Understanding the Role of Actor Heterogeneity in Blockchain Splits: An Actor-Network Perspective of Bitcoin Forks

Abstract

This paper investigates the focal actors and their heterogeneity in blockchain splits. Disagreements in blockchain communities often lead to splits in the blockchain and the community. For example, disagreements within the Bitcoin community on increasing the block size led to the blockchain split and creation of Bitcoin Cash. We build on actor-network theory to investigate blockchain split as a translation process, and employ case study methodology to examine Bitcoin splits. We identify several human actors, such as miners, developers, merchants, and investors, as well as non-human actors including ideologies, exchanges and computer programs involved in Bitcoin splits. Our results show that actor heterogeneity, that is, the complex constellation of diverse actors, plays a key role in blockchain splits. We further describe how the human and non-human actors' fluid moves into micro and macro positions in the network affect the development of the split. We also discuss the role of these actors and their engagement in forming micro and macro agencies in blockchain splits. Our study adds to the understanding of actor behavior and network dynamics in decentralized information systems such as blockchain and open source software.

A Review on the Mobile Applications Developed for COVID-19: An Exploratory Analysis

“…The other data including the review scores, development platform, application languages, and the country-context were analyzed using descriptive statistics and data synthesizing. We note that our approach of data collection from online sources is widely used in different disciplines [31] – [33] , and known as netnography [34] .…”

Exploring the Disruptiveness of Cryptocurrencies: A Causal Layered Analysis-Based Approach

“…Use of cryptocurrencies is permissionlessthat is one does not have to ask anyone to use them [3]. Transactions using cryptocurrencies are pseudonymous in nature and so as the accounts or addresses.…”

“…For example, ICOs were banned in many countries despite their popularity. Even trading cryptocurrencies is illegal in many countries such as China 3 .…”

“…Since the inception of Bitcoin in 2009 [1], thousands of cryptocurrencies (also known as Altcoin) have emerged that use the blockchain technology [2,3]. Five most valuable cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Etherum, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, and EOS have a total market cap of more than 200 billion USD 1 .…”

Blockchain Forks: A Formal Classification Framework and Persistency Analysis

“…They have been identified as a potential problem in security surveys (Lin and Liao, 2017) and analyzed in terms of their compatibility (Berentsen and Schär, 2017;Zamyatin et al, 2018). Additionally, there have been case study analyses for specific forks (Islam et al, 2019;Kiffer et al, 2017).…”