# Majority is not Needed: A Counterstrategy to Selfish Mining

**Authors:** Jonathan Gal, Maytal B Szabo  
**arXiv:** [2304.06313](https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06313)  
**Date:** 2023-04-13  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/en/paper/2304.06313v1/

## Key points

- The paper explores the issue of selfish mining attacks in Bitcoin
- Previous research assumed honest miners will continue to mine honestly, but this is not always incentivized
- A scenario is investigated where a large enough pool capitalizes on another selfish pool to gain 100% of the profit and commit double spending attacks
- A counterstrategy called "Equal-Forking" is proposed to discourage deviant strategies and maintain blockchain integrity
- Three contributions are presented: a new model for analyzing deviant mining strategies, an effective counterstrategy called "Equal-Forking," and evidence that even the possibility of Equal-Forking discourages other pools from implementing deviant strategies
- Related work on deviant mining is discussed, and limitations of existing solutions are highlighted.

## Summary

The paper "Majority is not Needed: A Counterstrategy to Selfish Mining" explores the issue of selfish mining attacks in the context of Bitcoin. Previous research on this topic assumed that all miners who are not part of a selfish pool will continue to mine honestly, but in reality, this is not always incentivized, especially when other pools employ deviant strategies like selfish mining. The authors investigate a scenario where a large enough pool capitalizes on another selfish pool to gain 100% of the profit and commit double spending attacks. They propose a counterstrategy called "Equal-Forking," which can be used by honest miners to counter any deviant strategy and discourage other pools from implementing such strategies. The paper presents three concrete contributions: first, it introduces a new model for analyzing deviant mining strategies; second, it proposes an effective counterstrategy called "Equal-Forking"; third, it shows that even the possibility of Equal-Forking discourages other pools from implementing deviant strategies. The authors also discuss related work on deviant mining and highlight the limitations of existing solutions. Overall, this paper provides important insights into the problem of selfish mining in Bitcoin and proposes an effective solution that can help maintain the integrity of the blockchain system.