Bitcoin: A Non-Continuous Time System
Fuente:
arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866909912534089728 |
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| author | Chen, Bin |
| author_facet | Chen, Bin |
| contents | Bitcoin constructs temporal order internally rather than synchronizing to any external clock. Empirical evidence shows that its time evolution is non-continuous, probabilistic, and self-regulated. Block discovery follows a stochastic process in which uncertainty accumulates during the search phase and collapses abruptly when a valid proof-of-work solution appears. Difficulty adjustment maintains the system near the entropy-maximizing regime and allows the network to infer the underlying global hash rate. Building on these observations, we present a unified framework in which Bitcoin time emerges from four interacting mechanisms: proof of work as a distributed entropy source, difficulty adjustment as temporal feedback, entropy collapse as discrete temporal updates, and recursive sealing through hash pointers. Together these mechanisms form a self-regulating temporal architecture that transforms distributed randomness into a coherent and irreversible global timeline, offering a generalizable foundation for autonomous timekeeping in permissionless systems. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_11091 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Bitcoin: A Non-Continuous Time System Chen, Bin Cryptography and Security Bitcoin constructs temporal order internally rather than synchronizing to any external clock. Empirical evidence shows that its time evolution is non-continuous, probabilistic, and self-regulated. Block discovery follows a stochastic process in which uncertainty accumulates during the search phase and collapses abruptly when a valid proof-of-work solution appears. Difficulty adjustment maintains the system near the entropy-maximizing regime and allows the network to infer the underlying global hash rate. Building on these observations, we present a unified framework in which Bitcoin time emerges from four interacting mechanisms: proof of work as a distributed entropy source, difficulty adjustment as temporal feedback, entropy collapse as discrete temporal updates, and recursive sealing through hash pointers. Together these mechanisms form a self-regulating temporal architecture that transforms distributed randomness into a coherent and irreversible global timeline, offering a generalizable foundation for autonomous timekeeping in permissionless systems. |
| title | Bitcoin: A Non-Continuous Time System |
| topic | Cryptography and Security |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11091 |