PROACTION: Profitable Transactions Selection Greedy Algorithm in Rational Proof-of-Work Mining
Mariano Basile, Giovanni Nardini, Pericle Perazzo, Gianluca Dini · Blockchains · 2025
Despite the many consensus algorithms being used in blockchains, proof of work (PoW) is still the most common nowadays. The state-of-the-art mining strategy for PoW-based blockchain protocols consists of including as many transactions as possible in a block to maximize the block reward. Unfortunately, this strategy maximizes the block orphaning probability too. Recently, we proposed a rational mining strategy aimed at carefully balancing the trade-off between the block reward and the risk of block orphaning. In this work, we present PROACTION, a PROfitable transACTions selectION greedy algorithm that implements such a strategy. We evaluate the algorithm both analytically and experimentally on Bitcoin by assuming a variable random percentage of winning miners adopting PROACTION. Experiments show that when executing PROACTION, miners gain higher long-term rewards than when using the state-of-the-art strategy. The gain is in the order of the block orphaning probability. This result is particularly relevant for those PoW-based blockchain protocols in which such a probability is significant.