An Approach for Blockchain Pool Mining Employing the Consensus Protocol Robust against Block Withholding and Selfish Mining Attacks

【Author】 Mihaljevic, Miodrag J.; Wang, Lianhai; Xu, Shujiang; Todorovic, Milan

【Source】SYMMETRY-BASEL

【Abstract】This paper proposes an approach for pool mining in public blockchain systems based on the employment of a recently reported consensus protocol with the puzzle based on a symmetric encryption that provides an energy-space trade-off and reduces energy consumption. The proposed architecture employs a pseudo-symmetric allocation of the resources for the blockchain consensus protocol and provides protection against certain malicious actions of the pool members, as well as a miner's opportunity for selecting the resources required for participation in the consensus protocol. Given that the considered consensus protocol employs two resources, the proposed architecture uses this two-dimensional nature to provide resistance against block withholding and selfish mining attacks, as well as a reduction in energy spending as a trade-off with the employment of certain memory resources. The high resistance of the proposed pool mining approach against the considered attacks appears to be a consequence of the success probability of the pool in comparison with the success probability of malicious miners. Assuming appropriate selection of the puzzle hardness, the probability that malicious miners can solve the puzzle without the support of the pool manager can be arbitrarily small. Implementation of the proposed approach on a modified Ethereum platform and experimental evaluation issues have also been reported. The conceptual novelty of the proposed pool mining approach is the following: Instead of separation of the blockchain consensus protocol and control of pool miners honest work, this paper proposes an approach where honest work of miners and pool managers is provided by a dedicated application of the considered consensus protocol. Advantages of the proposal in comparison with the previously reported ones include the following: (i) high resistance against block withholding and selfish mining attacks without an additional security procedure; (ii) reduction in the energy required, and at the same time preservationthe security of the consensus protocol; (iii) flexibility of the pool miners regarding selection of the resources that should be employed providing a trade-off between required energy and memory resources. The proposed architecture was implemented employing a dedicated modification of the Ethereum platform and the performed experiments confirmed the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposal.

【Keywords】blockchain; consensus protocol; pool mining; symmetric encryption; security evaluation; selfish mining; withholding attack

【标题】一种采用共识协议的区块链矿池挖矿方法，可有效抵御区块扣留和自私挖矿攻击

【摘要】本文提出了一种在公共区块链系统中进行矿池挖掘的方法，该方法基于最近报道的共识协议和基于对称加密的谜题，提供了能量空间权衡并降低了能源消耗。所提出的架构对区块链共识协议采用了伪对称的资源分配，并为矿池成员的某些恶意行为提供了保护，并为矿工提供了选择参与共识协议所需资源的机会。鉴于所考虑的共识协议使用两种资源，所提议的架构使用这种二维性质来抵抗区块扣留和自私挖矿攻击，以及减少能源消耗作为使用某些内存资源的权衡.与恶意矿工的成功概率相比，提议的矿池挖掘方法对所考虑的攻击的高抵抗力似乎是矿池成功概率的结果。假设选择合适的谜题硬度，恶意矿工在没有矿池管理员支持的情况下解决谜题的概率可以任意小。还报告了在修改后的以太坊平台上实施提议的方法和实验评估问题。所提议的矿池挖掘方法的概念新颖性如下：本文没有将区块链共识协议和矿池矿工诚实工作的控制分开，而是提出了一种方法，矿工和矿池管理者的诚实工作由专门的应用程序提供。被认为是共识协议。与之前报道的提案相比，该提案的优点包括：（i）在没有额外安全程序的情况下，对区块扣留和自私挖矿攻击具有高度抵抗力； (ii) 减少所需能量，同时保持共识协议的安全性； (iii) 矿池矿工在选择应使用的资源方面的灵活性，提供所需的能量和内存资源之间的权衡。提议的架构是通过对以太坊平台的专门修改来实现的，并且进行的实验证实了该提议的可行性和有效性。

【关键词】区块链；共识协议；矿池挖矿；对称加密；安全评估；自私挖矿；扣留攻击

【发表时间】2022

【收录时间】2022-09-20

【文献类型】Article

【论文大主题】共识机制

【论文小主题】其他

【影响因子】2.940

【翻译者】石东瑛