Measuring Decentralization of Blockchain Networks by Mally Anderson, Everett Muzzy (Devcon 5)

Fri, Oct 2, 2020, 12:00 AM

Visit the https://archive.devcon.org/ to gain access to the entire library of Devcon talks with the ease of filtering, playlists, personalized suggestions, decentralized access on IPFS and more. https://archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/5/measuring-decentralization-of-blockchain-networks We introduced the concept of measuring "decentralized transactions per second" in this paper (https://consensys.net/research/the-maximally-decentralized-settlement-layer/) and have invited the community to help us define it. We will have data and insights to share at the time of DevCon V. Decentralization is a fundamental blockchain concept, but how to actually determine or quantify decentralization—and consequently, how to value one blockchain’s potential over another—is more complicated. Currently, transactions per second throughput is the most popular competitive metric for comparing blockchains, but this emphasis on speed ignores the essential feature of decentralization. In Balaji Srinvasan’s 2017 "Quantifying Decentralization," he proposed the use of the Gini and Nakamoto coefficients to attach an objective measure of decentralization to a blockchain. By applying Srinvasan’s logic of measuring comparable blockchain characteristics (i.e. node decentralization) and representing it numerically, we propose a measurement we can call DTPS, or decentralized transactions per second. The purpose of DTPS is to factor a blockchain’s decentralization into the ecosystem debate of judging one blockchain’s transaction throughput against another’s. There does not exist, however, a way to factor all that information into a single comparable statistic that factors in near-objective decentralization with objective TPS. Speaker(s): Mally Anderson, Everett Muzzy Skill level: Advanced Track: Society and Systems Keywords: academic Follow us: https://twitter.com/efdevcon, https://twitter.com/ethereum Learn more about devcon: https://www.devcon.org/ Learn more about ethereum: https://ethereum.org/ Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, researchers, thinkers, and makers. Devcon 5 was held in Osaka, Japan on Oct 8 - 11, 2019. Devcon is organized and presented by the Ethereum Foundation, with the support of our sponsors. To find out more, please visit https://ethereum.foundation/