Paper 2015/464

Bitcoin and Beyond: A Technical Survey on Decentralized Digital Currencies

Florian Tschorsch and Björn Scheuermann

Abstract

Besides attracting a billion dollar economy, Bitcoin revolutionized the field of digital currencies and influenced many adjacent areas. This also induced significant scientific interest. In this survey, we unroll and structure the manyfold results and research directions. We start by introducing the Bitcoin protocol and its building blocks. From there we continue to explore the design space by discussing existing contributions and results. In the process, we deduce the fundamental structures and insights at the core of the Bitcoin protocol and its applications. As we show and discuss, many key ideas are likewise applicable in various other fields, so that their impact reaches far beyond Bitcoin itself.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Applications
Publication info
Published elsewhere. Minor revision. IEEE Communications Surveys Tutorials (COMST)
DOI
10.1109/COMST.2016.2535718
Keywords
BitcoinSurveyTutorialAltcoinsCryptocurrencyConsensus
Contact author(s)
tschorsch @ informatik hu-berlin de
History
2016-04-01: revised
2015-05-17: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2015/464
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2015/464,
      author = {Florian Tschorsch and Björn Scheuermann},
      title = {Bitcoin and Beyond: A Technical Survey on Decentralized Digital Currencies},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2015/464},
      year = {2015},
      doi = {10.1109/COMST.2016.2535718},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/464}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/464}
}
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