Smart Contract-Based Pool Hopping Attack Prevention for Blockchain Networks

Abstract

Pool hopping attack is the result of miners leaving the pool when it offers fewer financial rewards and joining back when the rewards of mining yield higher rewards in blockchain networks. This act of leaving and rejoining the pool only during the good times results in the miner receiving more rewards than the computational power they contribute. Miners exiting the pool deprive it of its collective hash power, which leaves the pool unable to mine the block successfully. This results in its competitors mining the block before they can finish mining. Existing research shows pool hopping resistant measures and detection strategies; however, they do not offer any robust preventive solution to discourage miners from leaving the mining pool. To prevent pool hopping attacks, a smart contract-based pool hopping attack prevention model is proposed. The main objective of our research is maintaining the symmetrical relationship between the miners by requiring them all to continually contribute their computational power to successfully mine a block. We implement a ledger containing records of all miners, in the form of a miner certificate, which tracks the history of the miner’s earlier behavior. The certificate enables a pool manager to better initiate terms of the smart contract, which safeguards the interests of existing mining pool members. The model prevents frequent mine hoppers from pool hopping as they submit coins in the form of an escrow and risk losing them if they abandon the pool before completing mining of the block. The key critical factors that every pool hopping attack prevention solution must address and a study of comparative analysis with existing solutions are presented in the paper.