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Network Analysis of ERC20 Tokens Trading on Ethereum Blockchain

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Unifying Themes in Complex Systems IX (ICCS 2018)

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Complexity ((SPCOM))

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Abstract

Issuance of cryptocurrencies on top of the Blockchain system by startups and private sector companies is becoming a ubiquitous phenomenon, inducing the trading of these crypto-coins among their holders using dedicated exchanges. Apart from being a trading ledger for tokens, Blockchain can also be observed as a social network. Analyzing and modeling the dynamics of the “social signals” of this network can contribute to our understanding of this ecosystem and the forces acting within. This work is the first analysis of the network properties of the ERC20 protocol compliant crypto-coins’ trading data. Considering all trading wallets as a network’s nodes, and constructing its edges using buy–sell trades, we can analyze the network properties of the ERC20 network. We demonstrate that the network displays strong power-law properties, coinciding with current network theory expectations, however nonetheless, are the first scientific validation of it, for the ERC20 trading data.

The examined data is composed of over 30 million ERC20 tokens trades, performed by over 6.8 million unique wallets, lapsing over a two years period between February 2016 and February 2018.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We omit these results from the current version, due to space limitations, and they will appear in a future, extended version.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Shahar Somin & Yaniv Altshuler

  2. Curiosity Lab, Industrial Engineering Department, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Goren Gordon

  3. Endor Ltd., Tel Aviv, Israel

    Shahar Somin, Goren Gordon & Yaniv Altshuler

Authors
  1. Shahar Somin
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  2. Goren Gordon
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  3. Yaniv Altshuler
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shahar Somin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. New England Complex Systems Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Alfredo J. Morales

  2. Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico

    Carlos Gershenson

  3. New England Complex Systems Institute and University of Massachusetts, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Dan Braha

  4. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Ali A. Minai

  5. New England Complex Systems Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Yaneer Bar-Yam

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Somin, S., Gordon, G., Altshuler, Y. (2018). Network Analysis of ERC20 Tokens Trading on Ethereum Blockchain. In: Morales, A., Gershenson, C., Braha, D., Minai, A., Bar-Yam, Y. (eds) Unifying Themes in Complex Systems IX. ICCS 2018. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96661-8_45

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