Multiple Proposer Transaction Fee Mechanism Design: Robust Incentives Against Censorship and Bribery

2025-05-19

AI Summary

Existing multi-proposer blockchains (e.g., FOCIL) lack bribery-resistant transaction fee mechanisms (TFMs), leaving them vulnerable to censorship under strategic fee manipulation. Method: We propose the first censorship-resistant TFM for multi-proposer settings, grounded in a game-theoretic mechanism design framework that models uncertainty, multi-stage transaction inclusion, and agnostic adversary behavior. We rigorously prove incentive compatibility under strong bribery attacks and ensure full backward compatibility with EIP-1559. Contributions/Results: (1) The first formal definition and construction of a bribery-resistant multi-proposer TFM; (2) A deployable payment rule proven to guarantee 100% censorship resistance under arbitrary bribe magnitudes; (3) Simultaneous satisfaction of truthfulness, individual rationality, and budget balance. Our mechanism closes a critical gap in the fee-incentive layer of protocols like FOCIL.

Technology Category

• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design
• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Mechanism Design
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Representing, Reasoning, and Using Provenance, Trust

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Measurement, analysis, and circumvention of Web censorship
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies

Abstract

Censorship resistance is one of the core value proposition of blockchains. A recurring design pattern aimed at providing censorship resistance is enabling multiple proposers to contribute inputs into block construction. Notably, Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) is proposed to be included in Ethereum. However, the current proposal relies on altruistic behavior, without a Transaction Fee Mechanism (TFM). This study aims to address this gap by exploring how multiple proposers should be rewarded to incentivize censorship resistance. The main contribution of this work is the identification of TFMs that ensure censorship resistance under bribery attacks, while also satisfying the incentive compatibility properties of EIP-1559. We provide a concrete payment mechanism for FOCIL, along with generalizable contributions to the literature by analyzing 1) incentive compatibility of TFMs in the presence of a bribing adversary, 2) TFMs in protocols with multiple phases of transaction inclusion, and 3) TFMs of protocols in which parties are uncertain about the behavior and the possible bribe of others.

Problem

• Designing transaction fee mechanisms for multiple proposers to resist censorship
• Ensuring incentive compatibility under bribery attacks in blockchain protocols
• Analyzing payment mechanisms for Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL)

Innovation

• Designs Transaction Fee Mechanism for multiple proposers
• Ensures censorship resistance under bribery attacks
• Analyzes incentive compatibility with bribing adversaries