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Abstract
Bitcoin's consensus algorithm, now known as Nakamoto consensus, can be described very succinctly: at any time, an honest node adopts the longest proof-of-work chain to its knowledge and attempts to mine a new block that extends this longest chain. But surprisingly, it has a reputation for being hard to analyze rigorously. In this talk, I will present an analysis of Nakamoto consensus that is much simpler and also tighter than previous ones.