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Difficulty of Decentralized Structure Due to Rational User Behavior on Blockchain

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Network and System Security (NSS 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 11928))

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Abstract

Blockchain is an autonomous decentralized system, the operation of which depends on the motivation of the users who provide the nodes for managing the accurate distributed ledger. For the management of an accurate ledger, a strong limitation exists that requires a large amount of storage, and it binds the node specifications to force users to perform rational management on the network. These are designed into the system as invisible rules that are not described in the program. Therefore, monitoring the dynamism of nodes on the network can aid in understanding the potential system mechanisms. In this study, by monitoring Bitcoin and Ethereum over a long comparative period of 455 days as a system based on the main blockchains actually used, we demonstrate that it is difficult to balance the distributed structure owing to the rational behavior of users. We empirically provide the following evidence: (1) the node density of a specific hosting region increases; and (2) a local hosting region with less than 1% of the total nodes closes. We conclude that this is a security risk problem that results in a weak network structure, and discuss possible solutions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://bitnodes.earn.com/api/v1/snapshots.

  2. 2.

    https://www.ethernodes.org/network/1/data?.

  3. 3.

    https://www.ip2location.com/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tsukuba, Tennodai 1–1–1, Tsukuba, 305-8573, Japan

    Mitsuyoshi Imamura & Kazumasa Omote

  2. Nomura Asset Management Ltd., 1-11-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-8260, Japan

    Mitsuyoshi Imamura

Authors
  1. Mitsuyoshi Imamura
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  2. Kazumasa Omote
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mitsuyoshi Imamura .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Joseph K. Liu

  2. Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China

    Xinyi Huang

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Imamura, M., Omote, K. (2019). Difficulty of Decentralized Structure Due to Rational User Behavior on Blockchain. In: Liu, J., Huang, X. (eds) Network and System Security. NSS 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11928. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36938-5_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36938-5_31

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-36937-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-36938-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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