3,153 research outputs found
An empirical comparison of the security and performance characteristics of topology formation algorithms for Bitcoin networks
There is an increasing demand for digital crypto-currencies to be more secure and robust to meet the following business requirements: (1) low transaction fees and (2) the privacy of users. Nowadays, Bitcoin is gaining traction and wide adoption. Many well-known businesses have begun accepting bitcoins as a means of making financial payments. However, the susceptibility of Bitcoin networks to information propagation delay, increases the vulnerability to attack of the Bitcoin network, and decreases its throughput performance. This paper introduces and critically analyses new network clustering methods, named Locality Based Clustering (LBC), Ping Time Based Approach (PTBC), Super Node Based Clustering (SNBA), and Master Node Based Clustering (MNBC). The proposed methods aim to decrease the chances of performing a successful double spending attack by reducing the information propagation delay of Bitcoin. These methods embody proximity-aware extensions to the standard Bitcoin protocol, where proximity is measured geographically and in terms of latency. We validate our proposed methods through a set of simulation experiments and the findings show how the proposed methods run and their impact in optimising the transaction propagation delay. Furthermore, these new methods are evaluated from the perspective of the Bitcoin network’s resistance to partitioning attacks. Numerical results, which are established via extensive simulation experiments, demonstrate how the extensions run and also their impact in optimising the transaction propagation delay. We draw on these findings to suggest promising future research directions for the optimisation of transaction propagation delays
Blockchain Inefficiency in the Bitcoin Peers Network
We investigate Bitcoin network monitoring the dynamics of blocks and
transactions. We unveil that 43\% of the transactions are still not included in
the Blockchain after 1h from the first time they were seen in the network and
20\% of the transactions are still not included in the Blockchain after 30
days, revealing therefore 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 3h. 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 and calls for a debate about the right systems of incentives which a
peer-to-peer unintermediated system should introduce to promote efficient
transaction recording.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, 3 table
Transaction Propagation on Permissionless Blockchains: Incentive and Routing Mechanisms
Existing permissionless blockchain solutions rely on peer-to-peer propagation
mechanisms, where nodes in a network transfer transaction they received to
their neighbors. Unfortunately, there is no explicit incentive for such
transaction propagation. Therefore, existing propagation mechanisms will not be
sustainable in a fully decentralized blockchain with rational nodes. In this
work, we formally define the problem of incentivizing nodes for transaction
propagation. We propose an incentive mechanism where each node involved in the
propagation of a transaction receives a share of the transaction fee. We also
show that our proposal is Sybil-proof. Furthermore, we combine the incentive
mechanism with smart routing to reduce the communication and storage costs at
the same time. The proposed routing mechanism reduces the redundant transaction
propagation from the size of the network to a factor of average shortest path
length. The routing mechanism is built upon a specific type of consensus
protocol where the round leader who creates the transaction block is known in
advance. Note that our routing mechanism is a generic one and can be adopted
independently from the incentive mechanism.Comment: 2018 Crypto Valley Conference on Blockchain Technolog
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