AUTHOR=Vallarano Nicoló , Tessone Claudio J. , Squartini Tiziano 

TITLE=Bitcoin Transaction Networks: An Overview of Recent Results

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physics

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2020

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2020.00286

DOI=10.3389/fphy.2020.00286

ISSN=2296-424X

ABSTRACT=Cryptocurrencies are distributed systems that allow exchanges of native (and non-) tokens among participants. The availability of the complete historical bookkeeping opens up an unprecedented possibility, i.e. that of understanding the evolution of their network structure while gaining useful insight on the relationships between users' behaviour and cryptocurrency pricing in exchange markets. In this contribution we review some of the most recent results concerning the structural properties of the Bitcoin Transaction Networks, a generic name referring to a set of three different constructs: the Bitcoin Address Network, the Bitcoin User Network and the Bitcoin Lightning Network. The picture that emerges is that of system growing over time, which becomes increasingly sparse and whose mesoscopic structural organization is characterised by the presence of an increasingly significant core-periphery structure. Such a peculiar topology is matched by a highly uneven distribution of bitcoins, a result suggesting that Bitcoin is becoming an increasingly centralized system at different levels.