a shared ledger. We maintain that bitcoin is neither a centralized nor decentralized payment mechanism. It is, instead …, a distributed payment mechanism. We then consider decentralized and centralized aspects of the broader bitcoin payment …

Bitcoin provides its users with transaction-processing services which are similar to those of traditional payment … systems. This paper models the novel economic structure implied by Bitcoin's innovative decentralized design, which allows the … and studies their properties; compares pricing under the Bitcoin Payment System to that under a traditional payment system …