Cryptocurrency egalitarianism: A quantitative approach

In this paper, we define the economic notion of cryptocurrency "egalitarianism". We provide measurements of the egalitarianism of various proof-of-work-based cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH and XMR. We find that cryptocurrencies which were designed to be more egalitarian through memory hardness indeed achieve this and quantify how successful each one is. We measure the egalitarianism of two proof-of-stake-based cryptocurrencies, DCR and ADA. Perhaps contrary to folklore belief, we find that proof-of-stake is perfectly egalitarian in our model.

Simulation

Installation

1. Install pipenv.
2. cd simulation && pipenv install

Usage

usage: egalitarianism.py [-h] [-c {btc,eth,xmr,ltc,dcr}]
                         [-s {tech,electricity,dp,reinvest}] -d DIFFICULTY -b
                         COINBASE -k KWH -r RATE -p CAPITAL [-t TIME] -f FILE
                         [--export] [--version]

Cryptocurrency egalitarianism: A quantitative approach

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c {btc,eth,xmr,ltc,dcr}, --currency {btc,eth,xmr,ltc,dcr}
                        Currency (default: btc)
  -s {tech,electricity,dp,reinvest}, --strategy {tech,electricity,dp,reinvest}
                        Strategy of invenstment (default: dp)
  -d DIFFICULTY, --difficulty DIFFICULTY
                        Block difficulty (required)
  -b COINBASE, --coinbase COINBASE
                        Coinbase (required)
  -k KWH, --kwh KWH     Price per kilowatt per hour (required)
  -r RATE, --rate RATE  Currency price in fiat (required)
  -p CAPITAL, --capital CAPITAL
                        Capital of invenstment (required)
  -t TIME, --time TIME  Total time of operation in months (default: 12)
  -f FILE, --file FILE  The path of the file that contains the specs of each
                        hardware (required). Each hardware should contain the
                        following fields: product, hash / s, watt, price
  --export              Export hardware (latex table format)
  --version             show program's version number and exit

Examples

BTC

pipenv run python egalitarianism.py -f ./data/btc.csv -d 5106422924659.82 -b 12.5 -k 0.08 -r 4074.25 -p 10000

ETH

pipenv run python egalitarianism.py -f ./data/eth.csv -c eth -d 2529724525783320 -b 3 -k 0.08 -r 126.12 -p 10000

XMR

pipenv run python egalitarianism.py -f ./data/xmr.csv -c xmr -d 44453209154 -b 3.37 -k 0.08 -r 47.27 -p 10000

LTC

pipenv run python egalitarianism.py -f ./data/ltc.csv -c ltc -d 5980879 -b 25 -k 0.08 -r 32.10 -p 10000

DCR

pipenv run python egalitarianism.py -f ./data/dcr.csv -c dcr -d 13034411457.7978 -b 11.38 -k 0.08 -r 16.62 -p 10000

Docker

Build

docker build -t egalitarianism .

Run

docker run -it egalitarianism