Let’s Play Gephi : Bitcoin Transactions

Servus !

Just a quick post for some scripts that will allow you to visualise in real-time bitcoin transactions, thanks to https://blockchain.info/ web service.

Prerequisites :

You can download a version of the scripts with all the libraries embeeded : http://matthieu-totet.fr/bitcoin.zip

A git repo exists here for the scripts only : https://github.com/totetmatt/gephi-bitcoin

How does it works ?

  • Open Gephi, create a new project and Start the master server in the Streaming plugin.
    ScreenHunter_01 Jul. 30 08.39
  • Download the zip here and unzip it on you computer where you want.
  • Execute a script :
    • Complete.bat for Windows or Complete.sh for Linux / OSX : Create a graph by representing in addresses, out addresses and transactions as node and relationship in addresses-[]-> transaction and transaction-[]-> out addresses.
    • Simple.bat for Windows or Simple.sh for Linux / OSX : Same as before , but it will only represent in / out addresses as node and relationship in addresses-[]->out addresses.
  • Watch your gephi and have fun.

Advise:

The complete script will generate graph that will makes Force Atlas I, II , 3D running kind of crazy with default parameters. It’s because the amplitude of edges weight (representing the number of µBTC ) can be very wide. To stabilize the layouts I can advise you to :

  • (Force Atlas I) Put the property Maximum Displacement to 1 or lower (but not 0).
  • (Force Atlas II / 3D) Put the property Edge Influence Weight to  0.2 or lower (0 is possible here).

Here is some overviews :

  • Red > Wallet / Address
  • Blue > Transaction

OverviewBitcoin

BitCoin_Network1 BitCoin_Network_Pattern BitCoin_Network2