Source-linked AI summary
A bibliometric analysis of Bitcoin scientific production
Ignasi Merediz-Solà, Aurelio F. Bariviera
TL;DR
The paper addresses the need to characterize the rapidly expanding Bitcoin research literature, whose short history has already produced 1162 papers. It conducts a Web of Science bibliometric and network analysis focused exclusively on Bitcoin, identifying patterns in the field’s production and contributors.
Problem
The study addresses the need to map Bitcoin research clusters, emerging topics, and leading scholars within a rapidly expanding literature.
Method
The study analyzes Bitcoin-topic papers in the Web of Science Core Collection using bibliometrix and VOSviewer bibliographic-network maps.
Results
1162 Bitcoin papers were published from 2012 through January 2019, with findings covering leading scholars, journals, keywords, and multidisciplinary research patterns.
Takeaways & Limitations
The study provides a comprehensive overview of Bitcoin research trends and identifies prominent researchers, institutions, journals, and research characteristics.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
Blockchain technology, and more specifically Bitcoin (one of its foremost applications), have been receiving increasing attention in the scientific community. The first publications with Bitcoin as a topic, can be traced back to 2012. In spite of this short time span, the production magnitude (1162 papers) makes it necessary to make a bibliometric study in order to observe research clusters, emerging topics, and leading scholars. Our paper is aimed at studying the scientific production only around bitcoin, excluding other blockchain applications. Thus, we restricted our search to papers indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, whose topic is "bitcoin". This database is suitable for such diverse disciplines such as economics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. This bibliometric study draws the landscape of the current state and trends of Bitcoin-related research in different scientific disciplines.
1 Introduction
Bibliometric analysis uses indexed publication data to measure scientific production and reveal trends, but discipline-specific characteristics require focused study. This paper applies that approach to the rapidly expanding Bitcoin literature.
- Purpose of bibliometric analysis: Bibliometrics uses quantitative methods and indexed databases to measure authorship, keywords, topics, citations, and institutional collaboration.These measurements support assessment of scientific production and comparison across research outputs.
- Purpose of bibliometric analysis: Bibliometric studies help researchers understand a topic’s extent, emerging trends, and evolution beyond a traditional literature survey.They can also inform institutional assessment and research strategy.
- Need for focused analysis: Discipline-specific publication and collaboration practices make homogeneous disciplines or topics important units for meaningful classification.Fields differ in researcher and journal counts, publication traditions, and prevalence of hyper-authorship.
- Bitcoin research context: Bitcoin research expanded from technological and monetary questions toward financial properties, algorithmic trading, safe-haven potential, and portfolio diversification.Bitcoin’s 24/7 trading and behavior relative to traditional assets create additional research interest.
- Study scope and approach: The study analyzes all Web of Science Core Collection papers with “bitcoin” as a topic, excluding other blockchain applications.It uses bibliometrix and VOSviewer to examine bibliographic networks and patterns.
- Study scope and approach: 1162 Bitcoin papers were published between 2012 and January 2019, motivating a focused bibliometric analysis of this rapidly developing field.The study restricts its data source to Web of Science and adds graphical analyses of citation, journal, and author networks.
2 Related literature
The related literature establishes bibliometrics as a quantitative approach and distinguishes this study from prior Bitcoin analyses by its Web of Science scope, exclusive Bitcoin focus, and unsupervised network-based methodology.
- Bibliometric literature: Bibliometrics applies quantitative methods to bibliographic material and develops representative summaries of leading research results.The field supports classification and synthesis across diverse publication topics.
- Scope and distinction: The present study narrows its scope exclusively to Bitcoin rather than the broader blockchain research area.This creates a focused collection of Bitcoin literature.
- Previous Bitcoin studies: Prior Bitcoin bibliometric work identified technological, economic, and legal groups using 253 Scopus-indexed articles.That study differed from the present work in both data source and methodology.
