Miner Collusion → News → Incrypthos News

Miner Collusion

Definition ∞ Miner collusion refers to a scenario where a group of cryptocurrency miners cooperates to manipulate the blockchain for their collective benefit, often at the expense of other network participants. This could involve withholding blocks, censoring transactions, or executing 51% attacks. Such actions undermine the decentralized and fair operation of a proof-of-work blockchain. It represents a significant threat to network integrity and user trust.
Context ∞ The risk of miner collusion is a persistent concern for proof-of-work blockchains, particularly those with concentrated mining power. News frequently covers discussions around mining pool centralization and potential vulnerabilities this creates. Protocol upgrades and changes to consensus mechanisms, such as the shift to proof-of-stake, are often presented as solutions to mitigate these risks.

The image showcases a complex digital backbone, featuring intertwined dark blue conduits enveloped by intricate silver and blue circuit board segments. These components, resembling specialized ASIC mining hardware and hardware wallets, illustrate a robust decentralized network infrastructure. The detailed circuitry, with its dense patterns, suggests the immense computational power required for cryptographic hashing and secure transaction processing within a distributed ledger technology. This visual metaphor encapsulates the intricate interplay of physical and digital elements underpinning modern blockchain protocols.

→Fee Market

→Rational Adversaries

→Multi-Party Computation

Multi-Party Computation Enables Fairer Incentive-Compatible Transaction Fee Mechanisms

Cryptography, via Multi-Party Computation among block producers, circumvents game-theoretic impossibility results to design non-trivial, incentive-compatible fee mechanisms.