Comprehensive Overview of Selfish Mining and Double Spending Attack Countermeasures

Abstract

Bitcoin is a well-known cryptocurrency in which records of transactions are maintained by a P2P network to create a distributed ledger. Due to the complex nature of maintaining highly efficient, transparent and speed transactions between nodes, security is one of the primary concerns of this system. The most prominent modern-day attacks to this system are the selfish mining and double spending attacks. This survey is organized around the aspects pertaining to countermeasures of selfish mining and double spending attacks. We selected a total of 20 primary studies from recent years as a result of a systematic analysis approach. In this study we will aim to classify, analyze, and evaluate these proposed methods in order to create a secure blockchain system. These countermeasures are being developed and are being experimented with in order to mitigate and/or even eliminate these attacks from occurring. These proposed frameworks and research papers will outline the keys to improving the blockchain architecture with code scripts and design parameters to increase the functionality of the blockchain. We aim to identify implications of these countermeasures to address vulnerabilities in the blockchain network for future research on this topic.