Speculative DoS Attacks in Ethereum

Ethereum nodes can be forced to waste computation on speculatively executed transactions that ultimately revert.
[YQZG] USENIX Sec’24.

Uncle Maker

An attack exploiting Ethereum’s timestamp manipulation to systematically orphan competitors’ blocks.
[YSZ] CCS’23.

Redesigning Bitcoin’s Fee Market

A mechanism design approach to Bitcoin’s transaction fee system, proposing alternatives to the first-price auction.
[LSZ] TEAC’22.

PHANTOM GHOSTDAG

A DAG-based generalization of Nakamoto consensus that allows high throughput without sacrificing security. Deployed in Kaspa.
[SWZ] AFT’21.

Flood & Loot

A systemic attack on the Lightning Network where an attacker floods channels then loots them as timeouts expire.
[HZ] AFT’20.

Hijacking Bitcoin

How BGP routing attacks can partition Bitcoin’s network, delay block propagation, and enable double spending.
[AZV] S&P’17.

Optimal Selfish Mining

Computing the optimal strategy for miners who deviate from the Bitcoin protocol to increase their revenue.
[SSZ] FC’16.

The GHOST Protocol

A modification to Bitcoin’s longest-chain rule that accounts for off-chain blocks, enabling faster and more secure confirmation. Adopted by Ethereum.
[SZ] FC’15.

Eclipse Attacks on Bitcoin

Showing how an attacker can monopolize a node’s connections to isolate it from the network.
[HKZG] USENIX Sec’15.