An Explanation of Nakamoto's Analysis of Double-spend Attacks

2017/01/15 by A. Pinar Ozisik, Ozisik, A. Pinar, Brian Neil Levine +1
Business, Management and Accounting · Computer Science · #Advanced Queuing Theory Analysis #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #Distributed systems and fault tolerance #FOS: Computer and information sciences

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1701.03977

openalex publication_date 2017/01/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

The fundamental attack against blockchain systems is the double-spend attack. In this tutorial, we provide a very detailed explanation of just one section of Satoshi Nakamoto's original paper where the attack's probability of success is stated. We show the derivation of the mathematics relied upon by Nakamoto to create a model of the attack. We also validate the model with a Monte Carlo simulation, and we determine which model component is not perfect.

Citations

• Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty process

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