Abstract
In proof of work blockchain systems, there are strong incentives towards designing hardware that can mine faster and/or with less power consumption. There are two ways of taking advantage of such devices: one can use them to mine more coins with less power, or he can sell it to other miners. The two strategies are not independent, of course: if everybody has the boosting technology, the difficulty will rise, and it won't be an advantage anymore. On the other hand, if the boost is above a certain threshold, being used only by a small subset of miners might mean centralizing the system, with potentially dangerous consequences on the platform credibility. In this paper we analyse the impact of different strategies to exploit a significant increase in mining hardware efficiency. To do so, we developed a multi-agent based simulator, that mimics the relevant mechanics of the mining ecosystem, as well as some features of the miners as economic actors. We then characterized different significant sell-it-or-mine-with-it strategies, and observed the simulated outcome.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review |
Number of pages | 4 |
Volume | 46 |
Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
Publication date | 3 Dec 2018 |
Pages | 127-130 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 Dec 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- mining
- bitcoin
- ethereum
- blockchain
- hash
- hardware
- simulation