Arbeitspapier

Monopoly without a monopolist: An economic analysis of the bitcoin payment system

Owned by nobody and controlled by an almost immutable protocol the Bitcoin payment system is a platform with two main constituencies: users and profit seeking miners who maintain the system's infrastructure. The paper seeks to understand the economics of the system: How does the system raise revenue to pay for its infrastructure? How are usage fees determined? How much infrastructure is deployed? What are the implications of changing parameters in the protocol? A simplified economic model that captures the system's properties answers these questions. Transaction fees and infrastructure level are determined in an equilibrium of a congestion queueing game derived from the system's limited throughput. The system eliminates dead-weight loss from monopoly, but introduces other inefficiencies and requires congestion to raise revenue and fund infrastructure. We explore the future potential of such systems and provide design suggestions.

ISBN
978-952-323-186-3
Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers ; No. 27/2017

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: General
Production and Organizations: General
Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance: General
Regulation and Industrial Policy: General

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Huberman, Gur
Leshno, Jacob D.
Moallemi, Ciamac
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Bank of Finland
(wo)
Helsinki
(wann)
2017

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Huberman, Gur
  • Leshno, Jacob D.
  • Moallemi, Ciamac
  • Bank of Finland

Entstanden

  • 2017

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