Game Theory and Network Attacks: How to Destroy Bitcoin

In this lecture, Max Fang and Philip Hayes will present a comprehensive treatment of the game theoretical and network vulnerabilities in Bitcoin with an emphasis on lesser-known attacks and academic work showing that the Bitcoin protocol is not game-theoretically sound.

Max Fang is a student at UC Berkeley double majoring in Computer Science and Economics. He is the President of Blockchain at Berkeley, organizing the Berkeley Bitcoin Meetup, in-depth workshops, and a new blockchain consultancy. He also teaches and lectures for the Cryptocurrency Decal, the world’s first (and only) cryptocurrency course offered at an undergraduate level. This summer, he'll be working as an intern at Lightning Labs.

Philip Hayes is an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science major at UC Berkeley. He co-created the Cryptocurrency Decal, which he is teaching for the second semester. Max and Philip previously worked on a P2P Bitcoin mixing network protocol. Philip is also a contributer to the lightning network.