Modeling and analysis of block arrival times in the Bitcoin blockchain
Rhys Alistair Bowden, Paul Keeler, A. E. Krzesinski, Peter G. Taylor · Stochastic Models · 2020
In the original Bitcoin paper and other research papers since, it is assumed that Bitcoin blocks are mined at the instants of a homogeneous Poisson process. Based on blockchain block arrival data and stochastic analysis of the block arrival process, we demonstrate that this is not the case. We present a framework for studying the block arrival process, including two refined mathematical models for block arrivals, determined by combining models for a period of constant difficulty and how the difficulty evolves over time.