The Bitcoin transaction networks

The topic of the thesis is the analysis of the most popular cryptocurrency from a network perspective. Specifically, it focuses on a bunch of network representations of the Bitcoin digital transactions that are studied at different scales (micro, meso and macro) by employing tools from physics, statistics and economics. The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the broad field of cryptocurrencies. Chapters 2 and 3 are dedicated to the understanding of the network properties of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency from both a static and a dynamical perspective and to the investigation of the relationships between the latter ones and purely financial quantities like the BTC price. Chapter 4 is dedicated to the study of the Bitcoin Lightning Network, a recently-developed protocol to speed up the blockhain-based payment system Bitcoin rests upon. Chapter 5 illustrates the substantial modifications that have been required by state-of-the-art algorithms to solve null models for networks on very large networks - as the ones characterizing Bitcoin throughout its entire history.