Decentralization in Bitcoin and Ethereum Networks

Understand

Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies have demonstrated how to securely implement traditionally centralized systems, such as currencies, in a decentralized fashion.

• However, there have been few measurement studies on the level of decentralization they achieve in practice.
• We present a measurement study on various decentralization metrics of two of the leading cryptocurrencies with the largest market capitalization and user base, Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• We investigate the extent of decentralization by measuring the network resources of nodes and the interconnection among them, the protocol requirements affecting the operation of nodes, and the robustness of the two systems against attacks.