reward between miners at the same height until coinbase maturity is over. This way, cooperation is always the best choice. While automatic fee-sharing ("ORBS") could solve the freeze problem, it opens the door to double-spending ("CHAKIDO"), which is worse than fragmentation. Ultimately, it was suggested that a Bitcoin Security Wiki should be created to address these attack terminologies.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T02:59:37.264321+00:00