Definition ∞ A resource exhaustion attack is a type of denial-of-service attack where a malicious actor floods a blockchain network or a specific smart contract with an excessive number of transactions or computationally intensive operations. The goal is to consume all available network resources, such as gas limits, block space, or processing power, thereby preventing legitimate transactions from being processed. This attack can severely degrade network performance or render a decentralized application unusable. Mitigating these attacks is crucial for network resilience.
Context ∞ Resource exhaustion attacks remain a persistent threat to blockchain networks, particularly those with fixed block sizes or limited computational capacity per block. Discussions often center on dynamic fee mechanisms, gas limit adjustments, and more efficient smart contract execution environments to resist such attacks. Developers continuously work on optimizing protocol design and implementing rate limiting measures to ensure network availability and fair resource allocation.
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