{"title":"Stick a fork in it: Analyzing the Ethereum network partition","authors":"Lucianna Kiffer, Dave Levin, A. Mislove","doi":"10.1145/3152434.3152449","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"As blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies increase in popularity, their decentralization poses unique challenges in network partitions. In traditional distributed systems, network partitions are generally a result of bugs or connectivity failures; the typical goal of the system designer is to automatically recover from such issues as seamlessly as possible. Blockchain-based systems, however, rely on purposeful \"forks\" to roll out protocol changes in a decentralized manner. Not all users may agree with proposed changes, and thus forks can persist, leading to permanent network partitions. In this paper, we closely study the large-scale fork that occurred in Ethereum, a new blockchain technology that allows for both currency transactions and smart contracts. Ethereum is currently the second-most-valuable cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization of over $28B. We explore the consequences of this fork, showing the impact on the two networks and their mining pools, and how the fork lead to unintentional incentives and security vulnerabilities.","PeriodicalId":120886,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 16th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2017-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"42","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Proceedings of the 16th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3152434.3152449","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 42
Abstract
As blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies increase in popularity, their decentralization poses unique challenges in network partitions. In traditional distributed systems, network partitions are generally a result of bugs or connectivity failures; the typical goal of the system designer is to automatically recover from such issues as seamlessly as possible. Blockchain-based systems, however, rely on purposeful "forks" to roll out protocol changes in a decentralized manner. Not all users may agree with proposed changes, and thus forks can persist, leading to permanent network partitions. In this paper, we closely study the large-scale fork that occurred in Ethereum, a new blockchain technology that allows for both currency transactions and smart contracts. Ethereum is currently the second-most-valuable cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization of over $28B. We explore the consequences of this fork, showing the impact on the two networks and their mining pools, and how the fork lead to unintentional incentives and security vulnerabilities.