- Scope and distinction: Unlike prior studies using multiple sources, this paper relies on Web of Science and analyzes bibliographic relationships with unsupervised methods.The approach is suited to the quantity and diversity of the papers and uses graphical network representations.
- Contribution: The study contributes an overview of Bitcoin research trends and identifies leading researchers, institutions, and journals.Its stated contribution is an expanded account of the field’s current literature.
3 Data and results
The 1,162-paper Bitcoin literature is multidisciplinary but concentrated in computer science and business economics, with strong geographic and citation concentration. Bibliometric maps reveal distinct economics–finance and computer-science–engineering clusters connected by blockchain, money, and protocol themes.
- Research profile: 1,162 papers cover legal, economic, and computer-related aspects of Bitcoin, but computer science and business economics dominate the assigned research areas.The sample received 1,543 research-area assignments, and 70% of papers belong to computer science, business economics, engineering, or telecommunications.
- Research profile: Publication growth exceeded 400% in each of the first two sample years, then settled near 40% annually in later years before a projected 384 papers for 2019.The authors interpret the decreasing growth rate as a possible sign that Bitcoin research is consolidating.
- Geography and impact: The USA led countries in both publication count and total citations, while the ten leading countries produced 65% of Bitcoin articles.The average citation rate was 4.2 per article; the USA and United Kingdom exceeded it with 5.43 and 5.69, respectively.
- Geography and impact: Around 35% of articles involved authors from multiple countries, with Spain highest at 46% and the USA and India below average at 14% and 10%.These figures describe international collaboration rates across leading countries.
- Sources and themes: Economics Letters published 29 Bitcoin papers, while the diversity of journals and disciplines reflected the field’s multidisciplinarity.The leading sources included economics, finance, physics, computer science, engineering, and multidisciplinary open-access journals.
- Sources and themes: Author keywords emphasized Bitcoin and blockchain, whereas Keywords-Plus prominently added economics as a recurring theme.The two keyword systems differ because Keywords-Plus are algorithmically extracted from cited-reference titles.
- Authors: P. Carl Mullan led productivity with 17 papers, followed by Elli Androulaki, Elie Bouri, and David Roubaud with 10 each.The authors also report that most documents were multi-authored, with an average of 1.97 authors per document.
- Geography and impact: 58 of 1,162 papers accounted for 50% of all citations, indicating strong concentration of citation impact.The normalized entropic concentration index for citations was H = 0.3042.
4 Potential research lines
The bibliometric analysis identifies several underdeveloped research lines, especially interdisciplinary links between Bitcoin’s technological and economic dimensions, market-efficiency determinants, legal regulation, and societal effects.
- Bitcoin research is divided between technology-oriented and economically oriented papers, with few interdisciplinary studies connecting the two areas.The authors specifically identify a need to integrate cryptocurrency protocols into economic analyses of market behavior.
- The word maps visually separate Bitcoin research into technology and economics-related clusters.The supplied figures are cloud maps of words, journals, and authors generated with VOSviewer.
- Bitcoin market inefficiencies have been documented, but their causes remain insufficiently understood compared with traditional-market determinants.The paper points to institutional agents, liquidity, and macroeconomic shocks as underexamined factors in Bitcoin-market efficiency.
- Economic studies rarely link Bitcoin’s economic effects to changes in legal regulation.
- Behavioral research is needed to understand heterogeneous individuals interacting in real time, while societal impacts remain largely unstudied.
5 Conclusions
The study provides a comprehensive bibliometric account of Bitcoin research since 2012, identifying major publication patterns, contributors, and disciplinary characteristics.
- 1162 papers indexed since 2012 support comprehensive analysis of Bitcoin research, including top scholars, journals, and keywords.
- 124% yearly publication growth indicates rapidly expanding Bitcoin literature, although the growth rate has diminished over time.
- Publishing countries are highly concentrated, whereas authors are more diverse than in leading finance journals.
- Citations are concentrated among a small number of papers within the field.
- Cryptocurrency literature primarily combines computer science and economics, with Bitcoin dominant in both market and scholarly interest.