Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2015/796

In this paper, we expand the mining strategy space to include novel ``stubborn'' strategies that, for a large range of parameters, earn the miner more revenue. Consequently, we show that the selfish mining attack is not (in general) optimal.

Further, we show how a miner can further amplify its gain by non-trivially composing mining attacks with network-level eclipse attacks. We show, surprisingly, that given the attacker's best strategy, in some cases victims of an eclipse attack can actually benefit from being eclipsed!