An empirical comparison of the security and performance characteristics of topology formation algorithms for Bitcoin networks

Authors

Muntadher Sallal, University of BournemouthFollow
Ruairí de Fréin, Technological University DublinFollow
Ali Malik, Technological University DublinFollow
Benjamin Aziz, University of PortsmouthFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3912-1470

Document Type

Article

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

Computer Sciences, Communication engineering and systems

Publication Details

Open access

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590005622000613?via%3Dihub

Abstract

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.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.array.2022.100221

Recommended Citation

Muntadher Sallal, Ruairí de Fréin, Ali Malik, Benjamin Aziz, An empirical comparison of the security and performance characteristics of topology formation algorithms for Bitcoin networks, Array, Volume 15, 2022, 100221, ISSN 2590-0056, DOI: 10.1016/j.array.2022.100221

Funder

SFI

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.