Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption

Autores
Parino, Francesco; Beiro, Mariano Gastón; Gauvin, Laetitia
Año de publicación
2018
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
artículo
Estado
versión publicada
Descripción
As the first decentralized digital currency introduced in 2009 together with the blockchain, Bitcoin offers new opportunities both for developed and developing countries. Bitcoin peer-to-peer transactions are independent of the banking system, facilitating foreign exchanges with low transaction fees, such as remittances, and offering a high degree of anonymity. These opportunities together with other key factors led the Bitcoin to become extremely popular and caused its price to skyrocket during 2017 (Henry et al. in J Digit Bank 2(4):311–337, 2018). However, while the Bitcoin blockchain attracts a lot of attention, it remains difficult to investigate where this attention comes from, due to the pseudo-anonymity of the system, and consequently to appreciate its social impact. Here we make an attempt to characterize the adoption of the Bitcoin blockchain by country. In the first part of the work we show that information about the number of Bitcoin software client downloads, the IP addresses that act as relays for the transactions, and the Internet searches about Bitcoin provide together a coherent picture of the system evolution in different countries. Using these quantities as a proxy for user adoption, we identify several socio-economic indexes such as the GDP per capita, freedom of trade and the Internet penetration as key variables correlated with the degree of user adoption. In the second part of the work, we build a network of Bitcoin transactions between countries using the IP addresses of nodes relaying transactions and we develop an augmented version of the gravity model of trade in order to identify socio-economic factors linked to the flow of Bitcoin between countries. In a nutshell our study provides a new insight on Bitcoin adoption by country and on the potential socio-economic drivers of the international Bitcoin flow.
Fil: Parino, Francesco. Institute For Scientific Interchange Foundation; Italia
Fil: Beiro, Mariano Gastón. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long"; Argentina
Fil: Gauvin, Laetitia. Institute For Scientific Interchange Foundation; Italia
Materia
BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN
TRANSACTION NETWORK
BITCOIN ADOPTION
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ar/
Repositorio
CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Institución
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
OAI Identificador
oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/88102
Acceder
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network_name_str CONICET Digital (CONICET)
spelling Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoptionParino, FrancescoBeiro, Mariano GastónGauvin, LaetitiaBITCOIN BLOCKCHAINTRANSACTION NETWORKBITCOIN ADOPTIONhttps://purl.org/becyt/ford/2.2https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2As the first decentralized digital currency introduced in 2009 together with the blockchain, Bitcoin offers new opportunities both for developed and developing countries. Bitcoin peer-to-peer transactions are independent of the banking system, facilitating foreign exchanges with low transaction fees, such as remittances, and offering a high degree of anonymity. These opportunities together with other key factors led the Bitcoin to become extremely popular and caused its price to skyrocket during 2017 (Henry et al. in J Digit Bank 2(4):311–337, 2018). However, while the Bitcoin blockchain attracts a lot of attention, it remains difficult to investigate where this attention comes from, due to the pseudo-anonymity of the system, and consequently to appreciate its social impact. Here we make an attempt to characterize the adoption of the Bitcoin blockchain by country. In the first part of the work we show that information about the number of Bitcoin software client downloads, the IP addresses that act as relays for the transactions, and the Internet searches about Bitcoin provide together a coherent picture of the system evolution in different countries. Using these quantities as a proxy for user adoption, we identify several socio-economic indexes such as the GDP per capita, freedom of trade and the Internet penetration as key variables correlated with the degree of user adoption. In the second part of the work, we build a network of Bitcoin transactions between countries using the IP addresses of nodes relaying transactions and we develop an augmented version of the gravity model of trade in order to identify socio-economic factors linked to the flow of Bitcoin between countries. In a nutshell our study provides a new insight on Bitcoin adoption by country and on the potential socio-economic drivers of the international Bitcoin flow.Fil: Parino, Francesco. Institute For Scientific Interchange Foundation; ItaliaFil: Beiro, Mariano Gastón. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long"; ArgentinaFil: Gauvin, Laetitia. Institute For Scientific Interchange Foundation; ItaliaSpringer2018-12info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501info:ar-repo/semantics/articuloapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/11336/88102Parino, Francesco; Beiro, Mariano Gastón; Gauvin, Laetitia; Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption; Springer; EPJ Data Science; 7; 38; 12-2018; 1-232193-1127CONICET DigitalCONICETenginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0170-8info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0170-8info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ar/reponame:CONICET Digital (CONICET)instname:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas2025-09-29T09:48:02Zoai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/88102instacron:CONICETInstitucionalhttp://ri.conicet.gov.ar/Organismo científico-tecnológicoNo correspondehttp://ri.conicet.gov.ar/oai/requestdasensio@conicet.gov.ar; lcarlino@conicet.gov.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:34982025-09-29 09:48:03.271CONICET Digital (CONICET) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicasfalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption
title Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption
spellingShingle Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption
Parino, Francesco
BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN
