Secure high-rate transaction processing in bitcoin

Yonatan Sompolinsky; Aviv Zohar

doi:10.1007/978-3-662-47854-7_32

Secure high-rate transaction processing in bitcoin

Yonatan Sompolinsky^*, Aviv Zohar

^*Corresponding author for this work

The Rachel and Selim Benin School of Engineering and Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

495 Scopus citations

Abstract

Bitcoin is a disruptive new crypto-currency based on a decentralized open-source protocol which has been gradually gaining momentum. Perhaps the most important question that will affect Bitcoin’s success, is whether or not it will be able to scale to support the high volume of transactions required from a global currency system.We investigate the implications of having a higher transaction throughput on Bitcoin’s security against double-spend attacks. We show that at high throughput, substantially weaker attackers are able to reverse payments they have made, even well after they were considered accepted by recipients. We address this security concern through the GHOST rule, a modification to the way Bitcoin nodes construct and re-organize the block chain, Bitcoin’s core distributed data-structure. GHOST has been adopted and a variant of it has been implemented as part of the Ethereum project, a second generation distributed applications platform.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Financial Cryptography and Data Security - 19th International Conference, FC 2015, Revised Selected Papers
Editors	Tatsuaki Okamoto, Rainer Bohme
Publisher	Springer Verlag
Pages	507-527
Number of pages	21
ISBN (Print)	9783662478530
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47854-7_32
State	Published - 2015
Event	19th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2015 - San Juan, Puerto Rico Duration: 26 Jan 2015 → 30 Jan 2015

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume	8975
ISSN (Print)	0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)	1611-3349

Conference

Conference	19th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2015
Country/Territory	Puerto Rico
City	San Juan
Period	26/01/15 → 30/01/15

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© International Financial Cryptography Association 2015.

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-662-47854-7_32

Cite this

Sompolinsky, Y., & Zohar, A. (2015). Secure high-rate transaction processing in bitcoin. In T. Okamoto, & R. Bohme (Eds.), Financial Cryptography and Data Security - 19th International Conference, FC 2015, Revised Selected Papers (pp. 507-527). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 8975). Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47854-7_32

Sompolinsky, Yonatan ; Zohar, Aviv. / Secure high-rate transaction processing in bitcoin. Financial Cryptography and Data Security - 19th International Conference, FC 2015, Revised Selected Papers. editor / Tatsuaki Okamoto ; Rainer Bohme. Springer Verlag, 2015. pp. 507-527 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)).

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Sompolinsky, Y & Zohar, A 2015, Secure high-rate transaction processing in bitcoin. in T Okamoto & R Bohme (eds), Financial Cryptography and Data Security - 19th International Conference, FC 2015, Revised Selected Papers. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 8975, Springer Verlag, pp. 507-527, 19th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2015, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 26/01/15. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47854-7_32

Secure high-rate transaction processing in bitcoin. / Sompolinsky, Yonatan; Zohar, Aviv.
Financial Cryptography and Data Security - 19th International Conference, FC 2015, Revised Selected Papers. ed. / Tatsuaki Okamoto; Rainer Bohme. Springer Verlag, 2015. p. 507-527 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 8975).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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Sompolinsky Y, Zohar A. Secure high-rate transaction processing in bitcoin. In Okamoto T, Bohme R, editors, Financial Cryptography and Data Security - 19th International Conference, FC 2015, Revised Selected Papers. Springer Verlag. 2015. p. 507-527. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)). doi: 10.1007/978-3-662-47854-7_32

Secure high-rate transaction processing in bitcoin

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