{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","author_name":"npub1k6906yrdzekdkn23mrskcf6up8s2fypqldhnz9gfc44kwsan02zq5xvja6","author_url":"https://nostr.ae/npub1k6906yrdzekdkn23mrskcf6up8s2fypqldhnz9gfc44kwsan02zq5xvja6","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://nostr.ae","html":"📅 Original date posted:2015-12-28\n📝 Original message:On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 2:12 PM, Peter Todd via bitcoin-dev \u003c\nbitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\u003e wrote:\n\n\u003e Do you specifically mean selfish mining as defined in Emin Gün\n\u003e Sirer/Ittay Eyal's paper? Keep in mind that attack is only a significant\n\u003e issue in a scenario - one malicious miner with \u003e30% hashing power -\n\u003e where you're already very close to the margins anyway; the difference\n\u003e between a 50% attack threshold and a 30% attack threshold isn't very\n\u003e significant.\n\u003e\n\nThis is not quite right: we know that selfish mining is a guaranteed win\nat 34%. We do not know when exactly it begins to pay off. The more\nconsolidated and centralized the other mining pools, the less of a threat\nit is below 34%; the more decentralized, the more likely it is to pay off\nat lower thresholds.\n\nFar more concerning is network propagation effects between large and\n\u003e small miners.\n\n\nOn a related note, the Bitcoin-NG paper took a big step towards moving\nthese kinds of concerns out of the realm of gut-feelings and wavy hands\ninto science. In particular, it introduced metrics for fairness (i.e.\ndifferential\nrate in orphans experienced by small and large miners), hash power\nefficiency, as well as consensus delay.\n\n\n\u003e For that class of issues, if you are in an environemnt\n\u003e where selfish mining is possible - a fairly flat, easily DoS/sybil\n\u003e attacked network topology - the profitability difference between small\n\u003e and large miners even *without* attacks going on is a hugely worrying\n\u003e problem.\n\n\nIndeed, there is a slight, quantifiable benefit to larger pools. Which is\nwhy\nwe need to be diligent about not letting pools get too big.\n\n\n\u003e Note though that Eligius is *not* the only pool to have had problems\n\u003e\nwith block withholding, though AFAIK Eligius is the only one who has\n\u003e gone on record so far. (as I said in my original post, I'm relaying\n\u003e information given to me under condition of confidentiality)\n\u003e\n\nI can see why they don't want to go public with this: it means that they\nare less profitable than other pools.\n\nIt still looks to me like Ittay's discovery is doing exactly the right\nthing:\nthis pool will need to be more careful when signing up new people,\ncurbing its otherwise steady march towards the 51% boundary.\n\n- egs\n\n\n- egs\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20151228/2e490a2b/attachment.html\u003e"}