Pool Detective Lead Gert-Jaap, Released a New Research Description for Pool Detective : "Who is Monitoring Mining Pools?"

By Gert-Jaap and Neha Narula

Medium.com August 21st, 2020

One of our goals at the Digital Currency Initiative is to harden the security of cryptocurrency networks. Most users of cryptocurrency take the actual network protocol and all of its implementation — mining, pools, validation, messaging, and more — for granted, and aren’t necessarily aware of all the ways these mechanisms might be attacked or fail. For example, though mining pools are a huge part of Bitcoin’s network security, there isn’t any available public monitoring to make sure that mining pools are well-behaved. There isn’t even a standard way to look at what pool operators are doing or infrastructure to keep tabs on pool operators.

This is an example of what we call protocol risk: cryptocurrencies are only as secure as their networks. If a network is insecure, it can become unusable or users could lose their money. Businesses and users who are deeply invested in cryptocurrency should understand how to evaluate and mitigate this risk.

If you have any suggestions or ideas, feel free to leave a comment below or reach out to pooldetective@mit.edu.

Pool Detective is one part of a comprehensive effort at DCI to improve the security and robustness of global cryptocurrency networks. Please reach out if you’re interested in learning more or supporting our work.