BitViz

Table of Contents

• Contributor Information
• Oranization Information
• Introduction
• Installation
  • File Structure
  • Automatic Setup
    • Step 1: Setting up the database
    • Step 2: Setting up the frontend
  • Manual Setup
• Usage
• Video Guide For Installation
• Video Demo
• Screenshots

Contributor Information

• Kaushal Patel
• Noah Hassett

Organization Information

Math and Computer Science Department at Western Carolina University

• Course: CS 495-496 - Capstone Project

Introduction

BitViz is a tool for visualizing and analyzing Bitcoin transactions. It is built on top of the Neo4j graph database and uses the APOC library to import data. The frontend is built using React. The project is designed to be run locally, but is currently hosted on the web via WCU's servers. To access the web version, click here (Must be on WCU internet). The data that is used in the project is from the Elliptic Data Set. The data was converted to a graph database using two python scripts that can be found in the /data/modified folder. The goal of the project is to provide a tool for users to explore the relationships between Bitcoin transactions and to provide a way to analyze the data in a meaningful way. Also, the goal is to classify the roughly 75% of the data that is currently unclassified.

Installation

To install the project, follow these steps:

1. Clone the project (frontend)

git clone https://github.com/Kbpatel3/BitViz.git

2. Clone the project (machine learning)

git clone https://github.com/Kbpatel3/BitViz-ML.git

3. Continue with the automatic setup to setup the rest of the project.
4. Follow README.md in the BitViz-ML project to setup the machine learning model.

File Structure

Before proceeding, make sure you get an idea of the file structure of the project.

To view the file structure, click here

The project is divided into two main parts: BitViz-ML and BitViz. The BitViz-ML folder contains the machine learning model generation that is used to classify the data. The BitViz folder contains the frontend of the project. The frontend is built using React.

In the BitViz folder, there are four main folders: data, frontend, database_dumps, and original_datasets.

• The data folder contains the scripts used to generate two data files (for loading onto Neo4J) from the original datsets provided by Elliptic.
• The frontend folder contains the React frontend of the project.
• The database_dumps folder contains the database dumps that are used to load the data onto Neo4J.
• The original_datasets folder contains the original datasets provided by Elliptic.

Automatic Setup

Step 1: Setting up the database

To setup the database, follow these steps:

1. Download Neo4j for desktop here and follow the directions for installation

2. Once Neo4j has finished installing, run it and click New > Create project. The name of the project is not important

3. In the bottom section of the screen under "File", click "Reveal files in File Manager"

   • This will open the directory where the database dumps can be placed

4. Copy the database dumps from the database_dumps folder in the project to the directory that was opened in the previous step.

5. After copying the dumps over to Neo4J, you should see a list of .dump files in the "file" section.

6. For each .dump file, click the three dots to the right of the file name and click "Create new DBMS from dump"

   • This will load the data into the database
   • It will prompt you to enter a name for the database. Make the name the same as the file name.
     • For example, if the file name is "data-all-predicted.dump", name the database "data-all-predicted"

7. Each database dump will create a new database. Be aware that the database dumps are large and will take a while to load. The largest dump is "data-all-predicted.dump" and "data-all-unpredicted" and will take the longest

8. Now that the databases are setup, you can proceed to the frontend setup

Step 2: Setting up the frontend

To setup the frontend, follow these steps:

1. Open the frontend folder in the project

cd BitViz/frontend

2. Install the node modules

npm install

3. Start the frontend

npm start

4. The frontend should now be running on localhost:3000

Manual Setup

Note: The manual setup is more difficult and is not recommended. The automatic setup is recommended. For now, the manual setup is not fully documented. If you would like to setup the database manually, please refer to the original README.md file in the project.

Usage

The project is designed to be run locally. The frontend is built using React and the backend is built using Neo4j. The project is designed to be run locally, but is currently hosted on the web via WCU's servers. To access the web version, click [here] (http://csbccapstone.wcu.edu:8080/).

Video Guide For Installation

TODO : Going to add video guide for installation.

Video Demo

TODO : Going to add video demo for the project.

Screenshots

TODO : Going to add screenshots for each step if necessary.