There was a possible instance of selfish mining recently, and while reading up on this technique sometimes employed by mining pools I found out that anti-Bitcoin academics think that selfish mining is proof that Bitcoin will never work.
Discussion
Yes they use it all the time as an argument against bitcoin and take advantage of people who dont know about it. Cardano guy does it all the time.
Pretty tough to do statistically right? Not a real threat from my view..
I remember reading a paper from like 2013 explaining why it wasnt a big deal but cant remember more than that
Selfish mining is risky to attempt. Sometimes you win big. What I am worried about is collusion with selfish mining (which is basically 2 pools added together being more than 50%) (like foundry and antpool) which can frequently win selfish mining attacks. They would get caught pretty quickly and it would be an industry scandal and tank the price for a bit. But it would definitely shatter mining pools into tiny bits.
Sounds hype
Sometimes collusion may be involved. Right now Foundry + antpool is just over 50% of network. So on paper they are separate pools, but who knows if there's communication.
They're just pools, not miners. Miners are the ones who would be colluding or communicating. And I wouldn't be surprised if there are some large miners who mine on different pools at the same time, just to avoid the pool getting close to 51%
The thing is... why would you assume you can find two blocks before EVERYONE making up the rest of the network can find one? It's pretty rare.
Unfortunately, right now, Foundry and Antpool make up just over 50%, so yeah, their may be collusion starting.
However, the theory is this is bad for the price, and nobody is longer Bitcoin than miners.
I think those academics also don't fully understand how mining works. Yes you can withhold a block for a short while and hope to get a second one, thus forcing others to waste resources mining for nothing. But they have a chance of finding a block during that time too, and publishing it before you, or even finding one with a higher difficulty. It's a risk that could reward of cost.
*reward OR cost
What do they gain by doing this.
I don't get it.
You don't say you won a block until you win 2 in a row... OK.
You win and tell everyone and then win two in a row.
You get the same reward. Do you some how make your odds better at finding the second block? It would have to give you 2x as good odds of finding it if you are willing to lose the one you found.
If you don't find the 2nd block before someone else finds the block you found and you lose it.
I'm just not seeing the advantage gained.
Makes no difference to the network. The network will follow the longest chain always. There is no decreased difficulty in finding a second block. Sometimes it happens quickly. Usually it doesn't.