BMP: An Evaluation System for Bitcoin Mining Pools

With the in-depth research and cross-domain applications of blockchain in various industries, blockchain mining attracts great attention. A comprehensive and in-depth evaluation of mining pool is essential to the Bitcoin network supervision as well as the reduction of carbon emission. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining mining pool internal data, the current evaluation is limited to a single mining power indicator. In this article, we build a four-layer mining pool evaluation model, named BMP, based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The model contains three first-level indicators and nine second-level indicators, covering various aspects of the performance of mining pool. Miner address extraction provides basic data for the calculation of these indicators. By utilizing the model proposed, we evaluated and ranked eight mainstream mining pools, which broadcasted 71.69% of the blocks during the period January 1, 2021–July 31, 2021. Through comparative analysis of evaluation result, we find that the 65% decline of mining power in June did not pose a threat to the stability of Bitcoin system. In addition, we also revealed the reasons for various fluctuations.