Gervais, Arthur;
Karame, Ghassan O;
Capkun, Vedran;
Capkun, Srdjan;
(2014)
Is Bitcoin a Decentralized Currency?
IEEE Security & Privacy
, 12
(3)
pp. 54-60.
10.1109/msp.2014.49.
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Abstract
Bitcoin has achieved large-scale acceptance and popularity by promising its users a fully decentralized and low-cost virtual currency system. However, recent incidents and observations are revealing the true limits of decentralization in the Bitcoin system. In this article, we show that the vital operations and decisions that Bitcoin is currently undertaking are not decentralized. More specifically, we show that a limited set of entities currently control the services, decision making, mining, and the incident resolution processes in Bitcoin. We also show that third-party entities can unilaterally decide to “devalue” any specific set of Bitcoin addresses pertaining to any entity participating in the system. Finally, we explore possible avenues to enhance the decentralization in the Bitcoin system.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Is Bitcoin a Decentralized Currency? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1109/msp.2014.49 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2014.49 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Bitcoin, Decentralized decision process |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10182355 |
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