> You can determine statistically whether you have found a block relatively early, and conversely whether other miners are unlikely to find one soon.

Finding a block relatively early doesn't affect the odds of others finding a block soon. The odds are always the same, each hash is an independent event.

I don't see why withholding would get you an edge on average. If the others find a block while you're withholding, you lose your reward. If you find another block before them, you get the rewards of 2 blocks, exactly like if the same happened but you didn't withhold.

The only way for you to have an advantage is if you find a 2nd block at the same time as another one finds one on the other chain. You can then publish a height of 2 vs a height of 1, so you win. But to do that you have to first put your first block reward at high risk by withholding it. I don't think the odds are in your favor here.

Yeah, I was thinking about this wrong. I don't think it works.

Edit: I think the strategy does work, but a little differently: if you withhold a block and someone else finds one while you do so, you can still publish yours and win a race with a certain probability, i.e. the expected loss is not as high as one might think.

Then, if you do that and if you have enough hash power, you can end up mining a private chain ahead of the public one often enough, so that the loss you take is less than the loss others take through the hash power they are wasting because of you doing this.