Evolutionary Game for Mining Pool Selection in Blockchain Networks

In proof-of-work-based blockchain networks, the block miners participate in a crypto-puzzle solving competition to win the reward of publishing (i.e., mining) new blocks. Due to the remarkable difficulty of the crypto-puzzle, individual miners tend to join mining pools to secure stable profits. We s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE wireless communications letters Vol. 7; no. 5; pp. 760 - 763
Main Authors Liu, Xiaojun, Wang, Wenbo, Niyato, Dusit, Zhao, Narisa, Wang, Ping
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Piscataway IEEE 01.10.2018
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Blockchain
Competition
Computer simulation
Cryptography
Dynamic stability
Evolution
evolutionary game
Game theory
Games
Mathematical models
Miners
Mining
mining pool
Peer-to-peer computing
Pools
Protocols
Sociology
Stability analysis
Statistics
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Summary:In proof-of-work-based blockchain networks, the block miners participate in a crypto-puzzle solving competition to win the reward of publishing (i.e., mining) new blocks. Due to the remarkable difficulty of the crypto-puzzle, individual miners tend to join mining pools to secure stable profits. We study the dynamics of mining pool selection in a blockchain network, where mining pools may choose arbitrary block mining strategies. We identify the hash rate for puzzle-solving and the block propagation delay as two major factors determining the mining competition results. We then model the strategy evolution of individual miners as an evolutionary game. We provide the theoretical analysis of evolutionary stability in the pool selection dynamics for a two-pool case. Numerical simulations support our theoretical findings as well as demonstrate the stability in the evolution of miners' strategies in a general case.
ISSN:2162-2337
2162-2345
DOI:10.1109/LWC.2018.2820009