Modeling a Double-Spending Detection System for the Bitcoin Network

The Bitcoin protocol prevents the occurrence of double-spending (DS), i.e. the utilization of the same currency unit more than once. At the same time a DS attack, where more conflicting transactions are generated, might be performed to defraud a user, e.g. a merchant. Therefore, in this work, we propose a model for detecting the presence of conflicting transactions by means of an 'oracle' that polls a subset of nodes of the Bitcoin network. We assume that the latter has a complex structure. So, we investigate the relation between the topology of several complex networks and the optimal amount, and distribution, of a subset of nodes chosen by the oracle for polling. Results show that small-world networks require to poll a smaller amount of nodes than regular networks. In addition, in random topologies, a small number of polled nodes can make a detection system fast and reliable even if the underlying network grows.