IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v8y2016i1p7-d65233.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analyzing the Bitcoin Network: The First Four Years

Author

Listed:
  • Matthias Lischke

    (Institute of Information Systems, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Spandauer Str. 1, 10178 Berlin, Germany)

  • Benjamin Fabian

    (Institute of Information Systems, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Spandauer Str. 1, 10178 Berlin, Germany)

Abstract

In this explorative study, we examine the economy and transaction network of the decentralized digital currency Bitcoin during the first four years of its existence. The objective is to develop insights into the evolution of the Bitcoin economy during this period. For this, we establish and analyze a novel integrated dataset that enriches data from the Bitcoin blockchain with off-network data such as business categories and geo-locations. Our analyses reveal the major Bitcoin businesses and markets. Our results also give insights on the business distribution by countries and how businesses evolve over time. We also show that there is a gambling network that features many very small transactions. Furthermore, regional differences in the adoption and business distribution could be found. In the network analysis, the small world phenomenon is investigated and confirmed for several subgraphs of the Bitcoin network.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Lischke & Benjamin Fabian, 2016. "Analyzing the Bitcoin Network: The First Four Years," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-40, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:8:y:2016:i:1:p:7-:d:65233
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/8/1/7/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/8/1/7/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barabási, Albert-László & Albert, Réka & Jeong, Hawoong, 2000. "Scale-free characteristics of random networks: the topology of the world-wide web," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 281(1), pages 69-77.
    2. Micha Ober & Stefan Katzenbeisser & Kay Hamacher, 2013. "Structure and Anonymity of the Bitcoin Transaction Graph," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-14, May.
    3. Hajime Inaoka & Takuto Ninomiya & Ken Taniguchi & Tokiko Shimizu & Hideki Takayasu, 2004. "Fractal Network derived from banking transaction -- An analysis of network structures formed by financial institutions --," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 04-E-4, Bank of Japan.
    4. Duncan J. Watts & Steven H. Strogatz, 1998. "Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6684), pages 440-442, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Milena Oehlers & Benjamin Fabian, 2021. "Graph Metrics for Network Robustness—A Survey," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-48, April.
    2. Pietro Saggese & Esther Segalla & Michael Sigmund & Burkhard Raunig & Felix Zangerl & Bernhard Haslhofer, 2023. "Assessing the Solvency of Virtual Asset Service Providers: Are Current Standards Sufficient?," Papers 2309.16408, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    3. Valentina Gatteschi & Fabrizio Lamberti & Claudio Demartini & Chiara Pranteda & Víctor Santamaría, 2018. "Blockchain and Smart Contracts for Insurance: Is the Technology Mature Enough?," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-16, February.
    4. Natkamon Tovanich & Rémy Cazabet, 2022. "Pattern Analysis of Money Flow in the Bitcoin Blockchain," Post-Print hal-03896866, HAL.
    5. Bernhard Haslhofer & Burkhard Raunig & Pietro Saggase & Esther Segalla & Michael Sigmund & Felix Zangerl, 2023. "Assessing the Solvency of Virtual Asset Service Providers: Are Current Standards Sufficient? (Pietro Saggese, Esther Segalla, Michael Sigmund, Burkhard Raunig, Felix Zangerl, Bernhard Haslhofer)," Working Papers 248, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    6. Feyen,Erik H.B. & Kawashima,Yusaku & Mittal,Raunak, 2022. "Crypto-Assets Activity around the World : Evolution and Macro-Financial Drivers," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9962, The World Bank.
    7. Nadia Pocher & Mirko Zichichi & Fabio Merizzi & Muhammad Zohaib Shafiq & Stefano Ferretti, 2023. "Detecting anomalous cryptocurrency transactions: An AML/CFT application of machine learning-based forensics," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-17, December.
    8. George Vlahavas & Kostas Karasavvas & Athena Vakali, 2024. "Unsupervised clustering of bitcoin transactions," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-31, December.
