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A Journey into Bitcoin Metadata

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Abstract

Besides recording transfers of currency, the Bitcoin blockchain is being used to save metadata — i.e. arbitrary pieces of data which do not affect transfers of bitcoins. This can be done by using different techniques, and for different purposes. For instance, a growing number of protocols embed metadata in the blockchain to certify and transfer the ownership of a variety of assets beyond cryptocurrency. A point of debate in the Bitcoin community is whether metadata negatively impact on the effectiveness of Bitcoin with respect to its primary function. This paper is a systematic analysis of the usage of Bitcoin metadata over the years. We discuss all the known techniques to embed metadata in the Bitcoin blockchain; we then extract metadata, and analyse them from different angles.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Nicola Atzei for the insightful discussion on a preliminary version of this paper. This work is partially supported by Aut. Reg. of Sardinia projects Sardcoin and Smart collaborative engineering, and by COST Action IC1406 cHiPSET.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Via Ospedale, 72, 09124, Cagliari, Italy

    Massimo Bartoletti & Livio Pompianu

  2. ConsenSys, 49 Bogart St., Brooklyn, NY, 11206, USA

    Bryn Bellomy

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  1. Massimo Bartoletti
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  2. Bryn Bellomy
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  3. Livio Pompianu
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Correspondence to Massimo Bartoletti.

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Bartoletti, M., Bellomy, B. & Pompianu, L. A Journey into Bitcoin Metadata. J Grid Computing 17, 3–22 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10723-019-09473-3

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