Description
TL;DR: A network-partition attack that trades attacker hash power against message delay, analyzed for Ethereum and demonstrated on an R3-like private testbed.
About This Document
Christopher Natoli and Vincent Gramoli introduce the Balance attack: temporarily split a blockchain network into subgroups with similar mining power, transact in one group, and mine a competing branch in another until branch selection favors the attacker's side. They derive a probabilistic relationship between mining power and delay, quantify it with R3 consortium assumptions, run an Ethereum private-chain experiment, and discuss how the idea relates to Bitcoin.
Why Bitcoin People May Care
The paper matters to Bitcoin readers because proof of work does not make network communication irrelevant; partition shape and propagation delay can change what an attacker can achieve. The primary analysis and experiment concern Ethereum and a consortium-style testbed, not a demonstrated Bitcoin mainnet attack. Its reported timing depends on the 2016 parameters and should not be treated as a universal attack recipe.
What You Receive
Purchase reveals the verified preserved PDF location for this document.
Document Details
- Title: The Balance Attack Against Proof-of-Work Blockchains
- Author / organization: Christopher Natoli and Vincent Gramoli
- Year: 2016
- Language: English
- Document type: Blockchain-security research paper
- Pages: 14
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