TRANSACTION NETWORK
BITCOIN ADOPTION
title_short Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption
title_full Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption
title_fullStr Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption
title_full_unstemmed Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption
title_sort Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Parino, Francesco
Beiro, Mariano Gastón
Gauvin, Laetitia
author Parino, Francesco
author_facet Parino, Francesco
Beiro, Mariano Gastón
Gauvin, Laetitia
author_role author
author2 Beiro, Mariano Gastón
Gauvin, Laetitia
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN
TRANSACTION NETWORK
BITCOIN ADOPTION
topic BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN
TRANSACTION NETWORK
BITCOIN ADOPTION
purl_subject.fl_str_mv https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2.2
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv As the first decentralized digital currency introduced in 2009 together with the blockchain, Bitcoin offers new opportunities both for developed and developing countries. Bitcoin peer-to-peer transactions are independent of the banking system, facilitating foreign exchanges with low transaction fees, such as remittances, and offering a high degree of anonymity. These opportunities together with other key factors led the Bitcoin to become extremely popular and caused its price to skyrocket during 2017 (Henry et al. in J Digit Bank 2(4):311–337, 2018). However, while the Bitcoin blockchain attracts a lot of attention, it remains difficult to investigate where this attention comes from, due to the pseudo-anonymity of the system, and consequently to appreciate its social impact. Here we make an attempt to characterize the adoption of the Bitcoin blockchain by country. In the first part of the work we show that information about the number of Bitcoin software client downloads, the IP addresses that act as relays for the transactions, and the Internet searches about Bitcoin provide together a coherent picture of the system evolution in different countries. Using these quantities as a proxy for user adoption, we identify several socio-economic indexes such as the GDP per capita, freedom of trade and the Internet penetration as key variables correlated with the degree of user adoption. In the second part of the work, we build a network of Bitcoin transactions between countries using the IP addresses of nodes relaying transactions and we develop an augmented version of the gravity model of trade in order to identify socio-economic factors linked to the flow of Bitcoin between countries. In a nutshell our study provides a new insight on Bitcoin adoption by country and on the potential socio-economic drivers of the international Bitcoin flow.
Fil: Parino, Francesco. Institute For Scientific Interchange Foundation; Italia
Fil: Beiro, Mariano Gastón. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long"; Argentina
Fil: Gauvin, Laetitia. Institute For Scientific Interchange Foundation; Italia
description As the first decentralized digital currency introduced in 2009 together with the blockchain, Bitcoin offers new opportunities both for developed and developing countries. Bitcoin peer-to-peer transactions are independent of the banking system, facilitating foreign exchanges with low transaction fees, such as remittances, and offering a high degree of anonymity. These opportunities together with other key factors led the Bitcoin to become extremely popular and caused its price to skyrocket during 2017 (Henry et al. in J Digit Bank 2(4):311–337, 2018). However, while the Bitcoin blockchain attracts a lot of attention, it remains difficult to investigate where this attention comes from, due to the pseudo-anonymity of the system, and consequently to appreciate its social impact. Here we make an attempt to characterize the adoption of the Bitcoin blockchain by country. In the first part of the work we show that information about the number of Bitcoin software client downloads, the IP addresses that act as relays for the transactions, and the Internet searches about Bitcoin provide together a coherent picture of the system evolution in different countries. Using these quantities as a proxy for user adoption, we identify several socio-economic indexes such as the GDP per capita, freedom of trade and the Internet penetration as key variables correlated with the degree of user adoption. In the second part of the work, we build a network of Bitcoin transactions between countries using the IP addresses of nodes relaying transactions and we develop an augmented version of the gravity model of trade in order to identify socio-economic factors linked to the flow of Bitcoin between countries. In a nutshell our study provides a new insight on Bitcoin adoption by country and on the potential socio-economic drivers of the international Bitcoin flow.
publishDate 2018
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2018-12
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
info:ar-repo/semantics/articulo
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/11336/88102
Parino, Francesco; Beiro, Mariano Gastón; Gauvin, Laetitia; Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption; Springer; EPJ Data Science; 7; 38; 12-2018; 1-23
2193-1127
CONICET Digital
CONICET
url http://hdl.handle.net/11336/88102
identifier_str_mv Parino, Francesco; Beiro, Mariano Gastón; Gauvin, Laetitia; Analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain: socio-economic factors behind the adoption; Springer; EPJ Data Science; 7; 38; 12-2018; 1-23
2193-1127
CONICET Digital
CONICET
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv eng
language eng
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0170-8
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0170-8
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ar/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ar/
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Springer
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
instname:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
reponame_str CONICET Digital (CONICET)
collection CONICET Digital (CONICET)
instname_str Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
repository.name.fl_str_mv CONICET Digital (CONICET) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
repository.mail.fl_str_mv dasensio@conicet.gov.ar; lcarlino@conicet.gov.ar
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score 13.069144

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