# Blockchain Mining Games with Pay Forward

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel incentive mechanism in blockchain mining where miners can pay forward to influence others, ensuring smaller miners can steer the network behavior even against larger miners.

## Contribution

It proposes a new strategic option for miners in blockchain protocols and models its effects using a stochastic game, demonstrating how it can align incentives.

## Key findings

- Smaller miners can influence larger miners' behavior using pay forward options.
- The proposed mechanism guarantees protocol adherence by incentivizing expected behavior.
- The model shows how strategic incentives can be aligned in blockchain mining.

## Abstract

We study the strategic implications that arise from adding one extra option to the miners participating in the bitcoin protocol. We propose that when adding a block, miners also have the ability to pay forward an amount to be collected by the first miner who successfully extends their branch, giving them the power to influence the incentives for mining. We formulate a stochastic game for the study of such incentives and show that with this added option, smaller miners can guarantee that the best response of even substantially more powerful miners is to follow the expected behavior intended by the protocol designer.