#A Faster Bitcoin Network A modified version of the bitcoin protocol that reduces the delay of information dissemination in the Bitcoin network.

Semester Thesis for the: Information Technology and Electrical Engineering MSc

Distributed Computing Group, Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory, ETH Zurich

Supervisors: Christian Decker, Prof. Dr. Roger Wattenhofer

January 21, 2015

http://pub.tik.ee.ethz.ch/students/2014-HS/SA-2014-42.pdf

##Abstract Bitcoin is an electronic currency based on a peer-to-peer network for the propagation and verification of the transactions.
Nowadays, cashless transactions are becoming increasingly popular and bitcoin could be an established currency for such transactions. Its distributed nature, though, and more specifically the delay overhead in transaction verification, not only makes the use of bitcoin ineficient for instant transactions, but also makes it vulnerable to double spend attacks. In this work we introduce a modified version of the bitcoin protocol and argue its impact on the delay of information dissemination in the bitcoin network. More specifcally we examine how pipelining the message exchange between nodes in the bitcoin network as well as encouraging the connection of the geographically closest nodes afect the delay in propagation.