Quantifying Bitcoin Network Resilience Through Critical Scenario Discovery: A Dual-Layer Framework for Discovering Contentious Fork Conditions in Decentralized Consensus

2026-08-05

AI Summary

This study addresses the uncertainty surrounding potential chain splits resulting from Bitcoin soft fork controversies. The authors propose a two-layer consensus analysis framework that integrates Scenario Discovery with the Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM) to systematically identify critical conditions leading to splits, leveraging 1,330 realistic simulation scenarios executed on real bitcoind nodes via the Warnet platform. Their findings reveal that economic support—not hash rate majority—primarily determines fork outcomes. Specifically, economic support between 0.45 and 0.50 constitutes the lower bound for splits, while 0.78–0.82 represents the upper coverage threshold, with 0.74 identified as the self-sustaining point. Moreover, commitments from mining pools exceeding 21.4% can reverse outcomes, whereas user nodes exhibit negligible influence under the modeled conditions.

Abstract

Bitcoin's consensus depends not only on protocol rules but on the emergent behavior of a heterogeneous network of nodes with divergent economic stakes. Whether a contentious soft fork resolves cleanly or fractures into a persistent chain split is difficult to predict analytically but can be explored through controlled experimentation. This paper applies Scenario Discovery, an ensemble-simulation methodology using the Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM), to identify the configuration regions that produce contentious fork outcomes. Using Warnet to run real bitcoind nodes across 1,330 valid scenarios spanning economic weight, mining-pool commitment, pool ideology, hashrate, and difficulty-retarget regime, we identify the parameter thresholds separating clean resolution from contested split. We show that economic weight distribution across a partition, not hashrate majority, is the primary determinant of resolution under Bitcoin's operational retarget interval and moderate price divergence. Three findings follow: an economic-support floor (0.45-0.50) and override ceiling (0.78-0.82) bound the contested space, with an Economic Self-Sustaining Point (0.74) between them; a pool-commitment "flip-point" (0.214 of committed hashrate) at which committing the largest pool to the upgrading chain paradoxically reverses the outcome; and outcomes resolve on two independent layers, hashrate and economic adoption, governed by different parameters. Individual user nodes show no detectable influence on fork outcomes under the modeled economic weightings. We close with three monitoring questions, answerable from public data, that translate these thresholds into operational guidance.

Problem

• Bitcoin
• consensus
• contentious fork
• network resilience
• scenario discovery

Innovation

• Scenario Discovery
• Bitcoin consensus
• contentious fork
• economic weight distribution
• dual-layer framework