Abstract
We consider the problem of mining crytocurrencies by harnessing the inherent distribution capabilities of the World Wide Web. More specifically, we propose, analyze, and implement WebEth, a browser-based distributed miner of the Ethereum cryptocurrency. WebEth handles Proof-of-Work (PoW) calculations through individualized code that runs on the client browsers, and thereafter collates them at a web server to complete the mining operation. WebEth is based on a lazy evaluation technique designed to function within the expected limitations of the clients, including bounds on memory, computation and communication bandwidth to the server. We provide proofs-of-concept of WebEth based on JavaScript and WebAssembly implementations, with the latter reaching hash rates up to roughly 40 kiloHashes per second, which is only 30% slower than the corresponding native C++-based implementation. Finally, we explore several applications of WebEth, including monetization of web content, rate limitation to server access, and private Ethereum networks. Though several distributed web-based cryptominers have appeared in the wild (for other currencies), either in malware or in commercial trials, we believe that WebEth is the first open-source cryptominer of this type.
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Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Dennis Your for his contributions during the early stages of this research. This research was supported in part by NSF under grant CCF-1563753. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
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Tiwari, T., Starobinski, D., Trachtenberg, A. (2018). Distributed Web Mining of Ethereum. In: Dinur, I., Dolev, S., Lodha, S. (eds) Cyber Security Cryptography and Machine Learning. CSCML 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10879. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94147-9_4
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