The Blockchain Anomaly

@article{Natoli2016TheBA,
  title={The Blockchain Anomaly},
  author={Christopher Natoli and Vincent Gramoli},
  journal={2016 IEEE 15th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA)},
  year={2016},
  pages={310-317}
}
  • Christopher NatoliV. Gramoli
  • Published 18 May 2016
  • Computer Science, Mathematics
  • 2016 IEEE 15th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA)
Most popular blockchain solutions rely on proof-of-work to guarantee that participants reach consensus on a unique block per index of the chain. As consensus is impossible in the general case, it seems that these blockchain systems require messages are delivered fast and no participant mines faster than the crowd. To date, no experimental settings have however been proposed to demonstrate this hypothesis. In this paper, we identify conditions under which these blockchain systems fail to ensure… 

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