Zero-determinant game design for preventing double-spending in IOTA

Abstract The Internet of Things Application (IOTA) is an innovative public blockchain system tailored for the Internet of Things (IoT), focusing on challenges such as micro-payments, concurrency, and scalability. However, its distributed ledger, which utilizes a directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure, is vulnerable to double-spending attacks. To mitigate this risk, we propose a countermeasure employing zero-determinant (ZD) strategies to encourage honest transactions among nodes. First, we analyze the game-theoretic interactions between the IOTA committee and nodes, modeling them as an iterated prisoner’s dilemma and deriving the conditions under which this dilemma holds. Next, we explore the conditions under which the IOTA committee can adopt ZD strategies, demonstrating the feasibility of unilaterally controlling node payoffs. Finally, theoretical analysis and experimental validation confirm the effectiveness of the proposed countermeasure, offering a novel game-theoretic solution for enhancing IOTA’s security.