[Resource Topic] 2020/601: Everything is a Race and Nakamoto Always Wins

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Title:
Everything is a Race and Nakamoto Always Wins

Authors: Amir Dembo, Sreeram Kannan, Ertem Nusret Tas, David Tse, Pramod Viswanath, Xuechao Wang, Ofer Zeitouni

Abstract:

Nakamoto invented the longest chain protocol, and claimed its security by analyzing the private double-spend attack, a race between the adversary and the honest nodes to grow a longer chain. But is it the worst attack? We answer the question in the affirmative for three classes of longest chain protocols, designed for different consensus models: 1) Nakamoto’s original Proof-of-Work protocol; 2) Ouroboros and SnowWhite Proof-of-Stake protocols; 3) Chia Proof-of-Space protocol. As a consequence, exact characterization of the maximum tolerable adversary power is obtained for each protocol as a function of the average block time normalized by the network delay. The security analysis of these protocols is performed in a unified manner by a novel method of reducing all attacks to a race between the adversary and the honest nodes.

ePrint: https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/601

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