Dissecting bitcoin blockchain: Empirical analysis of bitcoin network (2009-2020)

【Author】 Nerurkar, Pranav; Patel, Dhiren; Busnel, Yann; Ludinard, Romaric; Kumari, Saru; Khan, Muhammad Khurram

【Source】JOURNAL OF NETWORK AND COMPUTER APPLICATIONS

【Abstract】Bitcoin system (or Bitcoin) is a peer-to-peer and decentralized payment system that uses cryptocurrency named bitcoins (BTCs) and was released as open-source software in 2009. Unlike fiat currencies, there is no centralized authority or any statutory recognition, backing, or regulation for Bitcoin. All transactions are confirmed for validity by a network of volunteer nodes (miners) and after collective agreement is subsequently recorded into a distributed ledger Blockchain. Bitcoin platform has attracted both social and anti-social elements. On the one hand, it is social as it ensures the exchange of value, maintaining trust in a cooperative, community-driven manner without the need for a trusted third party. At the same time, it is anti-social as it creates hurdles for law enforcement to trace suspicious transactions due to anonymity and privacy. To understand how the social and anti-social tendencies in the user base of Bitcoin affect its evolution, there is a need to analyze the Bitcoin system as a network. The current paper aims to explore the local topology and geometry of the Bitcoin network during its first decade of existence. Bitcoin transaction data from 03 Jan 2009 12:45:05 GMT to 08 May 2020 13:21:33 GMT was processed for this purpose to build a Bitcoin user graph. The characteristics, local and global network properties of the user's graph were analyzed at ten intervals between 2009 and 2020 with a gap of one year. Small diameter, skewed distribution of transactions, power-law distributed in and out degrees, disconnected graph, and presence of large connected components were the observations from network analysis. Thus, it could be inferred that despite anti-social tendencies, Bitcoin network shared similarities with other complex networks. Network analysis also uncovered twenty types of legal and anti-social entities operating on Bitcoin and provided a path for uncovering these anti-social entities.

【Keywords】Bitcoin; Network science; Graph algorithms; Exploratory data analysis

【标题】剖析比特币区块链:比特币网络实证分析(2009-2020)

【摘要】比特币系统(或比特币)是一种点对点的去中心化支付系统，使用名为比特币(btc)的加密货币，于2009年作为开源软件发布。与法定货币不同，比特币没有中央集权机构或任何法定认可、支持或监管。所有的交易都由志愿者节点(矿工)网络确认有效，集体协议随后被记录到分布式账本区块链中。比特币平台吸引了社交和反社交的元素。一方面，它是社会性的，因为它确保了价值交换，以一种合作的、社区驱动的方式维持信任，而不需要一个可信任的第三方。与此同时，由于匿名性和隐私问题，这给执法部门追踪可疑交易制造了障碍，是反社会的。为了理解比特币用户群体中的社交和反社会倾向如何影响其演变，有必要将比特币系统作为一个网络进行分析。本文旨在探索比特币网络在其第一个十年的局部拓扑和几何结构。从2009年1月03日12:45:05到2020年5月08日13:21:33 GMT的比特币交易数据被处理成一个比特币用户图。从2009年到2020年，以一年为间隔，每隔10个时间分析用户图的特征、局部和全局网络属性。小直径、事务的歪斜分布、幂律分布的进出度、不连通图和大型连通组件的存在是网络分析的观察结果。由此可以推断，比特币网络虽然具有反社会的倾向，但与其他复杂网络有相似之处。网络分析还揭示了20种在比特币上运营的合法和反社会实体，并为揭示这些反社会实体提供了途径。

【关键词】比特币;网络科学;图算法;探索性数据分析

【发表时间】2021

【收录时间】2022-05-25

【文献类型】Article

【论文大主题】链上数据分析

【论文小主题】交易网络可视化及分析

【数据来源】无

【代码】无

【影响因子】7.574

【翻译者】王佳鑫