Can open decentralized ledgers be economically secure?

Traditional payment processors are the subject of antitrust concerns and regulations. Open decentralized ledgers (e.g., Bitcoin) provide an alternative. They do not rely on a central authority, avoiding antitrust and monopoly concerns. However, the open nature of these systems gives rise to many challenges, including fundamental questions about their security. To address this question, we consider a framework that combines economic theory and distributed systems theory and define economic security for general permissionless decentralized ledgers. Analysis of Bitcoin’s Nakamoto protocol shows that block rewards are ineffective in providing economic security due to limitations of incentives in environments with many anonymous participants. We present an alternative protocol showing that an open decentralized ledger can be economically secure.

传统支付处理机构是反垄断关注和监管的对象。开放式去中心化账本（例如比特币）提供了一种替代方案。它们不依赖中央权威机构，避免了反垄断和垄断方面的担忧。然而，这些系统的开放性质引发了许多挑战，包括有关其安全性的基本问题。为了解决这个问题，我们考虑一个将经济理论和分布式系统理论相结合的框架，并为一般的无许可去中心化账本定义经济安全性。对比特币的中本聪协议的分析表明，由于在有许多匿名参与者的环境中激励机制的局限性，区块奖励在提供经济安全性方面是无效的。我们提出了一种替代协议，表明一个开放式去中心化账本可以在经济上是安全的。