<p>I found a lot of papers about block with holding attacks</p>
<p>This seems a survey
<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309628092_Bitcoin_Block_Withholding_Attack_Analysis_and_Mitigation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309628092_Bitcoin_Block_Withholding_Attack_Analysis_and_Mitigation</a></p>
<p>These r newer
<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343236094_Countering_Block_Withholding_Attack_Efficiently" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343236094_Countering_Block_Withholding_Attack_Efficiently</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.aimspress.com/article/id/4266" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.aimspress.com/article/id/4266</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0951832018310494" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0951832018310494</a></p>
<p><a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9284756" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9284756</a></p>
<p>Reading the abstracts  this includes some of the <em>Selfish Mining</em> ways (I'm sure I read the idea in the IEEE paper in a Selfish Mining paper:
<em>Detective Mining: Selfish Mining Becomes
Unrealistic under Mining Pool Environment</em>,
Suhyeon Lee and Seungjoo Kim,
CIST(Center for Information Security Technologies), Korea University, Korea; ADD(Agency for Defense Development), Korea.)
I don't think <em>Selfish Mining</em> or <em>Block With Holding</em> is something u'll read in the news about, it is a miner or a pool used a block mining efforts; only maybe if it helped in a 51% attack which the papers point as a risk.</p>
<p>Wait, I did find more in my library under Selfish Mining
<a href="https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/selfish-mining-explained" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/selfish-mining-explained</a>
<a href="https://outlast.me/selfish-mining-in-five-tweets/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://outlast.me/selfish-mining-in-five-tweets/</a>
In this one there's a curve unfortunately I don't know its source about ratio of Selfish Mining in known pools
<img src="https://i.sstatic.net/iVAop.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></p>
<p>[I added this part for the sake of promoting knowledge, understanding, scientific research,... nothing more]</p>
<p>I also wondered would it be a malicious way to do front running?ie convince a high bidder ( would be paid more to get his TX as fast as possible) that his/her TX is guaranteed say 1st place in ur block, while u plan to drop the whole block &amp; front run with another TX (maybe I did read that in a paper before, <em>MEV</em> ?)
&amp; yes I did read about it under MEV, they're called <em>Privately Mined Transactions</em> or <em>Private Transactions</em> , they didn't allow more links so I'll just add the screenshots I made about it ( u can search for urself under these terms)</p>
<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/MQyKa.jpg" alt="enter image description here" />
<img src="https://i.sstatic.net/dhdbe.jpg" alt="enter image description here" /></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-28T16:44:20.433Z
The question asked for evidence that block-withholding (probably selfish mining) attacks have happened in practice. This answer lists a number of theoretical papers without addressing the question.
Murch
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-26T20:58:27.530Z
2021-06-29T08:15:59.957Z
2021-06-29T08:15:59.957Z
ShAr
<p>At the moment I am doing a course about Bitcoin. The topic of the last session was the block-withholding attack and the course (being from 2014) claimed that there are no known attacks so far.</p>
<p>Is block-withholding a strategy used by mining pools in 2021? If so, where can I find evidence to back that up?</p>

<mining-pools><attack><selfish-mining><block-withholding>
Known cases of block-withholding attacks
lunskra
# Known cases of block-withholding attacks

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-05-23)

At the moment I am doing a course about Bitcoin. The topic of the last session was the block-withholding attack and the course (being from 2014) claimed that there are no known attacks so far.

Is block-withholding a strategy used by mining pools in 2021? If so, where can I find evidence to back that up?

**Tags:** mining-pools, attack, selfish-mining, block-withholding


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-06-26. Score: -3

I found a lot of papers about block with holding attacks

This seems a survey
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309628092_Bitcoin_Block_Withholding_Attack_Analysis_and_Mitigation>

These r newer
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343236094_Countering_Block_Withholding_Attack_Efficiently>

<https://www.aimspress.com/article/id/4266>

<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0951832018310494>

<https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9284756>

Reading the abstracts this includes some of the *Selfish Mining* ways (I'm sure I read the idea in the IEEE paper in a Selfish Mining paper:
*Detective Mining: Selfish Mining Becomes
Unrealistic under Mining Pool Environment*,
Suhyeon Lee and Seungjoo Kim,
CIST(Center for Information Security Technologies), Korea University, Korea; ADD(Agency for Defense Development), Korea.)
I don't think *Selfish Mining* or *Block With Holding* is something u'll read in the news about, it is a miner or a pool used a block mining efforts; only maybe if it helped in a 51% attack which the papers point as a risk.

Wait, I did find more in my library under Selfish Mining
<https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/selfish-mining-explained>
<https://outlast.me/selfish-mining-in-five-tweets/>
In this one there's a curve unfortunately I don't know its source about ratio of Selfish Mining in known pools
![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/iVAop.jpg)

[I added this part for the sake of promoting knowledge, understanding, scientific research,... nothing more]

I also wondered would it be a malicious way to do front running?ie convince a high bidder ( would be paid more to get his TX as fast as possible) that his/her TX is guaranteed say 1st place in ur block, while u plan to drop the whole block & front run with another TX (maybe I did read that in a paper before, *MEV* ?)
& yes I did read about it under MEV, they're called *Privately Mined Transactions* or *Private Transactions* , they didn't allow more links so I'll just add the screenshots I made about it ( u can search for urself under these terms)

![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/MQyKa.jpg)
![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/dhdbe.jpg)

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: The question asked for evidence that block-withholding (probably selfish mining) attacks have happened in practice. This answer lists a number of theoretical papers without addressing the question.  

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