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I'm looking to analyse bitcoin for a (rather introductory, low-level) game theory course.

Game theory concepts I'd like to explore with regard to bitcoin: strategic games with ordinal preferences and nash equilibrium), strategic games with vNM preferences and mixed ­strategy nash equilibrium, discount factor and repeated games, extensive form games and subgame perfect equilibrium, coalitional games and Shapley value or core, ­ dominance, minimax, ...

Any interesting pointers or sources for this? It can be a simplified version of bitcoin, just looking for inspiration.

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    I'm not sure I understand your question. Why would, say, a prisoner's dilemma with Bitcoin at stake be different from a prisoner's dilemma with dollars at stake?
    – Nick ODell
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 9:08
  • Ah, I was considering for example the weapons race that can occur. Say we have a 2 miner bitcoin network. Will the miners work together and remain at the same, equal, level of hardware, or will they continue to invest in ever more expensive computers? What happens with 3 miners? N miners? What if they can form groups?
    – Sven Akkermans
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 9:10
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    So, you are looking for some essays that discuss Bitcoin from a game theory perspective? Have you tried searching for "game theory bitcoin"? That seems to find me a boatload of essays and articles on the topic. How do you distinguish your request here from what you find that way?
    – Murch ♦
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 11:31
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    Yes, I can google. Was hoping for some more specific insights and especially recommended papers on the subject.
    – Sven Akkermans
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 20:04

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There are some excellent papers by Aviv Zohar (Red balloons, GHOST etc.) which at least touch on game theory.

There's also a comprehensive list of papers at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VaWhbAj7hWNdiE73P-W-wrl5a0WNgzjofmZXe0Rh5sg/edit#gid=0, you can browse it to see if any could be relevant.

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