    9. Bruzgė, Rasa & Šapkauskienė, Alfreda, 2022. "Network analysis on Bitcoin arbitrage opportunities," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    10. Natkamon Tovanich & R'emy Cazabet, 2022. "Pattern Analysis of Money Flow in the Bitcoin Blockchain," Papers 2207.07315, arXiv.org.
    11. Karau, Sören, 2021. "Monetary policy and Bitcoin," Discussion Papers 41/2021, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    12. Francisco Javier García-Corral & José Antonio Cordero-García & Jaime de Pablo-Valenciano & Juan Uribe-Toril, 2022. "A bibliometric review of cryptocurrencies: how have they grown?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-31, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hu, Zhongren & Wu, Bo, 2023. "The average shortest distance of three colored substitution networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    2. Zhao, Star X. & Rousseau, Ronald & Ye, Fred Y., 2011. "h-Degree as a basic measure in weighted networks," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 668-677.
    3. Huan Wang & Chuang Ma & Han-Shuang Chen & Ying-Cheng Lai & Hai-Feng Zhang, 2022. "Full reconstruction of simplicial complexes from binary contagion and Ising data," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Valentina Gatteschi & Fabrizio Lamberti & Claudio Demartini & Chiara Pranteda & Víctor Santamaría, 2018. "Blockchain and Smart Contracts for Insurance: Is the Technology Mature Enough?," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-16, February.
    5. Vinayak, & Raghuvanshi, Adarsh & kshitij, Avinash, 2023. "Signatures of capacity development through research collaborations in artificial intelligence and machine learning," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    6. Supriya Tiwari & Pallavi Basu, 2024. "Quasi-randomization tests for network interference," Papers 2403.16673, arXiv.org.
    7. Anzhi Sheng & Qi Su & Aming Li & Long Wang & Joshua B. Plotkin, 2023. "Constructing temporal networks with bursty activity patterns," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    8. Ruiz Vargas, E. & Mitchell, D.G.V. & Greening, S.G. & Wahl, L.M., 2014. "Topology of whole-brain functional MRI networks: Improving the truncated scale-free model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 405(C), pages 151-158.
    9. Giacomello, Giampiero & Picci, Lucio, 2003. "My scale or your meter? Evaluating methods of measuring the Internet," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 363-383, September.
    10. Ormerod, Paul & Roach, Andrew P, 2004. "The Medieval inquisition: scale-free networks and the suppression of heresy," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 339(3), pages 645-652.
    11. Samrachana Adhikari & Beau Dabbs, 2018. "Social Network Analysis in R: A Software Review," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 43(2), pages 225-253, April.
    12. Bech, Morten L. & Atalay, Enghin, 2010. "The topology of the federal funds market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(22), pages 5223-5246.
    13. Wang, Xiaojie & Slamu, Wushour & Guo, Wenqiang & Wang, Sixiu & Ren, Yan, 2022. "A novel semi local measure of identifying influential nodes in complex networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    14. Wang Guizhou & Zhang Si & Yu Tao & Ning Yu, 2021. "A Systematic Overview of Blockchain Research," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 205-238, June.
    15. Lin, Dan & Wu, Jiajing & Xuan, Qi & Tse, Chi K., 2022. "Ethereum transaction tracking: Inferring evolution of transaction networks via link prediction," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 600(C).
    16. Ferreira, D.S.R. & Ribeiro, J. & Oliveira, P.S.L. & Pimenta, A.R. & Freitas, R.P. & Dutra, R.S. & Papa, A.R.R. & Mendes, J.F.F., 2022. "Spatiotemporal analysis of earthquake occurrence in synthetic and worldwide data," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 165(P2).
    17. Mario V. Tomasello & Mauro Napoletano & Antonios Garas & Frank Schweitzer, 2017. "The rise and fall of R&D networks," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(4), pages 617-646.
    18. Qinghu Liao & Wenwen Dong & Boxin Zhao, 2023. "A New Strategy to Solve “the Tragedy of the Commons” in Sustainable Grassland Ecological Compensation: Experience from Inner Mongolia, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-24, June.
    19. Castagna, Alina & Chentouf, Leila & Ernst, Ekkehard, 2017. "Economic vulnerabilities in Italy: A network analysis using similarities in sectoral employment," GLO Discussion Paper Series 50, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Pascal Billand & Christophe Bravard & Sudipta Sarangi, 2011. "Resources Flows Asymmetries in Strict Nash Networks with Partner Heterogeneity," Working Papers 1108, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:8:y:2016:i:1:p:7-:d:65233. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.