Zerocoin proposed adding decentralized cryptographically anonymous e-cash to Bitcoin. Given the increasing popularity of Bitcoin and its reliance on a distributed pseudononymous public ledger, this anonymity is important if only to provide the same minimal privacy protections from nosy neighbors offered by conventional banking. Unfortunately, at 25KB, the non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs f...

In this paper we revisit some major orthodoxies which lie at the heart of the bitcoin crypto currency and its numerous clones. In particular we look at The Longest Chain Rule, the monetary supply policies and the exact mechanisms which implement them. We claim that these built-in properties are not as brilliant as they are sometimes claimed. A closer examination reveals that they are closer to ...

What is the role of social interactions in the creation of price bubbles? Answering this question requires obtaining collective behavioural traces generated by the activity of a large number of actors. Digital currencies offer a unique possibility to measure socio-economic signals from such digital traces. Here, we focus on Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has experienced perio...

In this paper, we present an empirical study of a recent spam campaign (a “stress test”) that resulted in a DoS attack on Bitcoin. The goal of our investigation being to understand the methods spammers used and impact on Bitcoin users. To this end, we used a clustering based method to detect spam transactions. We then validate the clustering results and generate a conservative estimate that 385...

Decentralized ledger-based cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin provide a means to construct payment systems without requiring a trusted bank, yet the anonymity of Bitcoin is proved to be far from enough. Zerocash is the first full-fledged anonymouse digital currency based on the blockchain technology, using zk-SNARK as the zero-knowledge module for the privacy preserving. Zerocash solves the priva...

A decentralized payment system is not secure if transactions are transferred directly between clients. In such a situation it is not possible to prevent a client from redeeming some coins twice in separate transactions that means a double-spending attack. Bitcoin uses a simple method to preventing this attack i.e. all transactions are published in a unique log (blockchain) [17,38]. This approac...

This paper looks at the challenges and opportunities of implementing blockchain technology across banking, providing food for thought about the potentialities of this disruptive technology. The blockchain technology can optimize the global financial infrastructure, achieving sustainable development, using more efficient systems than at present. In fact, many banks are currently focusing on bloc...

We show that the behaviour of Bitcoin has interesting similarities to stock and precious metal markets, such as gold and silver. We report that whilst Litecoin, the second largest cryptocurrency, closely follows Bitcoin’s behaviour, it does not show all the reported properties of Bitcoin. Agreements between apparently disparate complexity measures have been found, and it is shown that statistic...

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer (p2p) electronic cash system that uses a distributed timestamp service to record transactions in a public ledger (called the Blockchain). A critical component of Bitcoin’s success is the decentralized nature of its architecture, which does not require or even support the establishment of trusted authorities. Yet the absence of certification creates obstacles to its wid...

​ AsicBoost is a method to speed up Bitcoin mining by a factor of approximately 20%. The performance gain is achieved through a high­level optimization of the Bitcoin mining algorithm which allows for drastic reduction in gate count on the mining chip. ​ AsicBoost is applicable to all types of mining hardware and chip designs. This paper presents the idea behind the method and describes the inf...