Position Paper: Denial-of-Service against Multi-Round Transaction Simulation

TL;DR

This paper investigates a new denial-of-service attack on multi-round transaction simulation in blockchains, focusing on inter-transaction dependencies affecting smart-contract states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel attack vector exploiting inter-transaction dependencies in multi-round simulations, expanding understanding of blockchain security vulnerabilities.

Findings

Identifies a new DoS attack exploiting inter-transaction dependencies.

Highlights vulnerabilities in multi-round transaction simulation.

Provides insights into improving blockchain resilience.

Abstract

Transaction simulation is an important subsystem of block building, denial of whose service could lead to severe damage to the blockchain ecosystem and transaction delivery. Denial of block building has been studied, where the existing attack designs either target single-round builders, such as ConditionalExhaust (USENIX Security '24), or target two-round builders, by exploiting cross-round inconsistency, such as GhostTX (USENIX Security '24) and denial of sequencers (CCS '25). This work examines the denial-of-service security of multi-round transaction simulation under a new exploit: inter-transaction dependency that manifests in smart-contract state.