We correct the double spend race analysis given in Nakamoto’s foundational Bitcoin article and give a closed-form formula for the probability of success of a double spend attack using the Regularized Incomplete Beta Function.

We give a proof of the exponential decay on the number of confirmations, often cited in the literature, and find an asymptotic formula.

The talk is based on the paper available at https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.02867.

About Ricardo Pérez-Marco 

Ricardo Pérez-Marco is a former student of the École Normale Supérieure de Paris (1987-1991), obtained his PhD from the Université Paris-Sud in 1990, and received in 1996 the EMS prize in Mathematics. During his career he has been Full Professor at UCLA for several years and is now Directeur de Recherches at CNRS (IMJ-PRG, Paris). His research focus is on geometry and complex analysis, with widespread interests including small divisors, holomorphic dynamics, zeta functions, and economic dynamics.

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This event will be conducted in English