[Submitted on 27 Jul 2026]

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Abstract:When is honest Bitcoin mining rational? This question is central to the incentive design of proof-of-work blockchains. Sapirshtein et al. computationally derived near-tight lower and upper bounds on the incentive-compatibility threshold using a Markov Decision Process. Kiayias et al.'s Blockchain Mining Games instead derived theoretical lower and upper bounds. However, this theoretical approach has two limitations: its model restricts miners to a narrow action space and assumes idealized tie behavior, and its lower and upper bounds are far from tight.
We resolve both limitations. We develop a more realistic model with a broader miner action space and asymmetric tie-breaking parameters $\gamma^-$ and $\gamma^+$. We then propose an algorithm that computes lower and upper bounds on the incentive-compatibility threshold with a maximum error of $9.98006\times10^{-4}$.

Submission history

From: Akira Sakurai [view email]
[v1] Mon, 27 Jul 2026 13:28:37 UTC (106 KB)