Block withholding attack is a specific Mining coordinate in the Bitcoin knowledge graph. In practical terms, it identifies the subject described here: A pool participant submits ordinary shares but secretly discards full-difficulty blocks, harming pool revenue while appearing to work. This definition is narrower than promotional usage and should be read together with the implementation, date and evidence attached to the entry.
Block withholding attack is best understood as part of a system rather than as an isolated definition. Its related coordinates show the mechanisms, incentives and historical records that give the term practical meaning.
Block withholding attack sits between protocol rules, economic incentives and software operated by independent participants. In Bitcoin, no component is authoritative by itself: miners propose history, fully validating nodes enforce validity, and users decide which rules and software they accept.
Understanding Block withholding attack helps distinguish a verifiable Bitcoin mechanism or historical record from slogans, products and market narratives.
Primary or authoritative records make these details checkable: in a block-withholding attack a miner submits ordinary shares to a pool but discards valid full-block solutions, reducing the pool's realized revenue while appearing to contribute hashrate; detection is statistical over sufficient work. They should be verified before using the coordinate in analysis.
The practical limit is: short-term bad luck is not proof of sabotage; the attacker also forgoes block rewards and may use variants with different incentives; attribution requires controlled hashrate and variance analysis. A definition, office, chart pattern or published claim is not by itself a prediction or Bitcoin consensus rule.
For the clearest picture, read this entry together with Mining Pool, Mining Share, Pool Fee, Selfish mining, Pay Per Last N Shares, Bitcoin.