Related papers: The cost of Bitcoin mining has never really increa…
While cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications continue to gain popularity, their energy cost is evidently becoming unsustainable. In most instances, the main cost comes from the required amount of energy for the Proof-of-Work, and this…
Despite the fact that it is publicly available, collecting and processing the full bitcoin blockchain data is not trivial. Its mere size, history, and other features indeed raise quite specific challenges, that we address in this paper. The…
This study examines the feasibility and profitability of utilizing surplus electricity for Bitcoin mining. Surplus electricity refers to the remaining electricity after net metering, which can be repurposed for Bitcoin mining to improve…
The Bitcoin Lightning Network (BLN), a so-called "second layer" payment protocol, was launched in 2018 to scale up the number of transactions between Bitcoin owners. In this paper, we analyse the structure of the BLN over a period of 18…
We survey recent results on the mathematical stability of Bitcoin protocol. Profitability and probability of a double spend are estimated in closed form with classical special functions. The stability of Bitcoin mining rules is analyzed and…
Bitcoin and other similar digital currencies on blockchains are not ideal means for payment, because their prices tend to go up in the long term (thus people are incentivized to hoard those currencies), and to fluctuate widely in the short…
Bitcoin is a electronic payment system where payment transactions are verified and stored in a data structure called the blockchain. Bitcoin miners work individually to solve a computationally intensive problem, and with each solution a…
Bitcoin operates as a macroeconomic paradox: it combines a strictly predetermined, inelastic monetary issuance schedule with a stochastic, highly elastic demand for scarce block space. This paper empirically validates the Endogenous…
Cryptocurrencies are distributed systems that allow exchanges of native tokens among participants, or the exchange of such tokens for fiat currencies in markets external to these public ledgers. The availability of their complete historical…
The Lightning Network promises to alleviate Bitcoin's known scalability problems. The operation of such second layer approaches relies on the ability of participants to turn to the blockchain to claim funds at any time, which is assumed to…
The key cryptographic protocols used to secure the internet and financial transactions of today are all susceptible to attack by the development of a sufficiently large quantum computer. One particular area at risk are cryptocurrencies, a…
Quantum devices capable of breaking the public-key cryptosystems that Bitcoin relies on to secure its transactions are expected with reasonable probability within a decade. Quantum attacks would put at risk the entire Bitcoin network, which…
Bitcoin is a digital currency and payment system based on classical cryptographic technologies which works without a central administrator such as in traditional currencies. It has long been questioned what the impact of quantum computing…
The Lightning Network is a so-called second-layer technology built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain to provide "off-chain" fast payment channels between users, which means that not all transactions are settled and stored on the main…
There is a growing interest in understanding the energy and environmental footprint of digital currencies, specifically in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. These cryptocurrencies are operated by a geographically distributed…
We calculate the probability of success of block-hiding mining strategies in Bitcoin-like networks. These strategies involve building a secret branch of the block-tree and publishing it opportunistically, aiming to replace the top of the…
Recent estimates put the carbon footprint of Bitcoin and Ethereum at an average of 64 and 26 million tonnes of CO2 per year, respectively. To address this growing problem, several possible approaches have been proposed in the literature:…
In the cryptographic currency Bitcoin, all transactions are recorded in the blockchain - a public, global, and immutable ledger. Because transactions are public, Bitcoin and its users employ obfuscation to maintain a degree of financial…
Blockchain technologies are considered one of the most disruptive innovations of the last decade, enabling secure decentralized trust-building. However, in recent years, with the rapid increase in the energy consumption of blockchain-based…
The Bitcoin cryptocurrency records its transactions in a public log called the blockchain. Its security rests critically on the distributed protocol that maintains the blockchain, run by participants called miners. Conventional wisdom…