密碼幣採礦之競爭模型

Abstract

過往文獻所提出的競爭模型，只能讓消費者從競爭廠商中選擇一個提供較高效益的商品。然而，在密碼幣市場中，挖礦者可同時挖掘數種密碼幣，不受限於只能選擇一種密碼幣。因此，在本篇論文中，我們提出一權重式選擇模型以探討密碼幣的競爭情形，其中，每一位挖礦者可投注部份資源於一個密碼幣，再將剩餘資源投注於另一個密碼幣。此模型延伸了過往貨幣文獻中以網路外部性建構密碼幣的價值，並將挖礦成本、外部風險以及挖礦者對於挖礦效用的敏感度納入考量。有別於過往所提出的非權重式選擇模型(勝者全拿)，我們的權重式選擇模型將挖礦者所投注的小部份資源納入考量，使得較小的密碼幣，即使沒有網路外部性優勢，依然可以透過從每一挖礦者所蒐集的小部份資源而生存。另外，分析結果亦顯示，若採用權重式選擇策略，密碼幣基金會更能克服嚴峻的競爭情形，且挖礦者亦可獲得更高的效益。本研究的成果可提供挖礦者策略性的洞見，並幫助密碼幣基金會制定競爭策略以運作其密碼幣。

Many previously proposed competition models only allow consumers to choose a product with a higher utility, provided by just one of the competitors. However, in cryptocurrency market, miners are allowed to mine multiple cryptocurrencies simultaneously, not just limited to one. Therefore, in this thesis, we propose a weighted effort model to study the competition between two cryptocurrencies, where every miner is allowed to allocate some efforts to one cryptocurrency and the rest to the other. The proposed model extends the concept of the previous currency studies by using the network benefit to model the value of a cryptocurrency, and takes mining cost, exogenous risk, miners’ intrinsic mining benefit sensitivity into account. Unlike previously proposed un-weighted effort models (winner-take-all), our weighted effort model takes the small amount of efforts collected from miners into account, and shows that the smaller cryptocurrency can survive by aggregating the small amount of efforts even though it doesn’t have the advantage of network benefit over its competitor. It also shows that foundations are more likely to overcome stiff competition and miners can obtain higher utilities if weighted effort strategy is adopted. The analytical results can provide some strategic insights for miners and help foundations formulate competitive strategies to run their cryptocurrencies.