Is Bitcoin Future as Secure asWe Think? Analysis of Bitcoin Vulnerability to Bribery Attacks Launched through Large Transactions

被引:1
|
作者
Ebrahimpour, Ghader [1 ]
Haghighi, Mohammad Sayad [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Tehran, Sch Elect & Comp Engn, Tehran 1439957131, Iran
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
Bitcoin; blockchain; bribery attack; markov chain; double-spending; differential evolution; security;
D O I
10.1145/3641546
中图分类号
TP [自动化技术、计算机技术];
学科分类号
0812 ;
摘要
Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to maintain transactions order and provides probabilistic guarantees to prevent double-spending, assuming that an attacker's computational power does not exceed 50% of the network power. In this article, we design a novel bribery attack and show that this guarantee can be hugely undermined. Miners are assumed to be rational in this setup, and they are given incentives that are dynamically calculated. In this attack, the adversary misuses the Bitcoin protocol to bribe miners and maximize their gained advantage. We will reformulate the bribery attack to propose a general mathematical foundation upon which we build multiple strategies. We show that, unlike Whale Attack, these strategies are practical, especially in the future when halvings lower the mining rewards. In the so-called "guaranteed variable-rate bribing with commitment" strategy, through optimization by Differential Evolution (DE), we show how double-spending is possible in the Bitcoin ecosystem for any transaction whose value is above 218.9BTC, and this comes with 100% success rate. A slight reduction in the success probability, e.g., by 10%, brings the threshold down to 165BTC. If the rationality assumption holds, then this shows how vulnerable blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin are. We suggest a soft fork on Bitcoin to fix this issue at the end.
引用
收藏
页数:22
相关论文
共 2 条
  • [1] Deanonymizing Tor hidden service users through Bitcoin transactions analysis
    Al Jawaheri, Husam
    Al Sabah, Mashael
    Boshmaf, Yazan
    Erbad, Aiman
    COMPUTERS & SECURITY, 2020, 89
  • [2] Is the future of bitcoin safe? A triangulation approach in the reality of BTC market through a sentiments analysis
    A. V. Biju
    Aparna Merin Mathew
    P. P. Nithi Krishna
    M. P. Akhil
    Digital Finance, 2022, 4 (4): : 275 - 290