Multiple Sides of 36 Coins: Measuring Peer-to-Peer Infrastructure Across Cryptocurrencies

TL;DR

This work addresses the opacity of blockchain P2P networking by delivering the first longitudinal, cross-network measurement across 36 public blockchains. It deploys a diverse crawler stack, incorporates external data, and supplements with Internet-wide scans to estimate network sizes, discovery coverage, and structural properties. Key findings reveal extreme heterogeneity in network size, IPv4/IPv6 usage, geographic and AS concentration, churn, and the effectiveness of discovery protocols, highlighting decentralization and resilience gaps. The study introduces a scalable framework for measuring decentralized networks at scale, with implications for benchmarking, transparency, and infrastructure design across ecosystems.

Abstract

Blockchain technologies underpin an expanding ecosystem of decentralized applications, financial systems, and infrastructure. However, the fundamental networking layer that sustains these systems, the peer-to-peer layer, of all but the top few ecosystems remains largely opaque. In this paper, we present the first longitudinal, cross-network measurement study of 36 public blockchain networks. Over 9 months, we deployed 15 active crawlers, sourced data from two additional community crawlers, and conducted hourly connectivity probes to observe the evolving state of these networks. Furthermore, by leveraging Ethereum's discovery protocols, we inferred metadata for an additional 19 auxiliary networks that utilize the Ethereum peer discovery protocol. We also explored Internet-wide scans, which only require probing each protocol's default ports with a simple, network-specific payload. This approach allows us to rapidly identify responsive peers across the entire address space without having to implement custom discovery and handshake logic for every blockchain. We validated this method on Bitcoin and similar networks with known ground truth, then applied it to Cardano, which we could not crawl directly. Our study uncovers dramatic variation in network size from under 10 to more than 10,000 active nodes. We quantify trends in IPv4 versus IPv6 usage, analyze autonomous systems and geographic concentration, and characterize churn, diurnal behavior, and the coverage and redundancy of discovery protocols. These findings expose critical differences in network resilience, decentralization, and observability. Beyond characterizing each network, our methodology demonstrates a general framework for measuring decentralized networks at scale. This opens the door for continued monitoring, benchmarking, and more transparent assessments of blockchain infrastructure across diverse ecosystems.

Figures (18)

• Figure 1: Overview of our crawling and connectivity measurement pipeline. (1) Crawlers: For Bitcoin-based, RPC-based, and API-based networks, we query peers for their known peers using messages such as getaddr or getPeers, collecting peer tables daily. For DHT-based protocols, we issue FINDNODE requests hourly to exhaustively enumerate remote routing tables. (2) Connectivity checks: Discovered peers are further probed using a TCP-level connectivity check, as well as a protocol-specific PING message where it exists. Otherwise, the peer discovery mechanism serves as ping (crawl PING). (3) IP scanning: For networks lacking peer discovery mechanisms (e.g., Cardano), we perform one-time Internet-wide scans using protocol-specific handshake payloads to identify responsive nodes. Together, these components enable comprehensive and continuous measurement of peer-to-peer blockchain networks across diverse discovery mechanisms.
• Figure 2: Daily count of active nodes per blockchain network. Data gaps reflect days with missing observations. The slight drop in March for the Bitcoin-based networks is due to a week in the measurement period where IPv6 was blocked due to a misconfiguration. Occasional gaps in the data reflect crawler connectivity interruptions, including a longer disruption for Avail and Polkadot at the end of the study.
• Figure 3: Networks sharing the same peer discovery as Bitcoin Cash. On the right, we see the active peer count. Recall that in March there was a period with no IPv6 scanning, which accounts for the less than 10% drop.
• Figure 4: We break down the active nodes we learn about in the Ethereum Execution network (those running over discv4), their market cap on December 24, 2024, and their median size in our measurement period. Ethereum Layer-2 networks are in bold (with Linea showing TVL since it doesn't have a native token). Berachain and Story did not exist in December 2024, so we take the market cap at the end of our study period, July 15, 2025. Edgeware ceased to exist in May 2025.
• Figure 5: We break down the active nodes we learn about in the Ethereum discv5 discovery network.