Analysis of Hashrate-Based Double Spending

Understand

Bitcoin is the world's first decentralized digital currency.

• Its main technical innovation is the use of a blockchain and hash-based proof of work to synchronize transactions and prevent double-spending the currency.
• While the qualitative nature of this system is well understood, there is widespread confusion about its quantitative aspects and how they relate to attack vectors and their countermeasures.
• In this paper we take a look at the stochastic processes underlying typical attacks and their resulting probabilities of success.