Related papers: The economic dependency of the Bitcoin security
We present an analysis of the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, used on the Bitcoin blockchain, using a Mean Field Game framework. Using a master equation, we provide an equilibrium characterization of the total computational power devoted…
Mining blocks on a blockchain equipped with a proof of work consensus protocol is well-known to be resource-consuming. A miner bears the operational cost, mainly electricity consumption and IT gear, of mining, and is compensated by a…
A decade long thrive of cryptocurrency has shown its potential as a source of alternative-finance and the security and the robustness of the underpinning blockchain technology. However, most cryptocurrencies fail to show inimitability and…
As the cornerstone of blockchain, block synchronization plays a vital role in maintaining the security. Without full blockchain synchronization, unexpected forks will emerge and thus providing a breeding ground for various malicious…
In this paper we discuss Bitcoin, the leader among the existing cryptocurrencies, to analyse its trends, success factors, current challenges and probable solutions to make it even better. In the introduction section, we discuss the history…
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are realized using distributed systems and hence critically rely on the performance and security of the interconnecting network. The requirements on these networks and their usage, however can differ…
Cryptocurrency, the most controversial and simultaneously the most interesting asset, has attracted many investors and speculators in recent years. The visibly significant market capitalization of cryptos also motivates modern financial…
In a PoW-based blockchain network, mining pools (the solo miner could be regarded as a mining pool containing one miner) compete to successfully mine blocks to pursue rewards. Generally, the rewards include the fixed block subsidies and…
Over the past decade, the blockchain technology and its Bitcoin cryptocurrency have received considerable attention. Bitcoin has experienced significant price swings in daily and long-term valuations. In this paper, we propose a partial…
Bitcoin has emerged as a fascinating phenomenon of the financial markets. Without any central authority issuing the currency, it has been associated with controversy ever since its popularity and public interest reached high levels. Here,…
Bitcoin derives a verifiable temporal order from probabilistic block discovery and cumulative proof-of-work rather than from a trusted global clock. We show that block arrivals exhibit stable exponential behavior across difficulty epochs,…
The world economy is experiencing the novel adoption of distributed currencies that are free from the control of central banks. Distributed currencies suffer from extreme volatility, and this can lead to catastrophic implications during…
We make several contributions that quantify the real-time hash rate and therefore the consensus of a blockchain. We show that by using only the hash value of blocks, we can estimate and measure the hash rate of all miners or individual…
Bitcoin constructs temporal order internally rather than synchronizing to any external clock. Empirical evidence shows that its time evolution is non-continuous, probabilistic, and self-regulated. Block discovery follows a stochastic…
The security of blockchain systems is fundamentally based on the decentralized consensus in which the majority of parties behave honestly, and the content verification process is essential to maintaining the robustness of blockchain…
We investigate the relationship between underlying blockchain mechanism of cryptocurrencies and its distributional characteristics. In addition to price, we emphasise on using actual block size and block time as the operational features of…
Smart contracts are stateful programs deployed on blockchains; they secure over a trillion dollars in transaction value per year. High-stakes smart contracts often rely on timely alerts about external events, but prior work has not analyzed…
The aim of this paper is to analyse the Bitcoin in order to shed some light on its nature and behaviour. We select 9 cryptocurrencies that account for almost 75\% of total market capitalisation and compare their evolution with that of a…
We study financial transaction confirmation finality in Bitcoin as a function of transaction amount and user risk tolerance. A transaction is recorded in a block on a blockchain. However, a transaction may be revoked due to a fork in the…
Open-access blockchains based on proof-of-work protocols have gained tremendous popularity for their capabilities of providing decentralized tamper-proof ledgers and platforms for data-driven autonomous organization. Nevertheless, the…