Blockchain inefficiency in the Bitcoin peers network
Abstract We investigate Bitcoin network observing transactions broadcasted into the network during a week from 04/05/2016 and then monitoring their inclusion into the blockchain during the following seven months.We unveil that 42% of the transactions are still not included in the Blockchain after 1 ...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SpringerOpen
2018-09-01
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| Series: | EPJ Data Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0159-3 |
| _version_ | 1818275681433288704 |
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| author | Giuseppe Pappalardo Tiziana Di Matteo Guido Caldarelli Tomaso Aste |
| author_facet | Giuseppe Pappalardo Tiziana Di Matteo Guido Caldarelli Tomaso Aste |
| author_sort | Giuseppe Pappalardo |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract We investigate Bitcoin network observing transactions broadcasted into the network during a week from 04/05/2016 and then monitoring their inclusion into the blockchain during the following seven months.We unveil that 42% of the transactions are still not included in the Blockchain after 1 h from their appearance and 20% of the transactions are still not included in the Blockchain after 30 days, therefore revealing a great inefficiency in the Bitcoin system. However, we observe that most of these “forgotten” transactions have low values and in terms of transferred value the system is less inefficient with 93% of the transactions value being included into the Blockchain within 3 h and 98.8% within a day. The fact that a sizeable fraction of transactions is not processed timely casts serious doubts on the usability of the Bitcoin Blockchain for reliable time-stamping purposes. It also calls for a debate about the right systems of incentives which a peer-to-peer unintermediated system should introduce to promote efficient transaction recording |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T22:33:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-056130fd3ff047499bf5807509347bb3 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2193-1127 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T22:33:37Z |
| publishDate | 2018-09-01 |
| publisher | SpringerOpen |
| record_format | Article |
| series | EPJ Data Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-056130fd3ff047499bf5807509347bb32022-12-22T00:09:32ZengSpringerOpenEPJ Data Science2193-11272018-09-017111310.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0159-3Blockchain inefficiency in the Bitcoin peers networkGiuseppe Pappalardo0Tiziana Di Matteo1Guido Caldarelli2Tomaso Aste3IMT Alti Studi LuccaDepartment of Computer Science, UCLIMT Alti Studi LuccaDepartment of Computer Science, UCLAbstract We investigate Bitcoin network observing transactions broadcasted into the network during a week from 04/05/2016 and then monitoring their inclusion into the blockchain during the following seven months.We unveil that 42% of the transactions are still not included in the Blockchain after 1 h from their appearance and 20% of the transactions are still not included in the Blockchain after 30 days, therefore revealing a great inefficiency in the Bitcoin system. However, we observe that most of these “forgotten” transactions have low values and in terms of transferred value the system is less inefficient with 93% of the transactions value being included into the Blockchain within 3 h and 98.8% within a day. The fact that a sizeable fraction of transactions is not processed timely casts serious doubts on the usability of the Bitcoin Blockchain for reliable time-stamping purposes. It also calls for a debate about the right systems of incentives which a peer-to-peer unintermediated system should introduce to promote efficient transaction recordinghttp://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0159-3BlockchainBitcoinTransaction inefficiency |
| spellingShingle | Giuseppe Pappalardo Tiziana Di Matteo Guido Caldarelli Tomaso Aste Blockchain inefficiency in the Bitcoin peers network EPJ Data Science Blockchain Bitcoin Transaction inefficiency |
| title | Blockchain inefficiency in the Bitcoin peers network |
| title_full | Blockchain inefficiency in the Bitcoin peers network |
| title_fullStr | Blockchain inefficiency in the Bitcoin peers network |
| title_full_unstemmed | Blockchain inefficiency in the Bitcoin peers network |
| title_short | Blockchain inefficiency in the Bitcoin peers network |
| title_sort | blockchain inefficiency in the bitcoin peers network |
| topic | Blockchain Bitcoin Transaction inefficiency |
| url | http://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0159-3 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT giuseppepappalardo blockchaininefficiencyinthebitcoinpeersnetwork AT tizianadimatteo blockchaininefficiencyinthebitcoinpeersnetwork AT guidocaldarelli blockchaininefficiencyinthebitcoinpeersnetwork AT tomasoaste blockchaininefficiencyinthebitcoinpeersnetwork |